The Immediate Results of Repentance

By Pastor Chris McKnight

First, let us be reminded of the irreducible definition of biblical repentance. The Revel Concise Bible Dictionary defines repentance as “a deep, radical change of both perspective and commitment, resulting in a moral and spiritual transformation … John and Jesus called the people of Israel to abandon evil and return wholeheartedly to the holiness described in Moses’ Law. Later, when Christ Himself became the issue, to repent meant to change one’s mind about Jesus and commit oneself fully to Him, the Son of God. In the NT epistles, repentance describes a personal decision that changes the direction of a person’s life. While repentance is linked with “godly sorrow” in 2 Cor. 7:10, it is more than an emotion; it is a life-transforming choice …True faith in God will always be expressed by turning from evil as one turns to the Lord.”

Can I get an Amen?

Unger’s Bible Dictionary adds that repentance is “a fundamental and thorough change in the hearts of men from sin and toward God …repentance is bound up with faith and inseparable from it, since no one can truly repent without saving faith and … there can be no saving faith without true repentance.”

Don’t you just love the truth! Once you grasp the concept of conversion both biblically and experientially, it should become self-evident that Unger’s definition hits the nail on the head.

Unger’s words are so on target, I can’t help but share more. He goes on to say repentance contains three essential elements: 1) a genuine sorrow toward God on account of sin; 2) an inward repugnance (disgust, repulsion) to sin followed by an actual forsaking of it; and 3) a humble self-surrender to the will and service of God. Here dear reader is what the gospel demands. Jesus’ gospel commands are neither works-righteousness nor easy-believism, two cancers so prevalent in our day and in our churches.

Thomas Watson, a Puritan pastor writing in the 1600’s, in his book the Doctrine of Repentance, described repentance as “a grace of God’s Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed.” Change the heart and you change the life. His perspective on how it relates to saving faith goes like this: “The two great graces essential to a saint in this life are faith and repentance. These are the two wings by which he flies to heaven.”

Repentance is foundational and basic. If you don’t start here, you don’t start. This is why Hebrews 6:1 exhorts professing Jewish Christians to “press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.” Do you see it?

Now let’s consider the immediate results of repentance. Not surprisingly, they are the same as those of faith. Four are mentioned in various texts. They happen at the same time, for all four results speak of the same glorious reality. These results are true by necessity because repentance is part of every conversion.

First is forgiveness of all sins. After Christ had died and rose from the dead, but before He ascended to the Father, He was interacting with the disciples. He reminded them of how the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms spoke of the Christ’s sufferings and His rising again. Then in Luke 24:47 He gives Luke’s version of the Great Commission: “that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

Three verses in Acts show a connection between repentance and forgiveness.

• Acts 2:38 says, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins …”
• Acts 3:19 says “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away …”
• In Acts 26:18 Jesus tells Paul that he is being sent to Gentiles “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins …”

Second, repentance results in life. In Acts 11:18, after Peter was called out on the carpet for going to Gentiles with the gospel, he gives his defense. His hearers back off and rightly conclude: “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.” Well, of course forsaking sin leads to life (abundant and eternal!) because sin leads only to death and death is the wage of unrepentant sin and Jesus died to free us from sin and Jesus is life!

Third, salvation is the result of repentance. 2 Cor. 7:10 says, “For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.” Believers are those who have heard the true gospel, had God’s Holy Spirit convict them of being sinners at war with God, and then with godly sorrow, turn from sins “without regret, leading to salvation.”

Fourth, find it yourself in this text: “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will” (2 Tim 2:24-26). Those who have not repented still belong to Satan, confined in his prison of habitual sin, kept right where he wants them, doing his will. To repent and believe is to escape.