A Godly Sorrow Isn’t Only for Sinners!
When Paul spoke of repentance in 2 Corinthians he provides us with a key to the repentance that both John and Jesus spoke of:

I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. (2 Corinthians 7:9-10, NASB)

Paul was clearly indicating that true repentance, repentance in relationship to the will of God, was free of the type of sorrow found in repentance that came out of an earthly or human origin. Repentence according to the will of God would lead to salvation. He applauded believers walking in this kind of repentance:

For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! (2 Corinthians 7:11a, NASB)

John’s call to the Pharisees for their repentance was more than a call to acknowledge sin and guilt, it was a call to change and a call to a repentance that would not lead to death:

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

“As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:7-12, NASB)

Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus, spoke of a dynamic change, a rebirth:

Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.” (John 3:1-15, NASB)

As the very lives of Jesus and John the Baptist are woven together, the call and message of these distant cousins are woven together as well: repentance and change, rebirth and the Holy Spirit.

When Luther said that, “metanoia signified a changing of the mind and heart,” he was concerned that the believer’s understanding of repentance didn’t stop there. He felt that the meaning of metanoia went further, that it “seemed to indicate not only a change of heart, but also a manner of changing it, i.e., the grace of God.” When John calls out to the Pharisees to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” he angered them, and pointed to Jesus who intrigued Nicodemus, a Pharisee, with stories of the greatest change, of being born again—and a promise of the Spirit.