Impenitence

Impenitence is the settled refusal to repent—to turn from sin and toward God—and Scripture typically portrays it not as a single act but as a condition of heart. The English word is a later theological label; the biblical writers more often speak of a “hardness and unrepentant heart” (Romans 2:5) or of hearts grown callous (Matthew 13:15). Psalm 78:8 recalls “a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that didn’t make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with God,” and Proverbs 28:13 contrasts concealing sin with confession: “He who conceals his sins doesn’t prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”

Scripture describes impenitence with images of sensory and moral failure. Jeremiah is told to address a people “who have eyes, and don’t see, who have ears, and don’t hear” (Jeremiah 5:21). When Yahweh calls them to ask for the old paths and walk in the good way, the reply is “We will not walk in it” (Jeremiah 6:16); the command “Listen to my voice” (Jeremiah 7:23) stands over against that refusal. In Matthew 13:15, Jesus says of the people, “their heart has grown callous, their ears are dull of hearing, and they have closed their eyes,” lest they “turn again” and be healed. Stephen names the same condition: “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit!” (Acts 7:51).

Impenitence is also presented as a response to God’s kindness and warning, not merely to ignorance. Romans 2:4 asks, “do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience,” since “the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” The next verse speaks of “your hardness and unrepentant heart” that treasures up wrath (Romans 2:5). Revelation 3:3 calls the hearer to “Remember therefore how you have received and heard. Keep it and repent,” with the warning that Christ will come unexpectedly. One way to read the prophet’s commission to eat the scroll and “go, speak to the house of Israel” (Ezekiel 3:1), with the scroll sweet as honey in his mouth (Ezekiel 3:3), is that God’s word is sent to a people who must hear it; the sweetness in the prophet’s mouth is not said to be the hearers’ response.

Christian traditions differ in how they locate and treat impenitence. Catholic and Orthodox teaching commonly connects it with the sacrament of confession and absolution, treating the church’s ministry as the ordinary remedy for post-baptismal sin; Reformed and evangelical traditions generally stress repentance as a gift of grace and an ongoing mark of faith, and they debate whether a genuinely regenerate person can persist impenitently; Anabaptist and Free Church traditions often emphasize church discipline and restoration. These differences are not chiefly about the meaning of the word but about how impenitence is discerned, whether it can coexist with true faith, and what pastoral or sacramental response it calls for.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.