Blog Post – 26 – Metanoia or Paenitere?

When the New Testament was translated from Greek to Latin, there were major repercussions that are still reverberating today.  One key example is the word used for repentance.  The New Testament was first written in Koine Greek where the word translated “repent” is metanoia.  This is a cry for a change of mind.  John the Baptist called people to repent—change their way of thinking—or they would miss the kingdom of God which was at hand.   For the most part, the people did miss the entrance of the kingdom into the earth, because it did not come in the way they “thought” it would.  The majority did not heed the call to change their way of thinking.  The old covenant mindset was incapable of containing new covenant realities.  When the word “metanoia” was translated into Latin it was rendered “paenitere” which meant remorse, or sorrow for wrongdoing. In the Vulgate—the 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible—a form of the word is translated “do penance” in Acts 2:38. What is penance?   It is defined as an act of self-abasement, mortification, or devotion performed to show sorrow or repentance for sin.  The meaning of this Latin word is a long way from “changing the way we think”.   This misinterpretation led to a distortion of the truth, resulting in the familiar cycle of guilt – remorse – relief, guilt – remorse – relief, guilt – remorse – relief…  This process gives an emotional relief, it feels like we are doing something about our sin, and it alleviates guilt, but are we changed?  Many religious people become addicted to the Latin form of repentance while missing the more transformational original Greek type.  This wrong interpretation fosters a sin-conscious mindset that is overintrospective, past focused, and guilt driven.  Did Jesus say “repent” to get us to feel bad about sin, or to redirect us to our new creation identity only grasped by a change of mind?  There are no Protestant denominations which have escaped some degree of influence from this mistranslation and the Western legal system rooted in Roman law and the canon law of the Catholic church.