BRAGADAYJAH
853
It
Repents Me, Said God
We
have seen that God’s response to Saul’s act of disobedience was to say, “It
repents me that I made Saul king.” Now
many would become confused and even delighted to see this phrase, “I repent,”
spoken by God. Some will say, “Aha, this proves that God is not infallible, not
all knowing, and not omnipotent.” But
any such conclusions would be a narrow construct on the meaning of the word “repent,”
in its proper context. For as it is
written, “God is not a man that He should lie, neither the son of man that He
should repent. Has He said and shall He not do it? Has He spoken and shall He
not make it good?” In human terms we think of repentance as coming to a place
where one is sorry for a sin, or a mistake he has made; but in God’s case
repent means that the offense has grieved Him so much that He is about to let
His feelings show as He sets about punishing a child of His for doing
wrong. In the case of Saul’s actions,
his disobedience did not at all take God by surprise, since from the first when
the children of Israel asked for a King, God warned them via Samuel that Saul
as king was going to cause them reason for regret. But said God, “Go ahead and give them what
they ask; even though I know that it will not end well.” After all if every time we deny our children
because we know that it will end badly for them, our children would never know
how right we were when we said no. So
when we say, “Yes,” and we are later proved to be right, our children would
know that they have erred, and perhaps trust our judgment over theirs in
future. When our children fall into trouble having acted against our advice, we
feel sorrow for them and in a sense can say we repent that we allowed to do
what they did in the first place.
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