words, the conjoint meaning of which is, _a change of mind_ or
_thought_. There is in it no intent of, or hint at _sorrow_ or _shame_,
or any other of the mental conditions that, not unfrequently
accompanying repentance, have been taken for essential parts of it,
sometimes for its very essence. Here, the last of the prophets, or the
evangelist who records his doings, qualifies the word, as if he held it
insufficient in itself to convey the Baptist's meaning, with the three
words that follow it--_[Greek: eis aPhesin amartiôn:--kaerussôn Baptisma
metauoias eis aphesin amartiôn]_--'preaching a baptism of
repentance--_unto a sending away of sins'._ I do not say the phrase
_[Greek: aphesis amartiôn]_ 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