eis aphesin amartion]—­’preaching a baptism of repentance—­unto a sending away of sins’. I do not say the phrase [Greek:  aphesis amartion] never means forgiveness, one form at least of God’s sending away of sins; neither do I say that the taking of the phrase to mean repentance for the remission of sins, namely, repentance in order to obtain the pardon of God, involves any inconsistency; but I say that the word [Greek:  eis] rather unto than for; that the word [Greek:  aphesis], translated remission, means, fundamentally, a sending away, a dismissal; and that the writer seems to use the added phrase to make certain what he means by repentance; a repentance, namely, that reaches to the sending away, or abjurement of sins.  I do not think a change of mind unto the remission or pardon of sin would be nearly so logical a phrase as a change of mind unto the dismission of sinning. The revised version refuses the word for and chooses unto, though it retains remission, which word, now, conveys no meaning except the forgiveness of God.  I think that here the same word is used for man’s dismission of his sins, as is elsewhere used for God’s dismission or remission of them.  In both uses, it is a sending away of sins, with the difference of meaning that comes from the differing sources of the action.  Both God and man send away sins, but in the one case God sends away the sins of the man, and in the other the man sends away his own sins.  I do not enter into the question whether God’s aphesis may or may not mean as well the sending of his sins out of a man, as the pardon of them; whether it may not sometimes mean dismission, and sometimes remission:  I am sure the one deed cannot be separated from the other.

That the phrase here intends repentance unto the ceasing from sin, the giving up of what is wrong, I will try to show at least probable.

In the first place, the user of the phrase either defines the change of mind he means as one that has for its object the pardon of God, or as one that reaches to a new life:  the latter seems to me the more natural interpretation by far.  The kind and scope of the repentance or change, and not any end to be gained by it, appears intended.  The change must be one of will and conduct—­a radical change of life on the part of the man:  he must repent—­that is, change his mind—­not to a different opinion, not even to a mere betterment of his conduct—­not to anything less than a sending away of his sins.  This interpretation of the preaching of the Baptist seems to me, I repeat, the more direct, the fuller of meaning, the more logical.