Repentance Granted

Repentance is the work of God in the soul on the moral side. I stress this: it is the work of God. It is inseparable from the new nature, and flows from the energy of the Spirit in the same way that faith in Christ does. Repentance is a change of mind as regards sin, self and God, but it goes beyond a purely intellectual process and is a matter of conscience in the light of God. Now men are responsible to be repentant, for God commands all men everywhere to repent (see Acts 17: 30) and to “turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance” (Acts 26: 20). However, men are “alienated” from God and “enemies in mind by wicked works” (Col. 1: 21) and incapable of repentance. Indeed, “the god of this world has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ, who is [the] image of God, should not shine forth [for them]” (2 Cor. 4: 4). It is God alone who can bring about the necessary change in an unbeliever’s mind—hence, “God has to the nations also granted repentance to life” (Acts 11: 18, my emphasis). It is of God, for it is “the goodness of God” that “leads thee to repentance” (Rom. 2: 4). Now many think (and teach) that what leads them to repentance is their perception of God’s goodness—essentially, they see some merit in themselves. However, the context of the verse is the “judgment of God” (vs. 2, 3, 5) and the sinner repents in the light of that judgment. The true sense of “the goodness of God leads thee to repentance” (v4) is that the sinner would not repent at all if God in His goodness had not led him to it. As John 3: 20 says, “every one that does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light that his works may not be shewn as they are”.

   Now repentance is not faith, nor faith repentance but they are inseparable in connection with the Gospel. “He that believes on the Son” (John 3: 36) implies repentance, and “Repent therefore and be converted” (Acts 3: 19) involves faith. Arguing over which comes first chronologically is futile, for practically, faith and repentance are simultaneous. “Repentance towards God” implies “faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20: 21) as equally as that faith towards Christ implies repentance towards God. The assassin’s hand that clutches the knife must open it before it can grasp the unexpected gift offered by his victim, and opening that hand, though a single act, has a double aspect and purpose. Accepting the gift implies a turning away from the crime on which the heart was bent, and it was the gift that worked the change. Faith is the open hand relative to the gift; repentance is the same hand relative to the knife it has flung away. Hence in Acts 11: 18 Luke records that “God has to the nations also granted repentance to life”, while in Acts 14: 27, Paul and Barnabas related that God “had opened a door of faith to the nations”. This “conversion of [those of] the nations” (Acts 15: 3) could therefore be described in different ways, but the initiator was always God and not man. It was God that opened the door of faith, and it was God that granted repentance to life.