7 BIBLICAL FACTS ABOUT REPENTANCE

A LOOK AT WHAT REPENTANCE IS (AND ISN’T)

By Dr. Rick Flanders | January 09, 2016

The repentance involved in New Testament salvation has been given special attention in
recent years by Christians concerned that the gospel be correctly preached. A lot of this
concern arose because of the justifiable dismay in many godly minds over the lack of
holiness these days in the lives of professing Christians.

Some have decided that the problem must be in how the gospel has been preached. Some of
the representatives of this theory have concentrated on the way preachers handle the issue of
repentance. What exactly is the “repentance unto life” (Acts 11:18) taught by the New
Testament scriptures?

Interpretations of repentance have swung to the right and to the left, have drawn extreme
conclusions, and have fomented heated arguments. Books and articles have been written on
the subject, and some of them leave people confused and unsettled. The debate in some
arenas has done more harm than it has done good. Certainly we will be helped if we can
discern clear facts about repentance from the Bible. And there are several which are both
clear and even undeniable. Consider these:

1. SINNERS MUST REPENT IN ORDER TO BE SAVED

There is no doubt that sinners are called to repent, and that their repentance is required for
their salvation. Jesus said, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke
5:32).

Jesus called sinners to repentance. Had Tyre and Sidon seen the mighty works in their day
that were done by Jesus in Chorazin and Bethsaida, these wicked cities would have
“repented” and avoided judgment, said the Lord (Matthew 11:21 and Luke 10:13–14).

The words of Jesus remove any doubt about the requirement of repentance for salvation,
“Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish,” (Luke 13:3). “All men every where,”
according to God’s requirement (Acts 17:30), are commanded “to repent.”

God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter
3:9b). Sinners who want to be saved will have to repent!

2. REPENTANCE IS A CHANGE OF MIND

The Greek word for repentance used in the New Testament is metanoia. Without question it
means “a change of mind.” Unfortunately, in all the flurry of discussion on this subject, some
have ventured to argue that repentance is not a change of the mind. But by its etymology the
word clearly refers to action fundamentally in the mind. The root of the word is based on a
word that means “mind” (nous, mind; noieo, to exercise the mind). Our word “paranoia”
identifies a disease of the mind. The Greek word “anoia” adds the negative prefix to “-noia,”
and means “unreason.” It is used in Luke 6:11 in the phrase translated “filled with
madness.” Dianoia is an intensive word for “thought” and is used in Mark 12:30 in the phrase
“with all thy mind”. Eunoia means “good mind,” and is used in Ephesians 6:7, “with good
will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men.”

Metanoia fundamentally means a change of mind, and that’s what repentance is. In Luke 16,
the Lord Jesus tells a story of a man who died and went to Heaven, and another man who
died and went to Hell (verses 19–31). In the telling of the story it is said that sinful men must
“repent” (verse 30) “lest they also come into this place of torment” (verse 28). Then it says
that to repent in this way is to “be persuaded” (see verse 31), using a word in the Greek that
indicates the winning over of the mind. Certainly genuine repentance can be expected to
affect other aspects of a life, but essentially it is the changing of the mind.

3. MEN MUST CHANGE THEIR MIND ABOUT SEVERAL THINGS IN ORDER TO

BE SAVED
Often men are told in the New Testament to “repent” (change their minds) in order to be
saved. However, it is not only of sin that sinners are to repent. Scripture makes it clear that
they are to change their minds about more than one thing. Matthew 3:1–6 indicates that
sinners must change their mind about sin. Mark 1:15 says that men must change their minds
about the gospel and about their unbelief. Hebrews 6:1 speaks of “repentance from dead
works.”

Sinners must repent of their good works as well as of sin and unbelief in order to be saved.
This is illustrated in the words of Philippians 3, where Paul testifies that he had to count
whatever was “gain” to him as loss, in order to have Christ as His Saviour (read verses 4–9).
To trust Christ as Saviour requires a decision. That’s why the word “repent” or “repentance”
is sometimes used in connection with it. The sinner must change his mind.

To offer salvation on the basis of accepting a creed, or praying a prayer, or agreeing to a set
of facts, is to miss the point. The sinner must decide about the gospel. He must change his
mind about sin, about believing, and about depending on his own religion or good works. He
must decide to look to Christ alone for his salvation.

4. REPENTANCE AND FAITH ARE TWO SIDES OF THE ONE SALVATION

DECISION
Does the book of John ever address the question of eternal life? Of course it does. More than
a dozen times the terms “eternal life” or “everlasting life” are used in John. This could be said
to be the theme of the book, which often tells us how individuals may receive eternal life. Yet
never once does the book of John use the word repent. Since repentance is required for
salvation, isn’t it strange that the book in the Bible that has eternal life as its theme would
never use the words repent or repentance? John says that we are saved by faith in Jesus
Christ, through believing in Him or coming to Him. Very many times the word believe is
used in reference to the way to eternal life. Yet the decision for salvation is never called
“repentance.”

The book of Luke also shows us the way to salvation, but strangely says little about faith in
Christ in this connection. The term most used to describe the decision for salvation in Luke is
some form of repent.We see this, for example, in Luke 5:32. But then, in Luke 7:50, Jesus
tells a woman who had committed many sins, but had come to Him for forgiveness, “Thy
faith hath saved thee; go in peace.” It is really the only place in Luke where faith is
mentioned in connection with the salvation of a sinner.

In chapter 5, Jesus calls sinners “to repentance,” and in chapter 7 He tells a sinner that her
“faith” had “saved” her. Which is it then, repentance or faith, which brings salvation? The
answer to that question is “Yes.” Either one brings salvation. People who repent are saved,
and people who believe are saved. Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin when
Scripture uses them to describe the salvation decision. This is why Luke can tell us to repent
and not perish, and John can tell us to believe and have eternal life.

When a sinner believes on Christ for his salvation, he has repented. When a person repents of
sin, unbelief, and dead works, and it is real repentance, he has believed on the Lord Jesus
Christ. “Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21) are
not two steps to salvation; they are the one step described in Acts 16 as “Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (verse 31) viewed from its two sides.

Salvation repentance is the change of mind necessary for a sinner to trust in Christ for
deliverance from sin. If a man says that he has turned from his sin but has not turned to the
Remedy for sin, the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, he has not really repented, no matter how
many tears he may have shed or how many changes he has promised to make in his behavior.

Salvation repentance is turning from darkness to light, and unless a sinner has turned to the
Light of the World, he hasn’t really turned from the darkness. To believe on Christ for
salvation includes wanting to be saved. It involves renouncing good works for salvation and
deciding to place one’s full trust in Jesus to do the saving. It isn’t faith for salvation unless
the sinner wants salvation from his sins, and trusts Christ alone to save him. So Luke says,
“Repent,” and John says, “Believe.” Both books are telling us to do the same thing.

5. MEN MAY BE CALLED TO SALVATION REPENTANCE WITHOUT USING

THE WORD “REPENT”
Many times in the Bible, men are called to repent without using the word. In Acts 3 where
one of Peter’s sermons to Jews in Jerusalem is recorded, in verse 19 we find him telling them,
“Repent ye therefore, and be converted.” Then in Acts 4:4, where the response of thousands
of those who had been called to repent is recorded, we read, “Many of them which heard the
word believed.” In other words, they were told to repent and in response they believed.
Nowadays some sermons, and some public invitations, and some gospel tracts include
language that suggests that the writer or speaker feels compelled to use the word repent.

If people understand the gospel, and the meaning of the salvation decision, it certainly would
not be wrong to say “repent,” but it is not always necessary to include the word because
repentance and faith are two ways of looking at the same choice. Jesus offered His salvation
with words such as, “Come unto Me” (Matthew 11:28 and 19:14), “eat of this Bread” (John
6:51), “come unto Me and drink” (John 7:37), “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” (John
9:35), and “believe in the Light” (John 12:36). The decision to turn to Him for eternal
salvation can be described in different ways.

Sadly, many of those who insist that we must actually tell the sinner to “repent” somewhere
in our gospel presentation have accepted the false idea that there are two steps to salvation. I
have heard it explained in such a way that it seemed as though the explainer thought that the
converts of John the Baptist were only half-saved (although he actually preached both sides
of the coin according to Acts 19:4 and John 3:26–36). He told men to repent, some imply,
and then Jesus told them to believe.

It is a false teaching that one must repent first in order to be prepared to believe. It connects
somehow back to the wrong ideas related to the old “mourners’ bench” where sinners were
expected to weep and agonize over their sins for a period of time before they could be saved.
Men are saved in one step, and not in two, as illustrated by incidents in the Bible like the
conversion of the Philippian jailor in Acts 16. In response to his question, “What must I do to
be saved?” the apostle told him, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

6. THE REPENTANCE OF CHRISTIANS IS REQUIRED FOR REVIVAL

Christian churches are the ones addressed in Revelation 2 and 3—seven congregations to be
exact. They are given direct messages suited to their situations from the risen Christ, and five
of the seven are called upon to repent (the Ephesian church in 2:5, the church in Pergamos in
2:16, some in the church of Thyatira in 2:21, the church in Sardis in 3:3, and the church of the
Laodiceans in 3:19).

In these significant cases, the issue is the revival of saints, and not the salvation of sinners.
Repentance is definitely not exclusively a salvation issue. In any dealing between God and
man, sinner or saint, repentance in man will be a necessary step in setting things right. The
prophet Zechariah spoke the words of the Lord when he said, “Turn ye unto Me, saith the
LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 1:3).

The call to revival under both the Old Covenant and the New is always a call to God’s
people. It is not the call to personal salvation. Revival is the work of God in which He brings
His people back (Psalm 85:1–6) and lifts them up (James 4:8–10) to the level of faith and
submission where He can bless them. The issue is a need for His people to come back to God.
And in revival, God’s people always have to repent.

When Job the servant of the Lord saw the error of his self-justification in the time of his
awful trials, he cried, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). But Job
wasn’t getting saved when he prayed with these words. He was already a believer with a deep
and genuine devotion to His God. What he experienced on that day was revival. The phrase,
“The LORD turned the captivity of Job,” used in Job 42:10 is a term describing an Old
Testament revival that is used in several other revival scriptures (such as in Psalms 14, 85,
and 126).

The repentance required in the salvation decision does not necessarily involve self-
abhorrence. Probably an unregenerate man is incapable of having such a deep awareness of
the implications of sin. Most Old Testament references to men repenting speak of revival, not
salvation, and cannot be used properly to illustrate salvation repentance.

Interestingly, the One spoken of most often in the Old Testament as repenting, with the word
being used, is God. From this fact it is clear that to repent does not necessarily mean to turn
in grief and anguish from wicked ways and deeds. God never has to do that. It means to
change one’s mind, or, in the case of God, to appear to change One’s mind from the
perspective of human observance.
7. SORROW FOR SIN IS NOT ACTUALLY PART OF TRUE REPENTANCE
Sometimes sorrow, tears, and mourning are associated in the Bible with repentance. However
it is clear that the weeping is not the repenting. Second Corinthians 7:10 tells us that, “Godly
sorrow worketh repentance.” It can lead to repentance (as we see in verses 8 through 11 of
the chapter) but sorrow for sin is not part of repentance. Repentance is the change of mind
that the sorrow for sin has generated.

Surely we must face the facts about repentance. It is time for Christians to get back to calling
sinners to repentance. When the gospel is preached in the power of the Spirit, sinners will be
brought to salvation repentance. We have fussed about the details of the matter enough, and
have the duty now to spread the light of the gospel of the grace of God.

Making sinners jump through more hoops to come to Christ does not make the salvation they
receive from Him more effective. Regeneration happens when a sinner comes to the Saviour,
and believers ought to get back to inviting them to come.