Zane Hodges earned his Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, where he then taught in the New Testament Literature and Exegesis department for 28 years. He currently pastors Victor Street Church and carries on an extensive writing ministry. Among his books are Absolutely Free!, Grace in Eclipse, and Power to Make War. His email address is zane3@ix.netcom.com.
Repentance And Idol Worship
Introduction
The story of the conversion of Cornelius [2] helps us to understand another important text on repentance. This text is found in the account of Paul’s speech on the Areopagus (Mars Hill) in the sophisticated pagan city of Athens (Acts 17:22–31).
As presented by Luke, Paul’s speech on the Areopagus has as its central concern the paganism that was everywhere so evident in Athens. Indeed the speech is even a classic model of the biblical and Jewish case against idol worship. There is not so much as a word in this speech about sinful practices. Instead its focus is on sinful worship.
It is from this sinful worship—from idolatry—that Paul calls on his readers to repent. He declares: Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:30–31; underlining added).
Obviously, the pagan idolatry of Paul’s hearers stood in the way of their turning to the true and living God in faith. No one who believed in the worship of images was prepared to accept the exclusive claims of the Creator and of His Son, Jesus Christ. According to Paul, the God he proclaimed was the Judge of all the world. Thus a man’s eternal destiny was determined by the true and living God, not by any of the countless pagan deities that Athens honored with her idols.
Thus Paul’s call for repentance from idolatry was intended to prepare his hearers to have dealings with the God who would judge the world in righteousness.
Cornelius, as we have previously seen,3 had already given up his idolatry before Peter came to his house. He was ready for Peter’s message. But where this readiness was not present—as it was not on the Areopagus—Paul’s message must lay the groundwork for that by challenging his hearers to turn to God from idols (see 1 Thess. 1:9).
Let us remember here too that the speech recorded in Acts 17:22–31 is the merest fragment of what Paul must have said on this occasion. That he must have mentioned faith in Christ is shown by the fact that some men joined him and believed (17:34; underlining added). But Luke’s purpose behind his record here is to show how Paul dealt with idolatry in the Gentile world. His purpose is not to give a complete account of all that Paul said.
Clearly we see here how repentance can prepare the way for faith. It is no different than when an unsaved person turns in disgust from a sinful lifestyle and looks for a relationship with God. Repentance does not save him, but it prepares him to come to faith.
Thus we can more accurately appreciate Paul’s summary of his own preaching as the process of testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21; underlining added; see also Acts 26:20). As this statement plainly shows, repentance and faith are by no means synonymous. They are distinct issues.
Conclusion
Luke’s treatment of the theme of repentance and forgiveness in connection with the Gentile mission has two significant aspects. (1) Repentance from pagan idolatry is an important step toward faith wherever idolatry has created a barrier to coming to faith in Christ. (2) Faith in Christ not only bestows eternal life on the Gentile believer but bestows forgiveness as well.
Thus, at the moment he believes in Christ, the Gentile believer enters into personal harmony with the God from whom he had been estranged.
Repentance in Palestine
Many of the New Testament references to repentance refer to the situation in Palestine during, and immediately following, the ministry of John the Baptist and of our Lord Jesus Christ. No discussion of repentance would be complete without considering these passages.
In the process of examining this class of passages, we will encounter some special historical situations that are crucial to completing our study on repentance. Even if they are not mentioned specifically, passages that are to be understood in the light of the following discussion are: Matthew 3:2, 8, 11; 4:17; 9:13; Mark 1:4, 15; 2:17; 6:12; Luke 3:3, 8; 5:32; and Acts 5:31; 13:24.
Repentance and John the Baptist
We can hardly find a better summary of the ministry of John the Baptist than the one Paul gives in Acts 19:4. There he is addressing some disciples who seemed to lack the gift of the Spirit. His question to them had been: Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? (Acts 19:2).
To this question the disciples replied, We have not so much as heard if the Holy Spirit is here
(Acts 19:2; underlining added). The words “is here” translate a Greek phrase that can be rendered simply “is.” From this fact many have drawn the conclusion that these disciples of John the Baptist had no knowledge of the Third Person of the Trinity, i.e., they did not know He existed.
This is highly improbable, since John the Baptist, whose disciples they were, preached about the Spirit (Mark 1:8 and other places). But a clue to the real meaning of the text, we find in John 8:39.
In that passage John explains a statement made by our Lord by saying, But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Spirit was not yet given [supplied by NKJV], because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:39). The literal rendering would be: “the Spirit was not yet”!
Both in Acts 19:4 and John 7:39, the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is described by a simple “to be” verb. Since the author of the Fourth Gospel was almost certainly originally a disciple of the Baptist (i.e., he is the unnamed disciple in John 1:35–40), we probably have here an expression used among the disciples of the Baptist. To say that “the Holy Spirit is not yet” or “is” was to state that He had not yet come or had come. This alone makes real sense of Acts 19:2.
Once he has discovered that these men did not yet possess the gift of the Spirit, Paul asks a further question: Into what then were you baptized? (19:3). (That Paul should think of baptism here is a most interesting fact to which we will return later in the section.)4 The men reply, Into John’s baptism (19:3).
As soon as Paul has ascertained that these disciples were John’s disciples, he reminds them of the nature of John’s ministry. His words are, John baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus (Acts 19:4). The result of this explanation by Paul is that these men were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus (19:5) and then—but only then—do they receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of Paul’s hands (19:6).
For the moment we must especially note the preparatory nature of John’s ministry proclaiming repentance. It was designed to prepare the people for faith. Thus far, at least, this is consistent with what we have already learned about the relationship between repentance and faith.
The Fruits of Repentance
Paul’s summary of John’s ministry is perfectly accurate. But the Gospels give us somewhat more detail. For one thing, they inform us that John called for the production of fruits worthy of repentance (Matthew 3:8; Luke 3:8).
If we ask what these fruits were to be, the answer is perfectly clear in Luke 3:10–14 where, in response to a series of questions asking, What shall we do? (vv. 10, 12, 14), the people, tax collectors and soldiers are all informed about the actions that constitute the fruit of repentance. Needless to say, had such actions been carried out on a wide scale the entire atmosphere in Israel would have been changed, and the nation would have been preparing itself for faith in the One coming after John.
Although the simple gospel of faith in Christ specifies no preconditions at all, the fact remains that a repentant heart is obviously better soil for faith than an unrepentant one. It is one thing to say that repentance facilitates faith in Christ for eternal life—the Bible teaches that. It is quite another thing to say that repentance is a requirement for eternal life. That the Bible does not teach.
But even in the ministry of John the Baptist the theme of impending temporal judgment is a part of his message about repentance.
The Ax and the Fire
When John the Baptist exhorted his audience to bear fruits worthy of repentance (Matthew 3:8; Luke 3:8), he warned them that even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (Matthew 3:10–11; Luke 3:9). There is little reason to doubt that here John was speaking prophetically about the impending disaster that was to come on the nation of Israel during the calamitous war with Rome in A.D. 66-70.
In the light of all we have seen about repentance up to now, there is nothing to commend the view that John is referring to the fire of eternal damnation. Fire is a frequent Old Testament image of God’s temporal wrath and there is no justification for not taking it that way here. See, for example, its repeated use in this way in Amos 1:4, 7, 10, 12, 14; 2:2, 5. (For the imagery of God’s wrath as fire burning up trees, see Jeremiah 21:12–14; 22:6–7; Ezekiel 15:1–8 [the wood of the vine]; see also Isaiah 9:19; Jeremiah 48:45; Hosea 8:14; Nahum 1:6; Zephaniah 1:18; the references could be multiplied.)
Clearly John’s call to repentance accompanied by its fruits adheres firmly to the Bible’s fundamental concept of repentance. By repenting sincerely so that the appropriate actions follow, human beings are invited to escape, or avoid, the temporal judgments of God. But such repentance can lead on to the experience of forgiveness of sin and harmony with God. This too was a part of John’s message.
Baptism for Forgiveness
Two texts in the Gospels (Mark 1:4 and Luke 3:3) directly declare that John preached a baptism of repentance for the remission [forgiveness] of sins. It is plain, therefore, that John’s audience was being told that the baptism by which they expressed their repentance was a condition for the forgiveness of their sins.
In other words, they could not achieve harmony with God apart from receiving baptism. But it does not follow from this that forgiveness was bestowed at once on all who were baptized—or even upon those who did this sincerely (in contrast to going along with the crowds). As we have already suggested, true harmony with God our Maker can only begin when we enter His family by way of new birth. Until then, the unsaved man is dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:5).
As we have seen, even Cornelius who had sincerely turned to God with actions that God acknowledged, did not have either peace or forgiveness before he believed in Christ (cf. Acts 10:36, 43). In the same way, we should conclude that just as John’s baptism was intended to prepare men for faith in the Messiah who would soon appear, so also it prepared them to receive the forgiveness which only faith in Him could give.
But there was a difference from the experience of Cornelius. Cornelius received forgiveness before water baptism. The Jews of Palestine could not.
Palestine after the Cross
We need to recall that impressively large numbers of Israelites accepted John’s baptism. Mark records that all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins (Mark 1:5; underlining added). Matthew and Luke refer as well to all the region around the Jordan (Matthew 3:5, underlining added; Luke 3:8). What amounted to a national revival appeared to be taking place.
But the spiritual movement begun by John eventually collapsed. True, many Israelites believed in the One John had proclaimed (and thus entered into harmony with God through forgiveness of sins), but many more did not. What had begun as a wave of national repentance was reversed over time into a national rejection of God’s Christ, with the people loudly demanding that Jesus be crucified and invoking the dreadful curse, His blood be on us and on our children (Matthew 27:25).
This tragic departure from an initial movement in the direction of faith in Christ and harmony with His heavenly Father left Israel more estranged than ever from her God. It is not at all incomprehensible that God should withhold the privilege of harmony with Himself until a repentant Israelite submitted to baptism in the name of His beloved Son, whom Israel had crucified. The evidence of the book of Acts points unmistakably to the conclusion that God insisted on this kind of baptism before He would forgive the sins of the believing Israelites or grant them the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Let it be clearly said that the simple way of eternal salvation was not changed, even for the Israelites of Palestine. Eternal life is always received on the basis of faith alone in Christ alone. Thus the Judge of all mankind accepts the faith of any and every human being who believes in Christ for eternal life. No such person is in any danger at all of eternal damnation.
But forgiveness, as we have seen, is personal and not judicial. God may set whatever terms He wishes for the restoration of harmony with Himself. The evidence of Acts loudly proclaims the special conditions that obtained in Palestine immediately after the cross.
Baptism in Jesus’ Name
The disciples of John whom Paul encountered in Acts 19 were obviously Palestinians. We must conclude this from the fact that the ministry of John the Baptist was confined to that land. But equally obvious is the fact that though they had believed (Acts 19:2), this did not immediately confer on them the gift of the Holy Spirit. Among Palestinians, God was only bestowing the Holy Spirit on baptized believers.
Paul knew this, of course, and when he discerns that the twelve do not yet have the Spirit, he turns at once to the issue of baptism. And though these men have been baptized, their baptism was with John’s baptism (Acts 19:3). Thereupon Paul proceeds to baptize them in the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 19:5), after which he laid hands on them and the Holy Spirit came upon them (Acts 19:6).
It is perfectly obvious that baptism in the name of Jesus is the issue here. For these men it had to precede the gift of the Spirit.
What we see in Acts 19 replicates what occurs in Samaria in Acts 8. The converts of Philip the evangelist receive the Holy Spirit only after baptism and only after the apostles Peter and John come down to them, pray for them and bestow the Spirit on them exactly as Paul did to the twelve in Acts 19. The Samaritans too, of course, were Palestinians and had been exposed to the ministry of John and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The same thing may be said of Acts 2:38, a verse widely misunderstood and misapplied. When the Pentecost audience heard Jesus proclaimed as both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36), they indicated their belief of this truth with the words, Men and brethren, what shall we do (Acts 2:37)? But to believe that Jesus is the Christ is to be born again and possess eternal life (John 20:30, 31; 1 John 5:1). Thus at this point the hearers who asked this question had been eternally saved!
What did they lack? They lacked harmony with God, whom they had so deeply offended. What did they need to do? Two things: Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38). What would happen if they did these things? The answer is that they would receive remission [forgiveness] of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38).
There is no need here to attempt, as many have done, to make this famous verse (Acts 2:38) say the same thing as John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47; and many other verses. It does not say the same thing! Why not? Because eternal life and forgiveness of sins are not the same thing! The former is required for eternal salvation, the latter for harmony with God.
Paul, the Jewish Model
We have seen already that Cornelius is the classic model for Gentile salvation. He believes in Christ and immediately receives the forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit. Paul, however, is the model for the salvation of Palestinian Jews.
If we ask at what point Paul believed that Jesus was the Christ and received eternal life, there can be only one answer. It happened on the road to Damascus when the Risen Savior responded to Paul’s question, Who are you, Lord? with this reply, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting (Acts 9:5). There is no reason to doubt that Paul believed these words then and there and thus received eternal salvation (1 John 5:1).
But not forgiveness of sins. Indeed, it is only from his speech to the Jerusalem mob in Acts 22 that we actually learn when Paul was forgiven. It should be noted in regard to this speech that Paul is deliberately identifying with his Palestinian audience in order to draw them to faith in Christ (see Acts 22:3). His experience can be theirs as well. So it is only here that we discover some details of the visit of Ananias to Paul that are not given in Luke’s other accounts of Paul’s conversion (Acts 9 and 26).
In Acts 22 alone do we learn that Ananias said to Paul on that occasion, And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins , calling on the name of the Lord (Acts 22:16; underlining added). Here we note once again the intimate connection between baptism and the forgiveness of sins for a Palestinian convert (even though he is in Damascus at this moment!). That Paul also received the Holy Spirit at this time is indirectly suggested by Acts 9:17. Thus Paul’s own experience of conversion fundamentally reproduces the sequence found in Acts 2:36–38.
Paul’s total conversion experience, therefore, is the model for the conversion of Palestinian Jews: that is, (1) faith for eternal life and (2) baptism for the forgiveness of sins, followed by (3) the gift of the Holy Spirit. Cornelius on the other hand is the Gentile model: (1) faith immediately bringing eternal life, forgiveness of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, followed by (2) water baptism.
When these sequences are kept in mind, the confusion many have felt about certain statements in Acts is removed. For Cornelius, repentance preceded the whole process though it was not a condition for salvation. For Paul, as for all Palestinians, repentance preceded forgiveness and was a condition for that, though not for eternal salvation.
Of course, the text of Acts 22 does not specifically indicate exactly when Paul repented. But this could hardly have occurred before he received an answer to his question, Who are you, Lord?
Only after the reply, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting (Acts 22:8) could he have had the information needed for repentance. So here, clearly, belief that the glorified Jesus was the Christ necessarily preceded his repentance. This parallels the faith implicitly expressed in Acts 2:37, which precedes the call to repentance in Acts 2:38.
The parallelism between Paul’s experience and that of the converts of Acts 2 is thus very precise.
The Gift of the Holy Spirit
Receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, of course, is not identical with being born again by the Spirit. New birth has always been a condition for entrance into the kingdom of God (John 3:3), but the gift of the Spirit, which creates our union with the spiritual body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13), has only been given since Pentecost (John 7:39). Old Testament saints did not have such a union with Christ, which exists only by means of the permanent indwelling of God’s Spirit (see the contrast between with you and in you in John 14:17).
The gift of the Spirit, of course, is not merited in any way by any act or deed. What could earn us such a gift? But in Acts this special gift was only bestowed on those who obtained harmony with God through the forgiveness of sins. This is true of Gentiles and Jews alike, though with Gentiles it is simultaneous with everything else the believer gets at the moment of faith.
Eternal life is a free gift given to all who believe. The gift of the Spirit is God’s gift to that circle of people that is in harmony with Himself. It is like the man who goes out at the Christmas season to buy gifts for all his friends. The fact that he does not also buy gifts for everyone in his neighborhood does not make his presents for his friends anything less than free gifts.
Eternal life is God’s universal gift, offered to all humanity on the basis of faith alone. The gift of the Holy Spirit is His restricted gift, given to all who have come into harmony with Himself by means of the forgiveness of sins.
In the Palestinian situation that followed the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, God insisted that Palestinian Jews who were exposed to the baptizing witness of John should receive baptism in Jesus’ name. If they were already believers, like the twelve men of Acts 19 (see vs. 2), they needed baptism only to place themselves in a position to receive the Spirit.
Presumably these twelve men had received both eternal life and forgiveness of sins before they encountered Paul. Paul says nothing to them about either of these things. The sole question is whether they possessed the gift of the Spirit, and for this they needed baptism in the name of Jesus Christ.
This suggests that they are examples of sincere disciples of the Baptist who followed through on their baptism by John to subsequently believe in Him who would come after him, that is, on Jesus Christ (Acts 19:4 with 19:2). But they had not been baptized in the name of Jesus as yet, perhaps because they had left Palestine before Pentecost to travel (for reasons unknown to us) to the Roman province of Asia, where Paul finds them.
Thus they are somewhat different from typical Palestinian converts, such as those in Acts 2 or Paul. Their own experience might be laid out in the following steps: (1) baptism by John, (2) subsequent faith in Christ by which they received eternal life and forgiveness of sins, (3) baptism by Paul in the name of Jesus Christ, and (4) receiving the gift of the Spirit through the laying on of Paul’s hands.
It is certainly worth noting here that though baptism in Christ’s name was a prerequisite, it did not automatically confer on them the gift of the Spirit. The same is true of the Samaritans in Acts 8 (see 8:14–17). Baptism simply admitted them into the closed circle upon whom God was willing to bestow His Spirit. But this separation between baptism and the gift of the Spirit (in that the former does not automatically confer the latter) is a good reminder that this great gift, like eternal life, is completely unmerited.
Conclusion
Like Cornelius, our experience of salvation is basically simple and full. All of the spiritual benefits that every believer needs are bestowed at once at the moment of faith. When a person believes in Christ he receives: (1) eternal life by means of the new birth, (2) forgiveness of sins (so that harmony with God may begin), and (3) the gift of the Spirit.
We should mention as well that at the moment of faith we are also justified, that is, we are cleared of every charge of sin and granted a perfect righteousness before the bar of God’s justice (see Romans 3:21–26: 5:1; 8:31–34). There is much that could be said about this great theme (which lies at the heart of book of Romans), but this is not the place to say it. Suffice it to observe that every justified believer is born again, and every born again believer is justified. This is made especially plain in Romans 5:12–21, where we meet the phase justification of life (5:18).
But the experience of people who lived in Palestine, where the great spiritual drama of salvation had its manifestation in history, was a unique experience. It can never be repeated. Thus too, as Acts discloses, those who lived in that land during these momentous times had some very special directions to follow along the pathway to membership in the Body of Christ, the Church.
This special status as members of Christ’s spiritual body, which was unknown even to the most godly saint in Old Testament times, could only be reached in the way specified by Acts 2:38. Those who have made Acts 2:38 a normative experience, applicable to all believers during the present age of the Church, have not studied their Bibles with sufficient care. Acts 2:38; 8:12–17; 19:1–7; and 22:16 belong to a transitional period in Christian history and, as all these texts show, they are aimed at Palestinians and no one else!
Thus when Paul preaches to a Jewish audience outside of Palestine (in what was called the Diaspora [Dispersion]), he preaches the same message that he preached everywhere on the Gentile mission fields. As a result, in the synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia, we find him telling his Jewish hearers:
Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. (Acts 13:38–39, underlining added)Harmony with God and a full clearance before the bar of His justice—that is, fellowship with Him and security from eternal judgment—these are the benefits that God offers to Jew and Gentile alike throughout the age of the Church, on the basis of faith alone.
But thanks to Acts and to the contrast it presents with the experience of Palestinian believers, we can appreciate the ease of our own acceptance with God at both the judicial and personal levels. On both these levels, when we are saved, we are accepted by faith alone.
Repentance and Sound Doctrine
In concluding our study of repentance, it is appropriate that we come back to the Gospel of John. Our study began with the observation that John’s silence about repentance makes it impossible to believe that he thought of it as a condition for eternal life.
Our review of the relevant Scriptures fully supports this deduction. Repentance is never presented in the New Testament as a condition for eternal life. Yet at the same time, repentance is an important theme in the Bible and, as part of God’s revelation to man, we are called upon to preach it.
But our consideration of these passages, and of related themes like forgiveness of sins, gives us a new appreciation for the technique used by the Fourth Gospel. Let us think about this before we conclude this article.
The Simple Gospel
What emerges from our study is the realization that the Gospel of John is a presentation of the simple gospel of Jesus Christ. John deliberately avoids the many possible complications that can sometimes cloud the simplicity of God’s offer of life. He is wisely content to focus on the core issue, which is: How can a person know that he possesses eternal life and that he will never perish under God’s judgment?
As we have seen, the failure to possess eternal life is the basis upon which men and women will be condemned to eternal hell (Revelation 20:15). This means that eternal life is the critical consideration. How then can one possess it? The answer is the simple one given in the words of Jesus, who said, Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life (John 6:47). This is a theme John articulates over and over again, using mainly the words of our Lord Himself to do so.
Precisely because of his focus on the core issue of the gospel, John has nothing to say either about repentance or about the subject of an individual’s experience of forgiveness. It should be evident that, even in John’s day, which was by no means free from false doctrine (see 1 John 2:18–23; 4:1–6), this Apostle felt it prudent to leave these auxiliary subjects alone in order to make his message unmistakably clear.
And it is when we turn to the book of Acts that we learn how freighted with complications both of these subjects are.
Doctrinal Complexity
The New Testament presentation of the doctrines of repentance and forgiveness possesses a complexity that the Church as a whole seems to have been unable to firmly grasp and retain. Let us recapitulate a moment.
Repentance and baptism, as we have seen, were conditions for forgiveness during the ministries of John the Baptist, of the Apostles, and of our Lord Jesus Himself. But this was only true for the Israelites of Palestine, who were called to national repentance by the Baptist and, after the crucifixion of Christ, were called again to repentance by the Apostles (Acts 2:38; 3:19). Following baptism and forgiveness, the believing Israelite from Palestine could receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Samaritan situation was similar, but probably not identical. We are nowhere told that forgiveness for the believing Samaritans waited on baptism, and very likely it did not. But the gift of the Spirit was received only after baptism just as with Palestinian Jews. God chose to bring the Samaritans into the Church in the same way as the Jews of Palestine, that is, by means of the gift of the Spirit following water baptism.
The Gentiles on the other hand, as well as (we infer) non-Palestinian Jews such as those in Antioch of Pisidia, received eternal life, forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit at the moment of faith in Christ. Water baptism followed the bestowal of these blessings and did not precede any of them.
Obviously, the Apostle John does not want to go into any of these issues. To do so would have either greatly lengthened his book or made it very confusing. The wisdom of the Spirit who inspired John is evident in his choice of subject matter.
In his one reference to forgiveness of sins (John 20:23), John is content to point to the authority of the Apostles to regulate this experience. Acts 2:38 is a classic case of such regulation. The apostolic pronouncement in that verse proclaimed forgiveness of sins to be available to the repentant Israelite who was baptized. Any who refused this apostolic prescription were not forgiven; that is, their sins were retained (John 20:23). They were thus excluded from fellowship with God until such time as they submitted to the apostolic conditions.
John and Justification
We might wonder, however, why John chose not to refer to justification by faith, which is obtained by faith alone just as is eternal life.
Two reasons for this may be suggested. First, a discussion of justification was unnecessary if the condition for receiving eternal life is made clear. The person who believes in Christ for eternal life also automatically receives justification by faith. A discussion of justification was not really needed.
But second, even more to the point is the observation that, as a piece of literature, John was writing a Gospel. Thus his literary intention is to allow the Lord Jesus Christ, whose career is the basis of this book, to speak the message in His own words. Therein lay the authority on which John is relying as he presents the basic Christian message. It was Jesus Himself, John is telling us, who offered eternal life on the basis of faith alone in Himself alone!
The evidence of the four Gospels certainly suggests to us that the Lord Jesus did not speak very often on the subject of justification. There are indeed a few passages where this subject seems implicit (one might cite Matthew 5:20; Luke 14:14; 20:35; John 5:28, 29), but the allusion to this truth in these places usually goes unobserved. Nevertheless, there is one text where Jesus does speak explicitly of justification, and that text is a beautiful pre-Pauline presentation of grace versus works.
The passage, of course, is the one describing the Pharisee and the publican who went up to the temple to pray (Luke 18:9–14). According to our Lord, it was not the Pharisee, who paraded his good works before God, but the publican who went down to his house justified (18:14; underlining added). It is striking that the publican’s words, God, be merciful to me a sinner (Luke 18:13), employ a Greek word (hilaskomai = “to propitiate”) from which derive the Greek words for propitiation (hilasmos) and mercy seat (hilasterion). The publican’s words thus can be understood as anticipating God’s saving provision through the Messiah and could be translated, “God, be propitiated toward me a sinner.”
A better pre-Pauline statement of the truth of justification through the propitiatory work of Christ, rather than by works, would be hard to imagine.
But although Jesus articulated the doctrine of justification in seed form, He chose to reveal this truth most fully to the apostles, and above all to Paul, after His own ascension to God’s right hand. By and large, justification by faith is one of those rich themes of which Jesus spoke when He said, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth (John 16:12–13a).
If, therefore, John was concentrating on the words of Jesus to communicate the gospel of salvation by faith, then his omission of a reference to justification is not only understandable but prudent. Part of his skill in penning this indispensable Gospel is his ability to “stay on message.” As a result it is impossible to read his book without hearing again and again its simple, yet amazing offer of eternal life by faith in Christ. John allows this message to stand out without complication.
John 5:28-29
Since the Lord Jesus had evidently said little about justification, John could not make His words on this great theme the basis of his Gospel. So he chose not to refer to it directly at all. In one place in his Gospel, however, it is possible to see an implicit reference to justification.
In describing the two resurrections in 5:28–29, John speaks of those who come forth in the resurrection of life as those who have done good, and those who come forth in the resurrection of condemnation (Greek = “judgment”) as those who have done evil. There is no qualification here at all (such as, “more good than evil” or vice versa), and we have no right to read it into the text.
Those who participate in the resurrection of life are presented as doers of good and only good. This implies that they possess a perfect righteousness before God, which of course is attainable only by means of justification (Romans 3:21–22).
By contrast, those who come forth in the resurrection of judgment (that is, at the Great White Throne) have done evil and only evil. They fit the Pauline claim, There is none who does good, no, not one (Romans 3:12).
Nevertheless, in John 5:28–29, the doctrine of justification by faith is only implicit. John does not expound it here or elsewhere in his writings.
Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, therefore, John and the other original apostles allow Paul (the converted Pharisee!) to be God’s chief spokesman for the wonderful truth that, when we believe in Christ, we are completely cleared of every charge of evil and possess the very righteousness of God by faith. As Paul says so simply, But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness (Romans 4:5; italics added).
Repentance to Life
Finally, it is worth considering the observation made by the believers at Jerusalem after they heard Peter’s account of his visit with Cornelius. Their comment was: Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life (Acts 11:18).
Needless to say this text has been read as if it meant “repentance to eternal life”! It has then been urged that this shows that repentance is necessary for eternal salvation. But this view will not bear scrutiny.
To begin with, the word “eternal” is not really here. Although eternal life can be referred to by the word “life” alone (very notably in John 20:31 and elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel), we cannot make this assumption automatically. The word is a perfectly good Greek word for “life” in the various senses in which the language could use it. We must always interpret in context.
Secondly, if we thought that the reference in Acts 11:18 was a reference to eternal life, then we are left with a surprising and implausible idea in this context. We must infer in that case that the Jerusalem Christians just now realized that Gentiles could be eternally saved! But this is so unlikely as to be almost fantastic.
After all, had not the Lord Himself commanded the Gentile mission in His Great Commission to the apostles (Matthew. 28:19; Mark 16:15)? In fact, even the Old Testament taught that Gentiles could be saved (see the quotations in Romans 15:8–11). In the Jerusalem church, of all places, this truth must surely have been known. Indeed, before he spoke, Peter is not criticized for preaching to Gentiles, but for eating with them (Acts 11:3)!
Peter had treated these Gentiles as though he found them fully acceptable since, apparently after his sermon, he had sat down to eat with them. But this implied that they were also fully acceptable to God, and yet all they had done was to repent of their paganism and believe in Christ. They had not become Jewish proselytes!
But the fact that they were indeed fully accepted by God had been signaled by His giving them, says Peter, the same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 11:17). In this respect, they were more readily blessed than the Palestinian Jews had been!
We must remember that the Jews at Pentecost did not get the gift of the Spirit until after baptism. But God did not require even this of Cornelius in order for him to be baptized by God’s Spirit. It was thus evident that the Gentiles had entered the same “life experience” that believing Jews enjoyed, that is, they were fully blessed by the God with whom they were now obviously in harmony. We might say, “They entered into the Christian life.”
Here we need to recall the words of the father of the Prodigal Son. Upon his son’s return home, the experiential separation of father and son had ended, so that his dad can say to his unhappy older boy, Your brother was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found (Luke 15:32, underlining added).
Repentance, we may say, is the wayward sinner’s first step toward “coming to life” after his experience of alienation and separation from God. Experientially this is true both for the unsaved sinner and for the saved sinner. Coming home to God, and enjoying His presence, is a form of resurrection and it is a true and vivid experience of life! As Paul would put it later, For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will
live (Rom. 8:13, underlining added).
The believers at Jerusalem knew to what the father of the Prodigal Son was referring. But they were surprised that “life” in this sense could be enjoyed totally apart from any conditions related to the Mosaic law. The truth they acknowledged here, however, was later to come under challenge (see the view of the believing Pharisees in Acts 15:5), and it was to be officially resolved by the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:4–29). But at this moment, the believers are delighted and they glorified God (Acts 11:18) because the Gentiles had entered into full and genuine Christian living.
Christian Applications
A number of repentance passages that relate to Christian experience have not yet been mentioned. Let us look quickly at these.
In 2 Corinthians 7:8–12 Paul is pleased to note that his previous letter to the church had produced repentance (2 Cor. 7:9, 10), leading to a correction of the situation for which he had rebuked them. This correction was thus a “salvation” (Greek = “deliverance”) from the former situation and from its undesirable consequences.
But not all the problems at Corinth had been straightened out by Paul’s letter. Yet he hopes that he will not have to come to them in a spirit of rebuke and discipline to deal with those who are involved in sins of which they have not yet repented (2 Corinthians 12:20–21). Naturally he is appealing for immediate repentance in such cases.
In 2 Timothy 2:24–26 Paul encourages Timothy to have a humble attitude when confronting misguided Christians whom the devil has ensnared in false doctrine. He must not regard any confrontation as a “fight,” but as an opportunity to help them to reach a God-given repentance for their false doctrine.
Hebrews 6:1–6, speaks of Christians who have turned away from their Christian faith and returned to some form of Judaism. The author of Hebrews believes such people lay a basis for repenting all over again from the dead works of the law (Hebrews 6:1), which they had abandoned when they trusted in Christ alone. He understands that those who do such a thing are very “hard” spiritually and that no human effort will succeed in renewing them to repentance (Hebrews 6:6), that is, restoring them to the point where they were before they abandoned dead works for God’s grace. But the impossibility he refers to (Hebrews 6:4) does not apply to God, of course, and he hints that God’s discipline may effect their return just like the burning of a field opens the way for it to be reused for cultivation (Hebrews 6:7–8).
None of these texts, however, are dealing with the way a person obtains eternal salvation. Instead they illustrate some of the many forms that Christian repentance may have to take.
Conclusion
Repentance definitely can and should bring glory to God, as it did at Jerusalem in Acts 11:18. And it does so when it is properly understood, not as a condition for eternal salvation, but as the means by which we can reach harmony with our Maker no matter how far we have strayed from him.
The unsaved man can find in repentance a road that leads him to faith in Christ and to fellowship with the Father in heaven. Even when he comes to faith in Christ before repentance, he will find fellowship and harmony with his God. And a Christian who has walked with God for years, and then has left that path to go off into sin (like the Prodigal Son), can always repent and come home to his heavenly Father.
Someday, too, the nation of Israel will repent and will recover their special relationship to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The prophet Zechariah vividly describes Israel’s repentance as a time of national mourning (Zechariah 12:10–14). That is still to come.
Most definitely, we have every reason to thank God for allowing sinners like ourselves to repent and to find harmony and joy in His presence, after days or months or years of waywardness and rebellion. Like everything else God does for us, this is possible only because He gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. It is one of the numberless benefits of the cross of Christ.
But as wonderful as it is, there remains one thing repentance cannot do for us. It cannot give us eternal life or security from eternal judgment. If eternal life depended on our repentance, we could never know whether our status before God was secure, since at anytime (if we know our own hearts!) we could wander away and need to repent again.
Those who teach that repentance is necessary for eternal salvation can have no true assurance of their eternal destiny. And if they claim to have this, they are either fooling themselves or us or both!
Thank God there is only one answer to the question, “What must I do to be saved?” That, of course, is the answer not only of Paul and all the apostles, but of Jesus Himself. The answer is: “Believe!”
Repentance is not a part of that answer. It never has been and never will be. But we should keep firmly in mind the lovely truth that repentance is always the first step when we need to come home again!
—End—
Notes
- Editor’s note: The CTS Journal reprints this important book in three installments by permission of Kerugma, Inc. and Redención Viva, P.O. BOX 141167, Dallas, TX 75214. We give special thanks to Zane Hodges for the content of the book.
- See part two of Zane Hodges’ three-part series CTS Journal (October-December): 51-54.
- See CTS Journal 8 (October-December 2002): 52-54.
- Cf. page 26 (below).
No comments:
Post a Comment