Sinners comprise the side for God and Creation and the side opposed to God and Creation. At its core, the spiritual war in mortal life pits sinners against sinners, including the various sinners (or selves) within the one’s own being, which is and will always remain the spiritual war’s dominant and primary battlefield.
What distinguishes “good” sinners from “bad” sinners? Well, motivation immediately springs to mind, but virtually every incentive, motive, stimuli, reason, ground, or rationale that drives individuals to think and act derives from metaphysical assumptions — from one’s deepest beliefs concerning the very nature of reality.
That does not imply that individuals consciously check every one of their motivations against their assumptions, only that the motivations themselves emanate from the assumptions, regardless of whether individuals are aware of the motivations as emanations of their core assumptions.
Yet even the best motivations for God and Creation perfectly aligned with coherent metaphysical assumptions remain susceptible to various external or internal influences, manipulations, corruptions, flaws, ineptitudes, deficiencies, weaknesses, and so forth.
Motivations can also wane, sour, or reverse, often within a blink of an eye. So, even though motivation can help illuminate which side of the spiritual war a sinner may be on, it is anything but ironclad proof of affiliation.
I posit that repentance is the only meaningful factor that demarcates the “good” sinners from the “bad” sinners. Put another way, the side for God and Creation consists of repentant sinners, while the side against God and Creation is unrepentant.
If we were to follow some conventional interpretations of what repentance is, the repentant side would be filled with mewling, self-flagellating, guilt-ridden masochists perpetually begging God to forgive them — but only after thoroughly punishing them — for the unforgivable sin of existing, while the unrepentant side would brim with people who refuse to give or take a damn (pun very much intended).
I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pathetic excuse for a spiritual war.
Another conventional interpretation is that the side for God and Creation is perpetually involved in making this world a better place for everyone, while the side opposed to God and Creation does nothing but disrupt and destroy this world. The bad sinners disrupting and destroying this world refuse to repent because they enjoy disrupting and destroying. On the other hand, the good sinners striving to create a good this-world only need to repent if they advertently or inadvertently slide over to the side of disruption and destruction.
I suppose the spiritual war does or can involve some of these aspects; however, the inherently non-spiritual, this-worldly focus of both sides renders the comprehensiveness of this interpretation moot. The spiritual war certainly encompasses this world, but its primary significance is not limited to this-worldly considerations, at least not in any mundane, material sense.
So, how and why is repentance the demarcation line between the side for and against God and Creation, particularly when the word repent does not appear in any form in the Fourth Gospel?
To help explain this, I defer once again to William James Tychonievich:
It means acknowledging sin as sin. The unrepentant are those who make excuses for themselves, who deny that their sins are sins and are therefore unwilling to give them up. Willingness is all; the flesh is weak, but the spirit must be willing. Daily repentance does not mean daily groveling for forgiveness like a beaten dog; it means reminding oneself what is good and what is evil, what is of God and what is not, and then going on with life, confident in the knowledge that "he that believeth is not condemned."
The matter about acknowledging sin as sin is key, but as William points out in his Repentance, Forgiveness, and Damnation in the Fourth Gospel post, only the Pharisees use the word sinner. Jesus does not refer to anyone as a sinner in the Fourth Gospel, nor does he call for repentance; however, he does speak about sin, but not in the way the Pharisees interpret it.
John the Baptist announces Jesus as the lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world. Does this mean Jesus absolved all the moral crimes and corruptions of all the people of the world? Not quite. As Bruce Charlton notes in one of William's posts:
What does it mean that Jesus would 'take away' sin? Sin seems to mean all the transitory nature of satisfaction in this world, the corruptions, the selfishness, that which contributes to the recurrent sense that life is travail and loss. Jesus will take away Mortality and all its badness, all that we know in our hearts to be intrinsically wrong about life.
Wait a minute! Sin involves the transitory nature of satisfaction with this world! How can that be? Well, to feel satisfaction with this world as it is just is a rejection of what Jesus offers. It is akin to saying that Jesus is unnecessary — that we can ultimately find all we need in this world and require nothing more. It is also a refutation of the Divine purpose of Creation.
Sin is a declaration of satisfaction with this world, of keeping our focus narrowed solely on this-worldly concerns, of prioritizing this-worldly affairs over eternal otherworldly considerations. Jesus does not condemn when he speaks of sin in the Fourth Gospel, but he does refer to sin as an enslaving force that can attach us to this world in ways that are detrimental to salvation.
Jesus does not instruct us to turn our back on the world and reject it outright. We are in the world, and as long as we are in it, we are in it for a reason. Whenever we fail to discern why we are in the world or what our experience in the world means from the perspective of salvation and Heaven, we may become fused to sin, fused to various satisfactions, corruptions, and selfishness that comprise mortal life. Taken far enough, we may even embrace death as a final destination.
Though the Fourth Gospel offers no fire and brimstone condemnations of sin, it does condemn those who love the darkness more than the light Jesus offers and reveals that those who do evil hate the light lest their deeds be reprimanded. Jesus also reveals the reality of Satan as the father of lies who has nothing to do with truth. Thus, the matter of evil boils down to the willing preference of darkness over light.
Returning to the matter of the spiritual war and its repentant and unrepentant sides, I would say the unrepentant side spiritually rejects Jesus’ offer of Heaven in favor of this-worldliness to which they have become enslaved. The repentant side accepts Jesus’ offer of Heaven and expresses a willingness to give up any spiritual enslavement to this worldliness that is incompatible with Heaven. The unrepentant side reject Jesus' offer outright or trick themselves into thinking they have accepted Jesus' offer while remaining entirely engaged with this-world and nothing but this world.
On the flip side, repentance is not disengagement with this world! On the contrary, it represents an awareness of what our engagement in this world should and should not be about. It is as, as William notes in his post on repentance, “reminding oneself what is good and what is evil, what is of God and what is not, and then going on with life, confident in the knowledge that "he that believeth is not condemned."
Such reminding requires discernment — the ability to distinguish light from darkness, and the willingness to spiritually embrace the light and turn away from the darkness even if/when we fail to do so in mortal life.
However, if we cannot spiritually discern, we will not spiritually learn. And if we do not learn spiritually, we will be far more likely to relent to sin than repent it.
We will be far more likely not to believe.
We will be far more likely not to believe in anything beyond this world and will, ultimately, believe in all the wrong things while we are in this world.