252 – Calling – Repentance and Faith #1

SEMESTER 4

252 – Calling – Repentance and Faith #1

BIBLE INSTITUTE OF CORRESPONDENCE

COURSE: SOTERIOLOGY IV LESSON # 52
THE DOCTRINE OF CALLING
(REPENTANCE AND FAITH # 1)

Read Acts 20:20-21.

INTRODUCTION:

Repentance and faith lay at the very heart of the gospel, and are the essence of both man’s responsibility and God’s free grace. A right understanding and placement of them are fundamental to all sound soteriological doctrine. If the lost condition is self-will, self-confidence and love of darkness, then the essence of conversion is repentance and faith.

I. REPENTANCE AS A BASIC DOCTRINE

1. The Greek word associated with salvation and translated repent or repentance in the New Testament is metanoeo.
2. The word metamelomai is translated repentance in Mat. 21:32, Mat. 27:3, Rom. 11:29, II Cor. 7:8,10, Heb. 7:21.
3. The Greek word melanoeo means most simply a change of mind or thought.
4. There are basically two kinds of repentance.

i. There is legal repentance: it involves simply the fear of conse­quence. (Acts 24:24-27)
ii. There is evangelical repentance: it is wrought in godly sorrow and is the work of regeneration. (Luke 23:39-43)

II. BASIC ELEMENTS OF REPENTANCE

1. Conviction: The process of recognizing and feeling a guilt of sin.

i. This involves the realization of offending God more than the fear of punishment.
ii. Only this kind of repentance is relevant to salvation.
iii. This is the intellectual element of repentance and may chrono­logically precede it.

2. Contrition: This is the emotional attitude toward one’s acts which have offended God.

i. It is godly sorrow.
ii. It is a pleasing emotion to God. (Psa. 34:18, Psa. 51:17, Isa. 57:15, Isa. 66:2)
iii. It is my opinion that some kind and measure of conviction and contrition may operate in one’s heart long before quickening occurs.
iv. This is proven by the fact that one may sorrow over sin and yet turn away.

3. Conversion: This is the final and decisive element in true repentance that proves it is true repentance given by God. (II Tim. 2:25)

1. This is that voluntary and determined abandonment of sin. (Luke 19:8,9)

III. INITIATION AND MANIFESTATION OF REPEN­TANCE

1. It is very common to confuse repentance and its fruits. (Mat. 3:8, Acts 26:20)

III: “Turning around and going the other way.”

2. Not all guilt is conviction, not all tears are contrition, nor all change is conversion.
3. One great error is to confuse repentance and penance.

i. Catholicism is the chief author of this error.

(Read note from T. P. Simmons’s A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF BIBLE DOCTRINE pp. 298)

ii. No such translation is accurate, nor meaning conveyed by Mat. 3:2, Lk. 13:5 or Acts 20:21.

Note: Metanoeo (meta-after and noeo-think) means to think after, or different though later.

iii. The above error denies the sufficiency of Christ’s death for our sins.
iv. It implies that a man’s temporal acts can atone for sin.

4. Repentance, though a human responsibility, is a gift of God. (Acts 5:31, Acts 11:18, II Tim. 2:24,25)
5. It seems to me that we can best understand repentance by viewing it in three aspects.

i. Logically: The gift of God wrought in our hearts through grace, by the Word and the Spirit.
ii. Experimentally: The state of the soul, in which we are disposed to detest and reject our sin.
iii. Evidently: The resultant action of turning from unbelief and the pursuit of our wickedness.