Repenting of Repentance | Theocast

Hi, this is John, and today on Theocast, we're going to have a lively conversation about repentance before and after salvation. Is repentance required for salvation? And why is repentance often weaponized?

We use it as a source to question people's salvation when it should be a wonderful gift from the Father. We hope you enjoy.

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Thanks for listening.

Theocast’s Introduction to Repentance

Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed pastoral and confessional perspective.

Throw them all in there, John.

Throw them all in there. Your host today, Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, and I am John Moffitt, the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

And Justin, it is good to be with you again, my friend. We were discussing before the podcast about all the different episodes that we want to record and it's good. We're excited about a lot of upcoming episodes, stuff related to things we're studying, stuff related to our sermons, stuff related to theological culture.

So all of that to say, Justin, today's a good one. So why don't you take us in?

Yeah, happy to, man. We were talking about everything from harvests of righteousness to wedding garments.

That's right.

Good conversation. Stay tuned. All of that, and we'll see. We'll see what makes its way onto a podcast.

That's right.

Yeah, today's conversation is an important one. We're talking about repentance, which is a big word biblically, but it's also a big word in the evangelical church. It's a buzzword even. And we, like we often try to do with respect to theological matters, with respect to the gospel, we're going to try to remove some clutter from repentance, the clutter that's thrown on top of repentance, and try to point out ways that are less than helpful in terms of the ways that repentance is discussed, and things that are communicated to the saints, and ways that repentance is perhaps misunderstood.

We want to do this humbly. We want to do it charitably. But our hope for this conversation, like pretty much every conversation we have, is that it's going to point the believer to Jesus and what Christ has accomplished in our place and help us to think better about the grace of God upon us and the way that the Lord works in our lives and works upon our hearts even.

And so a few comments just to get the ball rolling downhill, and then we're going to jump in and try to tear this thing up, John. I'll just begin with this. I think a lot of times we think that repentance is something that we do, and it's talked about that way in the church sometimes.

It's implied that repentance is something that we need to make happen. And if we are serious enough about things of God, if we are sincere enough in our devotion to Him and the like, then we're going to repent, and if we're not, then we won't.

And that's less than helpful because, biblically speaking, we are not the ones who do the work of repentance, but in fact it is God who repents us in His love and grace and mercy. And so we're going to think about that some today, and that in and of itself is sort of a bombshell statement that God repents us.

We're not the ones who repent ourselves. So we're going to think about this on the front end in terms of what it looks like to even come to Christ initially. We might say some things that sound like, whoa, to the evangelical ear, but we're going to be talking in historical categories because Christians, believe it or not, have thought about this before.

And so we're going to say some things that people have said in the past.

Wait, we're not the first to read the Bible?

We're not. We're not the first to take the Bible seriously and to really wrestle with the things of the.

We're not the first to have the illumination of the Spirit?

No.

Shocking.

No, man.

It's 2 ,000 years worth. And so we're also going to talk about repentance from an ongoing perspective. I realized that I initially repent, trust Christ, but then there's this thing, ongoing repentance, aka the Christian life.

And so we're going to talk about that, hopefully in helpful ways. We're going to get into habitual sin and all kinds of things and the ways that repentance is often weaponized as a strong word, but it is sometimes held over the saints in the church in a way that's less than good.

And I hope, John, I know you're going to agree that the listener today, when we're done, we think, man, thank God for his grace.

That's right.

Thank God for Jesus Christ. And I now think about repentance, not as this threatening thing, but as the wonderful gift from God that it is.

Amen.

Hopefully, at the end of this podcast, you'll have one more end and one more reason to find Christ as sufficient to rest in. So we're going to begin with, as Justin did an excellent introduction to the podcast, as always, we're going to begin with repentance unto salvation.

This unfortunately has been a theological debate. And what Justin and I take a lot of confidence in is vintage theology. We're doing even a small series called Vintage Theology in books that we're putting out.

Theology is so old. Unfortunately, it's new. And the reason why it's new to many is that we often ignore what has come before. There's a brilliant book. We often recommend it by Sinclair Ferguson called The Whole Christ.

And in this, they're dealing with...

Go get you a copy.

It's worth it.

Yes.

Audiobook or a digital or paperback. It is worth having in your library and probably even worth reading once a year. It will be not only a theological encouragement, it will also be a historical information that you would want to know and not forget so that we don't repeat the same mistakes once again.

We give it out like hotcakes here at CBC.

That's right. Justin, do us a favor real quick. Give us the 30 to 45 second debate that was happening, and then I'll continue my thought.

The Marrow Controversy and Repentance Unto Salvation

Here.

So what you're referring to is the marrow controversy, as it's so called, from the 18th century in the Church of Scotland, which was a Presbyterian situation, a Presbyterian church. And the marrow controversy was sparked by a book called The Marrow of Modern Divinity, written in the middle of the 17th century, sort of resurfaced and was circulating amongst some Scottish Presbyterian ministers in the early 18th century, in the 1720s.

And the reason this book became a thing is that there was a rural presbytery known as the Octorator Presbytery, and as a part of examining ministerial candidates, one of the questions they were asked was effectively this, I'm simplifying the wording, must a person forsake sin in order to come to Christ?

Must one forsake sin in order to come to Christ? And that question and how people were responding to that question in a rural presbytery in Scotland ended up becoming a huge issue at the General Assembly and becoming a huge issue in the Church of Scotland that divided its ministers.

Some were on the side of saying, yes, you do need to forsake sin in order to come to.

Jesus.

And then there were others known as the Marrow Brethren, Thomas Boston being maybe the most notable of those, who said, no, we don't need to do anything in order to come to Christ. We come to Christ in faith, and we hold Jesus out to all people like that.

Turn to Him in faith, trust Him. And they were called the Marrow Brethren because Thomas Boston and others in that camp were sympathetic and even in favor of, were endorsing, should I say, this book called The Marrow.

Of Modern Divinity.

And other ministers that were maybe in the opposing camp did not think very highly of that book. And so that book kind of became the dividing line in some ways. And just truth in advertising, I mean, here at Theocast, John and I both are advocates of both, not only Sinclair Ferguson's The Whole Christ, but also of The Marrow of Modern Divinity written by Edward Fisher with expansive footnotes by Thomas Boston.

It is a great read, really clear on law and gospel, really clear on covenant theology, really clear on legalism and antinomianism and the gospel. Super important stuff. So that is what John is referring to in even bringing up The Whole Christ and bringing up this question of repentance unto salvation.

What does that look like?

That's right.

Must one turn from sin, forsake sin in order to come to Jesus? Man, that's a lightning rod.

It is.

We'll use passages in scripture. It says, repent and believe, return, repent of your sin, turn, turn now. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. And when we isolate passages, we need to learn how to, let me just finish that thought.

When we isolate passages away from scripture and we don't look at the whole of scripture, we can make wrong theological conclusions. So one of the things that is helpful about debates within the evangelical history is that we can see where people have made mistakes, have made conclusions, and even using scriptures to argue for these.

Part of why Calvinism exists is that it was a debate that was happening around the nature of the human heart and the nature of the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit. So you have this first going on, and then you have the issue with the Merrow men later on.

The human nature is to always grasp for power and capacity, and the gospel is the good news for those who finally come to the grips that they have no power and they have no capacity. What's the most important part about this idea of repentance and why we're talking about you need to repent of your repentance, and that you need to understand that if you have faith in Christ and you turn to faith in Christ away from trusting in your own righteousness, your own capacities, or whatever else you thought you could use to gain God's acceptance, that was actually granted to you.

We learned from scripture, and it has been affirmed throughout history, that repentance here's the key, Justin, and I'll let you speak into this repentance is a fruit of faith. It is not partnered with faith.

In other words, God doesn't bring the faith side, and you bring the repentance side, and now the two are married and you're saved. You cannot turn from your sin. You can't even turn from your own faith of trusting in your own works to turning to Christ unless you are brought to life.

So what are some passages that we're going to use in order to prove that repentance is a fruit of faith? It is not required of it.

It's a fruit of regeneration. It's a fruit of the new birth. And brief interjection here on just faith and repentance and all these kinds of things. There's a tendency in our day to collapse repentance into the definition of what saving faith is, and that's a problem.

The reason that's a problem is because Orthodox people through history, the Reformed even through history, would have certainly agreed with what I'm about to say. Where there is saving faith, there will be repentance.

Amen.

But we cannot weave repentance into the definition of saving faith or we kill the whole thing. We need to keep faith and repentance appropriately distinct, though we're acknowledging that they're going to come together because they are both, in this sense, fruits of regeneration, fruits of the new birth.

And now we're getting into a conversation about the order of salutis, the order of salvation and how the Lord works. That's another podcast for another day. But right now, we're going to talk about the fact that God is the one who repents us in giving us life, and he unites us to Christ by faith, all of this through his miraculous and sovereign work on our hearts in giving us the new birth.

Two big passages that immediately come to mind, and we can maybe talk about more, but I'm just going to go ahead and launch these across the bow. Number one, Ezekiel 36, so we're going to go Old Testament.

Then in the New Testament, Ephesians 2. I think these are both super helpful. Do you want to take those one at a time, or do you want me to just riff on them? What do you think?

Justin Perdue Yeah, well, starting in Ezekiel 36, and I'll let you bring this over to Ephesians 2, you have a prophecy, and it's a very important prophecy of a new covenant that's coming.

Justin Perdue. Massively important.

Justin Perdue. Right? The Old Covenant.

Justin Perdue This was our call to worship on Sunday.

Justin Perdue. Come on, brother.

Justin Perdue. As God would have it.

Justin Perdue. I'm about to preach Ezekiel this summer, so I'm looking forward to this section.

Justin Perdue. That's fun.

Yeah.

Ezekiel, it's the prophecy of the new covenant, a new promise, something the Old Covenant exposed our problem. The Old Covenant was used as a guide for the flesh because it could not guide itself. It could not govern itself, and Ezekiel comes in along with Jeremiah, and they prophesy that coming soon is going to be the fulfillment of this promise, which is going to be the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It says in Ezekiel that he's going to pull out our heart of stone and put in our heart of flesh and will cause you to walk in my ways. The difference being that one was dead, heart of stone, spiritually speaking, and now they have a living flesh with inside them, and it's all metaphor, talking about the regenerative work of the spirit.

Now we have this capacity to then do something, and what is it that we can do? Well, it's faith and repentance, right? He goes, I will cause you to walk in my ways. Well, to walk in his ways would mean to stop walking in the former ways, which is what Justin is going to now talk about in Ephesians 2.

Really quick on Ezekiel 36, a beautiful passage that begins grounded in God's faithfulness and God doing this. He's not even saying, I'm going to do it for your sake. Of course, there's other places in Scripture where he's going to say, for your sake, I remember my covenant, but he's going to say here, there's something even bigger than you going on.

I'm doing this for my own sake because I've always planned to save you. I'm going to do it to vindicate myself before the nations who mock you because you've profaned my name. I'm going to save you, and I'm going to do this for the sake of my holy name, and I'm going to, like you said, I'm going to take out your dead heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

I'm going to put my spirit within you. So what a promise that that is. And like you said, it dovetails beautifully with Jeremiah 31, which is another beautiful passage and promise of the new covenant.

But now moving into Ephesians 2, many are going to be familiar with the early verses of that chapter where Paul just hammers us with what we were naturally in Adam. We were enslaved to our passions and cravings and desires.

We were dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked. We were following the course of the world. We were in bondage to Satan, and this is just what we were. We were by nature children of wrath.

And then he says, but God, because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ. So again, grounds it in the Lord. It's but God. I mean, many people have observed that, you know, what a pivot that is.

One of the greatest pivots and one of the greatest conjunctions in all of scripture is that but God right there in Ephesians 2, 4, because here's what we were, and we've moved immediately from man's hopelessness and bondage to sin to God's magnificent salvation that he's worked for us in Christ and what he does for us.

And so we would be just painfully wrong to talk about repentance at all without bringing this up, that if we're talking about repentance on the front end, repentance unto eternal life, well, what is it?

How does this occur? God does something.

That's right.

God shows up and does a thing in our lives, and what it results in, the new birth results in us trusting Christ. We turn to Christ in faith, and it results in repentance. And I'm just going to go ahead and insert this now.

We're going to keep talking about this, I'm sure. What is repentance at the heart of it? Repentance, I don't think this can be said enough. The Greek word metanoia would mean, if you break it apart, a change of mind, and that's.

Helpful.

And then we ask the question, well, a change of mind about what? And it would mean a change of mind about God, who he is, his nature, his law that reflects his character, a change of mind about ourselves.

In fact, I'm not good. In fact, I'm not sufficient, and I fail to meet the test of God's law. It crushes me, and he's holy, and I'm not. And now, therefore, what do I need? I need salvation. I need redemption.

I need righteousness. I need forgiveness, because I don't have any of that. And where am I going to find it? Well, I'm going to find it where God tells me to find it, namely in his son.

That's right.

Like, so I'm agreeing with God about all that, right? And that's what repentance is at the heart of it.

That's right.

And so God is the one who does that in me. I'm not the one who musters that up.

That's so good. Another way of saying what you just put beautifully is that repentance is not a transaction.

It is not.

Right.

And that's how I think it's mostly presented is that God presents his side, and then he calls you to then do your side, which is to repent. So God offers salvation and then says, it's yours once you repent, and then you can have it.

And people are going to call us heretic, but this is what the debate really is about. When you go back to the Octorota Creed, even when there's confusion here in Lordship, salvation, and in that whole movement, where I understand there's a pushback against easy believism, you can't just say something with your mouth, and then there's nothing in your actions, which I agree.

James talked about this as well. No disagreement there. But to then require something which can only be a fruit of the Spirit, it can only be something that is granted to you, is a confusion. When someone says, but the Bible says to repent and believe.

Well, yes, because when someone does, whose credit do they give to that? I mean, Justin, if you keep reading in Ephesians 2, what does it say? That this is a gift of God, Ephesians 2 .89.

Meaning the faith that you have and all of salvation, gift of God that no man may boast.

Right. And what was predestined before the world began, your good works that you should walk in them, which the good work means the repentance, right? So it's important to note that if you have faith in Christ and you agree with Christ about your, you've had a change of mind, right?

I am a sinner. He is a savior. Without him saving me, I am doomed. That's the change of mind. If you agree with him on that, you can then say, God has granted me faith and repentance. A lot of times, Justin, people struggle with resting in Christ because what do they fear?

I haven't done what enough? I haven't repented fully. I haven't repented enough. And they're always wondering, have I done enough? And it's because they think it's a transaction and it's not. So this is really dangerous and it's really hard.

I think you used Ephesians. I'm in James, so I kind of just use whatever I'm preaching at the moment. But James says this about the nature of our relationship with God. He just got done talking about if you give in to temptation, it's because of your own desires.

And he's talking about the nature of our hearts. And then he reflects back on their salvation. James 1 .18, it says, of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

It's his will that determines our faith and repentance. It is not transactional. It's so hard to believe this, but the human heart wants to believe that we can look to something we have done and find confidence in that.

And you can never do that. It is important. You said order of solution. It is a podcast for another day, but I think we need to hit on it just for a few seconds before we move on, is that the way in which scripture presents how our interaction with God happens is you were dead at birth.

The gospel is preached over you. The Holy Spirit comes, opens your eyes, your ears, brings you to life. You have faith and repent. And then you produce the good works of fruit. I mean, the fruits of good works.

It has to come in that order. Otherwise, you have reasons to boast and you have also reasons to doubt, have I done enough?

If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called Faith vs. Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. And if you struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a Reformed confessional perspective.

You can get your free copy at theocast .org slash primer.

Faith, Repentance, and the New Birth

Totally.

And I think in talking about faith and repentance and seeing how they're going to come together, but they're not one in the same. Let me just put it this way. There's a lot that could be said here, but I think for the purpose of our conversations today, this is enough.

If there is a turning, let's just put it this way. If there is a turning going on when we are regenerated, which you and I are going to argue, absolutely, there's a turning.

From sin.

Yeah.

Yeah, there is a turning from sin, but the way that we're going to say it, right? And this is how the Mero brethren said it. And this is how many through history have said it. The emphasis is on Christ.

Yeah, that's right.

Trust Christ, turn to Christ. Whereas I think oftentimes the opposite emphasis is made, turn from sin.

Yeah, that's what I meant to say.

Sorry.

Right.

Whereas we're going to say, no, turn to Christ in faith. And of course, if you're turning to Christ in faith, what is assumed? What's incorporated in that turning to Christ? Well, I'm turning away from me.

Okay.

And so I'm turning away from me in that I no longer am trusting that I'm good enough. I'm no longer trusting that I am righteous enough. I am turning to Christ for righteousness. And I am turning from my sin because I know that that is what has damned and ruined me.

And I'm turning to Christ because He is the one who has atoned for my sin, who has absolved me of guilt, and in whom I find forgiveness. Right? So the emphasis of sinner, look to Christ. I mean, I hear Charles Spurgeon in my head right now.

Oh, sinner, look to Christ. I'm hearing Edward Fisher, page 132 of The Mirror of Modern Divinity, where Evangelista, the minister of the gospel, is talking to Neophytus, the new Christian, and he tells him, like, look to Christ.

And just like Paul said to the Philippian jailer, and Silas said to the Philippian jailer, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. So I say unto you, you know, look to Him and believe in Him.

Don't do anything. Don't work anything. Don't render anything unto God. Receive it. Receive the treasure that is Jesus Christ. And so that's the preaching of Jesus. You know, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ, Romans 10.

That's right.

It's the preaching of Christ and Christ being held out to the sinner that is the means that the Lord uses to give new birth and new life. And so what we want to do is say, sinner, look to Christ, turn to Jesus in faith, which is going to necessarily, of course, mean I'm turning from myself and I'm turning from my sin, but we don't want to invert that and say, turn from sin, turn from you, and make that the emphasis.

And that, in some ways, is what The Mirror of Controversy was sparked by. Do I need to do anything in terms of a forsaking of sin to be fit to come to Jesus? And the answer to that question is absolutely not.

No.

And this is when people say, well, then, John, how do I know that I'm saved? At its core value, at the core of the gospel, you have to agree on two things. Do you believe that you are condemned before God?

Your sins condemn you. The nature of who you are condemns you.

And that's repentance.

That's repentance. And the second thing is, do you believe the only source of life and hope is in Christ Jesus?

Say it to him, John.

If you say yes to that, and then you say, the third question is, do you believe that he's sufficient to save you? And if the answer to that is yes, then you keep your eyes there while the Spirit begins his work in you.

I mean, we're going to make a transition now from regenerative work to the ongoing of the Christian life.

Because this is where it really gets sticky.

It does.

Look into Hebrews, and I'll grab Hebrews, maybe even 2 Peter 1 .9 or some other passage I want to use. But Hebrews is such a great example. Because it says, you were just talking about, it's not turning from sin.

It's not stop sinning.

It's not put down the bottle and come to Christ or whatever. It's not that.

Well, not even that. It's not just put down the bottle, like stop sinning. What's interesting is that there's always a focal point. James says it this way. You can't hold on to Christ impartiality. The point of it is, you are letting go of faith in Christ, and you're holding on to something else.

He's saying you have to hold on to Christ. Another way of this is Hebrews. What it says, looking unto Jesus, right? What do we set aside? The weight and the sin. And it's not just, now set those aside.

He's saying, no, no, no. Where is your attention? The author, the one who started it. It's so beautiful. That who penned your salvation, and that will write the final statement of glory.

He's the perfecter.

That's right. He's the author and the finisher of your faith. That's where your eyes and attention go. What's interesting is that the ongoing Christian life, this is a controversial statement, but I'm going to make it, and we'll look at it somewhere from other passages, is that no one can efficiently and sufficiently repent of all of their sins while as a Christian.

It can't happen.

You cannot repent adequately. So I think a lot of times people ask that question. Have I repented well enough? Have I repented enough? And the answer to that question is most certainly no. You absolutely have not.

This is why Luther and that's not a justification for sin to be clear.

And it's not also a saying like, don't worry about repentance. I mean, just let's not be stupid.

Okay.

Like when we have this conversation. So, but like Martin Luther, what we're saying is two things. And I mean, many have said this, but Luther, you know, perhaps famously in history, would say that we need to repent of our repenting.

And what he in part meant was we don't repent well enough. So let's quit acting like we do. You know, we're not saved by the adequacy of our repentance. We're not saved by the sufficiency of our confession of sin or whatever it may be, but we are saved by Jesus Christ.

And what we are doing is living a life now as Christians of ongoing perpetual repentance.

That's right.

So this is something we've said before. We're going to keep saying it. The posture of the Christian life is repentance.

That's right.

And what do we mean? We mean at least a couple of things in an ongoing way repeatedly. I mean, throughout the day, throughout the weeks and the months and the years, what are we doing? We are self-consciously agreeing with God.

We continue to agree with Him. We agree with His word. We agree with what He requires in His law. We agree with Him about what's good and bad. We agree with Him about sin. We agree with Him about our standing before Him, what He's done for us in Christ.

We affirm, you know, what He says to us about being His kids and about being justified and being adopted and all these things. We're agreeing with God. So perpetually we're doing that. And we are siding with God against our sin.

So I'm going to say both of those together in a succinct way. The difference between Christians and people who are not is not that Christians don't sin and that other people do. The difference is that Christians have agreed with God about our sin, and we have sided with Him against our sin.

That's right.

That's it.

And so that's what we mean in saying we are repentant in an ongoing way. I continue to agree with the Lord, and I continue to take God's side in this whole thing in saying, yes, your law is good and my sin is wrong.

And I'm trusting your promises. I'm heeding your warnings. Give me grace.

That's right.

Well, another way of saying this is why else would we need a great high priest who is ever interceding for us day and night? Why else would we need that if our repentance was sufficient?

Yeah, if we weren't always sinning.

That's right.

Our repentance is not adequate enough to maintain or confirm our salvation or our right standing before God in a relationship with the Father. This is why we are told that He prays for us in ways that we don't even know how to pray for ourselves.

So it's important for us to understand that repentance is not a way in which we maintain our relationship with God. I would put it this way. When you read Hebrews 4 and it says that we are to run boldly into the throne room of grace and ask for mercy and grace in a time of need, what you're doing is at that moment you are running where you need to be because to receive mercy means you failed and to receive grace means you need strength to believe in the mercy.

So it's important to understand that repentance is for our benefit. First John 1 .9, right? When we confess our sins, we have the confidence that every time we do, we are met with mercy, mercy, mercy.

What I love about James is he says, but there's more grace, but there's more grace. Repentance is our exposure to the grace of God. Every time we acknowledge we have failed Him.

Repentance, Church Discipline, and the Battle Against Habitual Sin

All right.

So let me say this. I'm just going to throw it in now because I may as well because somebody out there is going to be like, okay, well, fellows, you guys are in churches where you practice church discipline, and you guys will remove people who are quote-unquote unrepentant from your fellowships, right?

And we would say, yes, we do. So what's at stake here? If you're telling me that repentance is for my benefit, then why is it that I would be removed from the church if I'm unrepentant? Am I not the only one that suffers?

To which we would say, no, a person who is living in unrepentant sin is in danger. You are in spiritual peril.

Why?

Because you have ceased to agree with God.

That's right.

That's the issue. Here's the thing. So what happens with us in our sin? We become litigators. We enter into litigation with God to debate with Him about whether or not what we're doing is wrong.

You need to fire that lawyer.

And we take our side.

That's right.

Because we decide that either through twisting and manipulating the scriptures or disregarding them altogether, that we're going to do what we want to do, and it's okay. That will ruin us.

That's right.

And that's why, as a tool of God's love and protection, He says, when people are doing that, when people are celebrating immorality, or when people are defending just heinous behavior because, well, grace or whatever, we need to say, no, no, no, no.