Milk Principle 2: Repentance from Dead Works: Chapter 7: Comfort and Vengeance

There are two main words in the Hebrew Old Testament that are translated “repent.” The first is naham, “to regret, be sorry, console, comfort;” the second is shoob, “to turn or return.”

Numbers 23:19 says,

¹⁹ God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent [naham]; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

Being God means never having to say, “I’m sorry.” Every word that comes out of His mouth will come to pass, because His word “calls into being that which does not exist” (Rom. 4:17). Existence itself begins with His word.

Naham is also used twice in Isaiah 40:1,

¹ “Comfort [naham], O comfort [naham] My people,” says your God.

This is the root word for “Comforter” and is the word from which the New Testament idea of the Comforter comes. (See John 14:26, KJV.) In Lam. 1:9 we read that when Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon, the prophet laments that “she has no comforter.” This suggests that the Comforter had not yet come, nor, indeed, were the people sorry for their sins. As a whole, they were sorry or regretful only that their city had been destroyed and that they had been taken into captivity to Babylon.

The other Hebrew word translated “repent” is shoob. It is usually translated “return” or “turn.” To repent is to change course and to return to the godly path. Isaiah 9:13 says,

¹³ Yet the people do not turn [shoob] back to Him who struck them, nor do they seek the Lord of hosts.

To repent, then, is a change of mind or a change of heart. It is a new way of thinking that results in a change of behavior. If such repentance is brought about by divine revelation of the Spirit (as it should), then the result is a change that brings alignment with the nature of God Himself.

To have justifying faith is, as Paul tells us, not a matter of works, but yet such faith results in works—a change in behavior—for James 2:17 tells us,

¹⁷ Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

Again, we read in James 2:22,

²² You see that faith was working with his [Abraham’s] works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected [i.e., telioo, “finished, completed”].

So if faith produces no change in the life of a believer, then it is “dead,” as James says. It has no life-giving quality. Genuine faith, then, results in repentance and a change in one’s outlook in life as well as one’s behavior. For this reason, I chose to study faith first and repentance second, even though Heb. 6:1 lists repentance first and faith second.

How to Repent

The law of God is the expression of His nature and is the righteous standard for the universe. Anything that falls short of this requires repentance, a change of mind. Mankind is mortal and corruptible and is not capable of fully living up to its standard. This is why faith is important, for faith imputes righteousness to the unrighteous (Rom. 4:3, KJV), God calling what is not as though it were (Rom. 4:17, KJV).

God never expected the law to make anyone righteous, for changing one’s behavior could not change anyone’s nature. This is the great weakness of the law—not that the law is unrighteous but that man’s heart is unrighteous. The law demands that we conform to His nature, but it does not empower us to meet those demands. Instead, the Holy Spirit is required to work within one’s heart and to write His laws upon our hearts (Heb. 8:10).

Whenever the Holy Spirit writes another law in our heart, repentance takes place and our nature is altered accordingly.

The problem in Jesus’ day (and in our own time) is that even the religious leaders had developed incorrect applications of the law. Keep in mind that most of their audience were religious people that had been schooled in the law in every synagogue. Murderers, thieves, and prostitutes were present, no doubt, but they were a small minority. Most of the religious leaders, in fact, felt no need to repent, as they believed they were righteously observing every law. But were they really?

In Matt. 15:1, 2 we read,

¹ Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ² “Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”

There was no law commanding them to wash their hands before eating. It was a tradition based on 2 Kings 3:11, which says, “Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who used to pour water on the hands of Elijah.” It therefore came to be a tradition to baptize one’s hands to cleanse them ceremonially before eating. This was done by pouring water over their hands. Yet there was no law commanding the people to do this, nor did any of the later prophets interpret the law in such a manner.

Jesus’ response came in Matt. 15:3-6,

³ And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? ⁴ For God said, “Honor your father and mother,” and “He who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death [Lev. 20:9].” ⁵ But you say, “Whoever says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever I have that would help you has been given to God’, ⁶ he is not to honor his father or his mother.” And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

It appears that the religious leaders had elevated the principle of giving offerings to such importance that those offerings often superseded the needs of their parents at home. Offerings were supposed to be “freewill offerings” (Lev. 23:38, KJV), that is, voluntary. Yet the ruling of the elders said that it was a righteous act to give God [i.e., the temple] that which one’s father or mother needed. This, Jesus said, violated the Fifth Commandment.

Jesus concluded in Matt. 15:7-9,

⁷ You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you [in Isaiah 29:13], ⁸ “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. ⁹ But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.”

This was one example of lawlessness that showed their need for repentance.

Naham and Naqam

We all need to repent of taking vengeance—that is, taking the law into our own hands.

God’s indictment against His people shows that He is “no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34, KJV). Just because Israel and Judah were His people did not mean that they were exempt from divine judgment for disobedience to His laws. In fact, they were more liable than other nations because they had been given the revelation of the law and because their forefathers had bound themselves consciously by oath to be obedient.

Because their rulers were rebels and because the court system was full of injustice and bribery, we read in Isaiah 1:24,

²⁴ Therefore the Lord God of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, declares, “Ah, I will be relieved [naham, “comforted”] of My adversaries and avenge [naqam] Myself on My foes.”

This is a typical Hebrew parallelism:

I will be relieved [naham] of My adversaries [tsar],

I will avenge [naqam] Myself on My foes [ayav].

This is an excellent example of how the prophets compare naham with its homonym, naqam.

On the surface these words appear to have opposite meanings. Naham is a reference to the Comforter, that is, the Holy Spirit’s work in us, while naqam is a reference to vengeance. Yet the first is applied to “My adversaries,” while the other applies to “My foes,” a restatement using a different word but yet having the same meaning.

The question is how can God do both at the same time to His enemies? How can He bring them the Comforter and yet “avenge” for their adversarial deeds? The homonym itself suggests that naham and naqam are similar in some way.

The message of John the Baptist tells us that the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to burn chaff and to purge (purify) the people. The Holy Spirit judges the flesh, or “chaff.” In Matt. 3:11, 12 John says,

¹¹ As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

The purpose of a threshing floor is to separate the chaff from the wheat. Chaff is the outer shell that has no food value for us (or to God). It is separated so that the wheat itself has food value. The idea is not to destroy the wheat but to give it value. The chaff, then, is the object of His wrath or vengeance, and it is burned up “with unquenchable fire.”

In John’s metaphor we find the purpose for both naham and naqam. The Holy Spirit (naham) is the fire that takes vengeance (naqam) on the chaff, first on the threshing floor and later by fire. On a personal level, we have received the Holy Spirit in our lives for the specific purpose of sanctifying us as Pentecostal “wheat.” The Holy Spirit is comforting us and taking vengeance on our “chaff” (flesh) at the same time.

The Holy Spirit is a fire. “Is not My word like fire?” (Jer. 23:29). The law is the “fiery law” (Deut. 33:2, KJV). It is not only designed to give us comfort by the spoken word that leads us daily. It is also a fire that burns flesh. Every time He commands something against our fleshly will, another area of self-will is consumed by fire. Every time God speaks, we come in contact with that Holy Fire, and another piece of flesh is burned.

The point is that the Comforter is here to take vengeance on the flesh. But God’s vengeance is not like man’s vengeance. Divine vengeance needs to be redefined by the mind of God. Men do not know how to take vengeance the way God does. That is why God says in Deut. 32:35, “Vengeance is Mine.” Paul quotes this in Rom. 12:19-21, showing us God’s definition of vengeance,

¹⁹ Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. ²⁰ “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” [Prov. 25:21, 22] ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Men take vengeance to destroy their enemies. God takes vengeance to restore His enemies and turn them into friends. God is not overcome by evil. He overcomes evil with good. That is the function of the Holy Spirit, and this is how naham and naqam are linked.

Whereas carnal men would literally heap burning coals upon his enemy’s head to inflict pain and suffering upon him, the metaphor is really of a quarrelsome neighbor lady who asks to borrow a few coals to restart a fire. Instead of just giving the neighbor a few coals, she is given a heap of coals (in a clay jar, of course). The neighbor puts the jar on her head and carries the heap of coals back to her house. Such “vengeance” overcomes evil with good.

So also does God Himself take vengeance upon His enemies. He sent Jesus to die for them while they were yet His enemies (Rom. 5:8-10). No man has the right to take vengeance without first understanding God’s way of taking vengeance. Unfortunately, most Christians have very little revelation of the reason naqam is a homonym of naham.

Chet and Kof

The difference between naqam and naham is just one letter. The “q” in naqam is the Hebrew letter kof, whereas the “h” in naham is chet, or khet. Both letters are pronounced as a “k” sound, the only difference being that the chet/khet sounds like the top and bottom of the throat are fighting each other. We do not have an English equivalent for that sound.

“Chet is the agony of a soul torn apart from itself. The top of your throat and the bottom of your throat fighting against one another create the sound of the chet. This is the reason why the chet yields so many strange and conflicted word pairs.” (Lawrence Kushner, The Book of Letters, pp. 39, 40)

Chet is the letter used in naham, “comfort.” It is comfort in the midst of conflict. You might say it denotes conflict resolution, which is the job description of the Holy Spirit. This is to be compared and contrasted to naqam, where the letter kof is used.

“The bottom of the kof is a man calling “Holy” [Qadosh, or Kadosh] so that he can join himself to his Creator. The top line, sheltering and reaching down, is the Holy One. Kof is the voice of an angel calling Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts.’ (Kushner, p. 67).

“Kof is one of the letters made by two marks… The lower mark of the kof is man calling G-d. But G-d also calls man. With the upper mark of the kof He whispers very softly to see if you are really listening.” (Kushner, p. 68, 69)

Because naqam (“vengeance”) uses the kof instead of the chet, we see that it does not focus upon the conflict itself but upon its resolution. The kof does not depict a conflict within one’s throat. Instead, it has to do with reaching up to God and God reaching down to man. Such is the nature of God’s “vengeance.”

So Isaiah compares and contrasts divine comfort with divine vengeance. We would do well to learn His ways, so that we do not find ourselves justifying vengeance in the name of “justice.” In God’s eyes, He takes vengeance upon His enemies by dying for them and turning them into friends.

This does not mean that there is no judgment for sin. There is indeed judgment, but its purpose is not to destroy sinners but to burn their chaff so that they can become bread for God’s table. The idea is to bring fellowship and communion by removing the chaff and baking the wheat in the fire of the Holy Spirit.

Vengeance Means Purification

After speaking of comfort and vengeance in verse 24, Isaiah 1:25, 26 says,

²⁵ “I will also turn My hand against you and will smelt away your dross as at the first, ²⁶ and your counselors as at the beginning; after that you will be called the city of righteousness, a faithful city.”

When He turned His hand against Jerusalem for its sin, the result was to “smelt away” its dross and to restore faithful judges and counselors, so that it might be called the City of Zadok, “City of Righteousness.” This is the direct result of God’s “vengeance.” Isaiah uses the metaphor of smelting gold or silver, as does Mal. 3:3. This carries the same meaning as the metaphor of removing and burning chaff from wheat, which is John’s metaphor.

Isaiah gave no details here about the manner in which the change in Jerusalem was to take place. We know from other passages that God will not actually restore the old city to prominence, because it is “Hagar” and must be cast out. Nonetheless, there is a heavenly city by the same name that will fulfill the prophecies of restoration. Ierushalayim (“Jerusalem”) is a Hebrew dual that literally means “two Jerusalems,” and we know from Gal. 4:26 that the heavenly city is our New Covenant “mother” (Sarah).

Isaiah 1:27, 28 continues,

²⁷ Zion will be redeemed with justice and her repentant ones with righteousness. ²⁸ But transgressors and sinners will be crushed [sheber, “fractured”] together, and those who forsake the Lord will come to an end.

The purpose of vengeance is redemption, but the result will be an improvement, not simply a restoration to the original form. The Last Adam was an improvement upon the first Adam. The first Adam was “made” while the Last Adam was “begotten.” The first Adam was soulish and earthly, the Last Adam was spiritual and heavenly (1 Cor. 15:45-47). The New Creation Man is better than the original creation.

We ourselves were originally begotten by flesh and the will of man, but we have now been begotten by God and through His will (John 1:13), creating a spiritual being. Even as our fleshly, soul-man is no longer who we are, so also the fleshly Jerusalem is no longer our mother. We were originally begotten under the Old Covenant, but we are now begotten by the New Covenant and have a new mother.

The difference between Hagar and Sarah, Paul says, is the difference between the two Jerusalems. So, as I have explained elsewhere in more detail, the restoration of Zion and Jerusalem is not the restoration of the old fleshly locations. We are transferring our citizenship from the earthly city to the heavenly city.

The Greek Word for Repentance

Matthew 3:2 says,

² Repent [metanoeo], for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

The Greek word metanoeo is from meta, “with,” and noeo, “perception, understanding.” True repentance is not possible without understanding what actions and attitudes should be changed. Repentance goes beyond an emotional feeling of being sorry. When John the Baptist and Jesus called for repentance, there is no doubt that they gave specific examples of change that needed to be made.

The Law of Impartiality

Another major example of the need for repentance was in the Jewish attitude toward non-Jews. The law commanded the people to treat them as equals before the law. Num. 15:15, 16 commands,

¹⁵ As for the assembly, there shall be one statute for you and for the alien who sojourns with you, a perpetual statute throughout your generations; as you are, so shall the alien be before the Lord. ¹⁶ There shall be one law and one ordinance for you and for the alien who sojourns with you.

The feast days too were to be kept by all people, regardless of ethnicity, as long as they wanted to worship the God of Abraham. So Jesus treated Romans, Greeks, Canaanites, and Samaritans with respect and love, according to the law’s commands. But in doing so, He broke the traditions of the elders.

Even the disciples themselves did not fully grasp this until later. Peter, for example, was led by the Spirit in a vision to minister to Roman troops in the house of a centurion named Cornelius. When the Holy Spirit came upon them, he was surprised. After all, the Holy Spirit had been promised to Israelites, not to foreigners. (So he thought.) We read in Acts 10:44, 45,

⁴⁴ While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message. ⁴⁵ All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.

If these Jewish believers had but understood Deut. 16:10-12, they would not have had any reason to be so surprised. There we read of the Feast of Weeks, later called by the Greek term Pentecost.

¹⁰ Then you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God… ¹¹ and the stranger [gar, “alien”] and the orphan… ¹² You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.

All were commanded to keep the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), including non-Jews. Yet the Jews accompanying Peter were surprised when the Spirit came upon Gentiles. No doubt that day a spirit of repentance came upon them. Their minds were changed, and hopefully, they began to understand the impartial God of Israel, even as we read in Acts 10:34, 35,

³⁴ Opening his mouth, Peter said: “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, ³⁵ but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.”

In Jesus’ day and even in the early church, there was great need for repentance so that men would understand the Impartial God. He is not only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; He is the God of the whole earth (Isaiah 54:5, KJV).