Whatever Happened to Repentance?

The Biblical Gospel of everlasting salvation is an announcement of the accomplishments of the Incarnate God, Jesus Christ, in behalf of sinful humans. God became man to the end that He might be fallen man's substitute before Divine Justice: obeying the law perfectly thus earning righteousness for the unrighteous; dying in the place of the guilty thereby satisfying the demands of violated Justice; rising from the dead triumphant over man's supreme enemies - sin, death, and Satan; ascending back to Heaven interceding with the Father for the good of all who trust Him. The Gospel declares salvation an accomplished fact in Christ. In response to this reality the Gospel also calls sinners to come to Christ in their hearts and to become spiritually united to Him in order that the benefits of His accomplishments might become theirs. No human enjoys the peace or security of God's saving love and grace until their personal spiritual union with Christ. Union with Christ comes about by means of two distinct exercises of the individual soul empowered by the Holy Spirit. One exercise is faith, the other is repentance.

Alarmingly absent from much contemporary Gospel preaching is the doctrine of repentance. Yet this doctrine is very prominent in Scripture as indispensable to a true saving relationship with Christ. The Lord Jesus summarized His own emphasis of preaching as that of calling sinners to repentance (Lk. 5:32). He sent the Apostles and the church into the world with the commission that repentance and remission of sin should be proclaimed to the world

(Lk. 24:47). The Apostles faithful to that commission placed great stress upon repentance declaring that humans must repent and be converted in order to enter into salvation (Acts 3:19) and that God commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30). Why then are sinners rarely summoned to repent today? How can the promise of salvation be extended in the absence of repentance or the call to repent? Someone is in error here, either Christ or modern pulpits? And the error is substantial. There is no union with Christ, no salvation apart from repentance.

What is repentance? Essentially, repentance is a change of mind and heart resulting inevitably in a change of life and practice. It is a turning from the practice of specific sin to a life of faith and devotion to Christ. A Christianity without repentance is an unholy Christianity in which sin is condoned. That is an intolerable contradiction of Christ's nature and work. He came to save His people from their sins.

The Gospel has not been honestly presented when repentance is not required. True disciples have not been made unless sinners have by God's grace been enabled voluntarily to repent of their sins and to flee to Christ.