“… the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4)
The Gospel Is An Exclamation Point!
Jared Wilson writes about a minor editorial change that J.I. Packer made to a paragraph composed by Wilson for a study guide [Romans: A 12-Week Study].
And how the change makes all the difference:
There at the bottom of that page, as I was expounding on Romans 2:4 in a section of the study called “Gospel Glimpses,” I had written this:
‘In yet another wonderful affirmation of where the source of power to change is found, Paul reminds us in Romans 2:4 that “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.” Not his law, not his berating, not his exasperation or his cajoling. His kindness.’
Period. End of thought.
But Dr. Packer added one thin vertical pen stroke, turning my period into an exclamation point, and underlining it to show the change. It’s not’s God kindness — yawn — that leads us to repentance, but God’s kindness! Exclamation point!
As I looked at this correction, I couldn’t stop looking at it. And then I began to weep. And I’ll tell you why. Twelve years ago when I was at the bottom of the barrel and the bottom of my life and felt useless and worthless and unlovable and didn’t want to even be alive any more, I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams that some day I’d be staring at something I had written that had been edited by J.I. Packer. If you had said that to me then, I would have laughed at you and then punched you (probably). I had no capacity for such things. And as I stared at this edited sentence — just this one little pen stroke that makes a world of difference — in a cushioned chair behind my big desk at Midwestern Seminary, I started crying remembering what it was like to be face down on the floor of my guest bed room wishing I was dead.
Because it was in that very experience that God put an exclamation point where I had put a period. Indeed, that entire terrible despair was the rotten fruit of my own sinful choices and my own inner darkness. But God! His kindness! It led me to repentance.
I am grateful for these reminders, the big ones and the little ones, that help me not take the grace of God lightly. The gospel is an exclamation point.