Repent of Your Sins

2011-03-21

What is the role of repentance in Gospel preaching? Many preachers today state that one must repent of one’s sins in order to be saved. The purpose of this document is to show that this is not true.

“Why don’t we have to repent of our sins to be saved? Isn’t that in the Bible?” First, I would like to point out that the literal phrase “repent of your sins” is not found in the Bible once. There are similar phrases that say that someone needs to or should repent of wickedness, for example. But none of these are in the context of preaching the Gospel; they are usually in the Old Testament or in the case of people who are already saved.

“But just look throughout the Gospels and Acts! It is everywhere!” No it is NOT everywhere. When “repent” is used in the text, YOU are supplying the “of your sins” part. It is not there! But since you have heard every preacher and his brother say “repent of your sins” in every altar call and evangelistic crusade, you have learned to parrot what they say.

Definition of Repent

Does repent imply the “of your sins” part? Let us look at a few passages.

1 Samuel 15:35: “And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.” God repented here; he is changing the king of Israel.

Jonah 3:10: “And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.” God once again repented here. He changed his mind about destroying Nineveh. We will return to this verse later, for it shows us a lot more than this.

God is the one who repents the most in the Bible. Of the 112 total times the word repent is used, over 30 of them are used of God. I list them here: Genesis 6:6; 6:7; Exodus 32:14; Numbers 23:19; Deuteronomy 32:26; Judges 2:18; 1 Samuel 15:11; 15:29; 15:35; 2 Samuel 24:16; 1 Chronicles 21:15; Psalm 90:13; 106:45; 110:4; 135:14; Jeremiah 4:28; 15:6; 18:8; 18:10; 20:16; 26:3; 26:13; 26:19; 42:10; Ezekiel 24:14; Hosea 11:8; 13:14; Joel 2:13-14; Amos 7:3; 7:6; Jonah 3:9-10; 4:2; Zechariah 8:14; Romans 11:29; and Hebrews 7:21. Most modern Bibles conveniently remove the word “repent” from these verses, but leave them in the other passages when referring to people. Because it is an archaic word, the people of today throw it around, assuming the context of sin. But this cannot be the case, unless you believe that God sins. Obviously the word involves a changing of the mind or a volitional change.

Repentance in the Gospels

So if people need to repent to be saved, what are they repenting from? Are there other uses of the word? Let us look first at the passages in the Gospel of Matthew:

Matthew 3:1-2: “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This passage is where John the Baptist is preaching the gospel, and John is calling for a change of mind. The kingdom of heaven is near! The natural reaction of the people is to confess their sins. But this confession is not repenting of all sins. The people are understanding their need for a Savior, the one who was going to usher in the kingdom. If confession of sin was the same as repentance from sin, John would not need to say in Matthew 3:8, “Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.” If one changes the object of their belief to Christ, it only makes sense that one’s actions reflect this belief.

Jesus echoes this message after he left the wilderness where he was tempted (Matthew 4:17). He then calls upon people to follow him and be his disciples. To be a disciple, you are a student of a teacher. Does this imply that you have it all together and you have turned from every sin? No, but as you follow Jesus you learn to be like him.

Matthew 9:13: “But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” After Jesus ate with publicans and other people considered “sinners” by society, and was rebuked for doing so, he said this. The ones that followed Jesus were the ones that realized they were helpless sinners before God, and not the ones who believed they were righteous. If people do not believe they are sinners, they are not going to change and believe in Jesus as the Messiah (cf. John 9:41).

Matthew 21:32: “For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.” It is clear from the context that a change (repentance) of belief was required here. When the religious leaders saw the type of crowd that was following John, they did not want to believe that they were sinners in need of being saved like the publicans and harlots.

Matthew 27:3: “Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders.” Judas repented, but he was not saved. He is referred to as the son of perdition in John 17:12, and the only other person to have that title is the antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:3).

The rest of the Synoptics are either parallel passages of the above, or are of a similar context, so I will not repeat the commentary here. But I do want to say something about the Gospel of John. John wrote with the following purpose in mind: “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:31). This is very clear; this book’s purpose is to get people to believe on Jesus and get saved. It is also very interesting that the word repent appears ZERO times in John’s Gospel. Since the purpose of John is for people to get saved, he left out a very huge part if repentance (read: “repent of your sins”) is left out of the gospel entirely.

Repentance in Acts

Acts 2:38: “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” In Acts 2:23, Peter very boldly accuses his hearers that they were the ones that murdered Jesus Christ. After preaching the gospel to these same hearers, they ask in verse 37, “What shall we do?” Since they were already “pricked in their heart,” they were already beginning to believe all of what Peter was saying was true. So Peter’s answer, which is verse 38, very aptly tells them to repent; that is, they needed to recognize Jesus as the long awaited Messiah and Savior. They once believed that Jesus was worthy of death; now they needed to change that belief and believe the gospel.

Acts 3:19: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.” This is the same usage as in 2:38; our mindset needs to be converted from whatever we believed before to belief in Christ as savior.

Acts 5:31: “Him [Jesus] hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.” The apostles were before the Jewish council, defending their preaching of Jesus. Here the exaltation of Jesus to heaven was “to give repentance to Israel” as well as forgiveness. Who is giving repentance to Israel? God is, and he is doing so by raising Christ from the dead. He was giving them the chance to turn to Christ, but we know that, by and large, this has not been the case as of yet. God granted also the Gentiles this repentance, as we see in Acts 11:18.

Acts 8:22: “Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.” Peter said this to Simon the sorcerer, when the latter offered the former an exchange of money for the ability to “give out” the Holy Ghost to others. Peter was commanding Simon to “repent of his sins” as it were, and he really needed to do so. We know that Simon already believed (Acts 8:13), and I propose that Simon really was saved because he believed. However, because of Simon’s background in the occult, his ideas about spirituality needed to drastically change (i.e. repent).

Acts 17:30: “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent.” When Paul preached to the philosophers of Athens, he commanded them to repent also. In this case, the context is much dependent on the previous verse: “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.” Because of this, it is clear that these Gentiles had to repent of the belief that God could be likened unto graven images. There is a similar usage of repentance in 2 Timothy 2:25.

In Acts 20:21, Paul, speaking to the elders in Ephesus, said that he had testified “both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” People need to turn to God and believe on Jesus Christ to be saved. This seems to be two ways of saying the same thing. Acts 26:20 has a similar meaning, but also adds that Paul had preached to “do works meet for repentance.” Just as with John the Baptist (discussed above), it only makes sense that if someone believes something, their actions would be affected.

Repentance Throughout the Epistles

2 Corinthians 7:8-10: “For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” Paul talks about how written correspondence between him and the Corinthians brought about sorrow, but that this sorrow brought about repentance in their lives. Repentance here really shows how we continually repent toward God as we move toward maturity; it is something that all believers continually do throughout their Christian lives. Obviously, this is not in the context of people getting saved; this is for believers.

2 Corinthians 12:21: “And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.” This is repentance from wickedness of believers in Corinth. This was twofold: there were people actually doing these awful things, but the church as a whole was also tolerating their behavior. The usage of repentance among believers is also used in Revelation 2-3.

Hebrews 6:1: “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God...” These believers were still discussing the fundamentals of the faith, so Paul was exhorting them to move beyond the fundamentals in their Christian lives. “Repentance from dead works” is one of those fundamentals, meaning that we stop believing that good works can save us and believe only on Jesus Christ to save us.

Hebrews 6:6: “If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” This is one of the notable verses on the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Once someone has committed this sin, they can not change and get saved. Hebrews 12:17 illustrates this inability to repent in the life of Esau.

Repentance of Sin is Hard Work

The previous discussion is not exhaustive, but touches on some of the usages of the word “repent” and “repentance.” But from all of this, we can deduce that repenting does not always mean “repenting from sins.” When it does, it often is involving believers, such as in 2 Corinthians. In addition, consider the following:

Jonah 3:10: “And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.”

The word “repent” is not used of the people of Nineveh here, only God. But the people turned from their evil way (repented of sins), and it was called “works.” Let me repeat to be clear: turning from sin is considered “works.” We are not saved by works, but by the grace of God when believe on Jesus Christ. Any Christian who turns from sins in their lives knows that it is often very hard. There are things in our lives we often do not even know are sins, and when it is revealed to us, we are convicted to change. But it is not always easy. When you have a sinful thought pattern that has been going on for years, oftentimes we cannot just switch it off like a light. It takes a lot of prayer, a lot of Bible reading, and a lot of pain. For these reasons, I suggest that repenting of sin is not prerequisite to salvation; rather, such repentance is something that goes on throughout our lifetimes as we seek to be like our Master Jesus. My conclusion is that the unregenerate man cannot turn from his sin! He literally does not have the ability to do so.

I am not saying that we should not repent of sin. We must violently eradicate every sin from our lives! The consequence of continuing in sin is discipline from God. But to say that we have to repent of our sins to be saved is to put the cart before the horse; we must believe on Jesus Christ to be saved before we can turn from our sins, an aspect of the Christian life that comes from the Holy Spirit.