For you felt a godly grief…For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. 2 Corinthians 7:9-10

I was listening to tearful Christian mother whose barely-adult daughter was in jail, guilty of some serious crimes. “The problem is,” the mother said, “<daughter> has always repented so well. We saw some problems, but we believed her when she tearfully repented and promised never to do it again.”

In today’s verses, Paul commends the leaders in the Corinthian church for repenting. And not just repenting, but repenting correctly. We don’t see this kind of repentance very often. And some of the reason for this is that in our love for the repentor and our desire to see restoration, we accept “worldly repentance that leads to death”.

We begin by naïvely accepting the general goodness of the repentor as a substitute for true repentance. Maybe we assume a divine calling or accountability to a group of leaders as a guarantee against falling into sin in the first place. Then we mistakenly assume that the repentor’s sorrow and confession will provide the power to produce change. Or we accept the repentor’s defensive attitude when we doubt their ability to change.

Israel’s first king, Saul, is a perfect example of someone who puts on a good show of repentance, but doesn’t change. As anyone familiar with the mentality and tactics of the abuser knows, false repentance is a common ploy abusive people use. They can be very convincing—and they can even convince themselves that they have changed. What they did was wrong, but they are finished with it forever. If their victim will only forgive them, all will be well. So now it’s their victim who bears the brunt of making things right again.

Let’s face it, King Saul was an abusive person. Anyone so jealous that they would toss a spear at their most loyal subject certainly qualifies as an abuser. And Saul played the “repentance card” often but he didn’t have the power to keep his promises to be better. After David spared his life, Saul promised to stop trying to kill David, but it lasted for about a chapter (1 Sam 24, 26).

So what was Saul doing wrong? An earlier false repentance of Saul’s gives us some clues (1 Sam 13).

First, we see that though Saul confessed his sin, he didn’t do it until Samuel forced him to, because the evidence of his sin was undeniable. Even then, the confession was wrung from him a little at a time. Instead of true repentance, Saul’s confession was a botched attempt to excuse his sin.

A second proof against Saul’s genuine repentance is his attempt to smooth over the sin, by throwing the blame on others: “The people” did it. According to him (and this is a typical dodge of a false repentance), he was more to be pitied than blamed: “I was afraid of the people, and obeyed their voice.” In other words, “It was their fault and I only did it because I was afraid of their disapproval.”

Which leads to the third thing that throws suspicion on reality of Saul’s repentance: his preoccupation with his approval ratings. Our own political climate has shown that a little contrition can go a long way. [Get caught red-handed—schedule a photo-op with a respected Christian leader.] Saul wanted to restore his standing in the community far more than restore his relationship with God.

And just like so often happens today, the people bought it. A lot of times we’re so desperate to smooth over the sin someone who is repenting of that we accept less-than-full repentance. Read some of these lines of less-than-full repentance. They sound a lot like Saul:

-I’m sorry, I was wrong. But it’s someone else’s fault. (Maybe a person, a circumstance or ‘the devil made me do it’.)
-I’m sorry. But come on, everyone makes mistakes. (Has a defensive attitude about their being really wrong.)
-I’m sorry if I did wrong. (“IF I did wrong” Does not even acknowledge their sin).
-I’m sorry. But you are making me out to be worse than I really am. / You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.
-I’m sorry. But believe me. I’ve changed. (Change needs to be demonstrated—sometimes that takes time.)
-I’m sorry. But this is tougher on me than on my victim(s), and you should feel sorry for me (a variation of self-pity).
-I’m sorry. But you really don’t understand… I did it for virtuous reasons.
-Look, I said I’m sorry. Could we just move on…? (The Bible commands you to forgive me. That means you must restore me, trust me, and forget this ever happened. They resent people doubting their sincerity-or the need to demonstrate repentance.)

I’m not saying that we need to rub someone’s sin in their face over and over. That’s cruel.  But if we accept a weak repentance in ourselves or others, we can be pretty sure we’re going to see the sinful behavior continue.