Salvation And Repentance
The necessity of repentance is one of the fundamental truths of the Bible. God has joined repentance and salvation in such a manner that all should be able to see the necessity of the former in order to gain the latter. It is "repent or perish," turn or burn. Old Testament preachers preached the necessity of repentance. John the Baptist came with a message of repentance. (Mt. 3;1-8; Mk. 1:1-4) When Jesus came he took up the same cry of repentance. (Mt. 4:17; Lk. 13:3)
After Jesus had been glorified, and when the Holy Ghost came forth on Pentecost, we find Peter standing up with the rest of the apostles and raising the same cry, "Repent." (Ac. 2:36-41) When Paul journeyed to the pagan city of Athens, he proclaimed the same message. (Ac. 17:30,31) (cf . Ac. 26:20) These apostles operated under the commission which charged "that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." (Lk. 24:47) And, of course, their preaching under this divine commission establishes the fact that sin is the thing which makes repentance necessary. (Rom. 3:9-18, 23; 17:30,31; Ac. 2:21-38) God has commanded "all men everywhere" to repent and he will forgive only those who obey his command.
Though the necessity of repentance is believed by most men, not all understand what it is. Repentance is not fear, in spite of the fact that men have confounded the two. Thinking they have to be alarmed and terrified, many are waiting for some kind of fear to come over them. But many become alarmed who do not really repent. And examples are legion which establish this fact-examples from both Testaments as well as from every day life.
Neither is repentance mere feeling. Yet numbers of people are praying and waiting for a certain kind of feeling to come upon them as evidence of repentance. They don't know just what the feeling will be, but they "know" they will recognize it when it arrives, Some have often felt quite miserable because of wicked acts, or because they were caught in the act, and for a while it seemed the feeling might result in true repentance; but all too often the feeling soon passed away and they returned to their same old course of life.
Furthermore, repentance is not regret; it is not fasting and afflicting the body; it is not conviction of sin; neither is it praying or breaking off one sinful habit; it is not even godly sorrow as so many think. (See 2 Cor. 7:10) Repentance involves many of these things, but they are not repentance, Scripture quotations and lexical definitions teach that repentance is a change of the will produced by godly sorrow which results in a reformation of life. (Mt. 12:41; Jonah 3: 4-8,10; Mt. 21:28-30; 3:1-8; Ac. 17:30, 31) God grants us the privilege of being able to turn from our sins and have the guilt of sin removed; he even leads us to repentance through his goodness and his severity. (Rom. 2:4-11; 11:22) But we must do the repenting; he doesn't do it for us.
The place which repentance occupies in God's scheme of redemption has been misunderstood by well-meaning people even though the Bible is plain on the matter. Repentance in the gospel plan of salvation comes after faith in Jesus as the Son of God and before water baptism for the remission of sins. (Ac. 2: 36-41,3:19; Lk. 24:46-48) It is unscriptural and illogical to contend otherwise. However, there are those who teach repentance before faith in the gospel plan of salvation and base it upon a perversion of such passages as Mk.1:14,15.
In such perversion of these passages, men are overlooking the fact that the Lord was addressing Jews who believed in God. And he was calling upon them to repent toward God, as Jews, and thus be ready to accept the gospel which was about to be preached in its perfection. The advocates of the theory of repentance before faith contradict other plain passages and reach illogical conclusions. This is evident when one considers which should be put first if you were preaching to an infidel. It is also evident by the fact that the goodness of God leads to repentance. (Rom. 2:4) Does God's goodness lead one to repent who has not believed in God?
Actual cases of repentance determine its order. Jesus said the Ninevehites "repented at the preaching of Jonah." When you study Jon. 3, it is evident that Jonah first preached (v.4), they heard, then believed (v.5), after which they turned-repented (v.5-10). On Pentecost it was the same. (Ac. 2:21-38) So was it in the case of the Corinthians. (2 Cor. 7:8ff)
The alien is called upon to repent in order to salvation; the erring child must repent for the same purpose; the weak, indifferent and lukewarm church members are called upon to repent. (Ac. 2:38; 8:2024; Rev. 2:4-5; 3:15-19) Don't allow stubbornness to destroy your soul!! REPENT!! "Bring forth therefore fruit meet for repentance." (Mt. 3:8)