OCTOBER
2000

Issue 4
Volume 1

Title:       "Repentance"
Author:   R.C. Sproul  
Source:   Now, That's a Good Question! 

~Repentance~

What is true repentance, and why should it be emphasized in our lives? 

Before I define true repentance, I'll answer the second question, "Why is it important in our lives?" The reason it's of supreme importance in our lives, according to the New Testament, is because it is the indispensable requirement for entrance into the kingdom of God. I stress that point because the view is widely held in our culture that God forgives everybody of all their sins whether or not they repent. That concept simply does not come from Scripture. 

If Jesus taught anything, he taught that it is absolutely essential for someone who has offended God to turn from that sin and repent. In fact, when Jesus began his public ministry, the very first words he preached were "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." There's nothing more urgent and necessary than repentance if one is going to escape the wrath of God. God calls every human being to repent -- it's not an option. 

Paul spoke of the former days of ignorance that God overlooked; but now God calls all people everywhere to repent. Who does that include? Everybody. We all have that responsibility, and not all of us are doing it. God meant what he said. He requires repentance. 

You ask what is true repentance? I don't know if you've ever heard the Roman Catholic prayer of contrition, but I think it's an excellent prayer. Virtually every Roman Catholic person knows it by heart. I don't know it by heart, but I have heard it a number of times and have some elements of it by memory, "O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee ... not only because of loss of reward, or fear of punishment, but because I violated you." 

We make a distinction in theology between what we call attrition and contrition. Attrition is turning away from your sin or from your guilt by a motivation simply to escape punishment. The child has no remorse about stealing cookies until he's caught with his hand in the cookie jar and the mother comes with the paddle. There's something suspicious about that kind of repentance. It's the repentance to avoid punishment -- what we would call a ticket out of hell. True repentance goes beyond a mere fear of punishment to what we call contrition. When David's heart was broken before God and he said, "O God, a broken and contrite heart you will not despise," he felt real sorrow, a godly sorrow. True repentance is an awareness that we have done wrong, and it brings us to a choice to turn from our wrong. 

Can you repent at the moment of death and still have the same salvation as someone who's been a Christian for many years? 

That's a tricky question, but I think it's a fascinating one and certainly one that many people are concerned about. We talk about foxhole faith, when people cry out in desperate moments of crisis or postpone to their deathbed the moment of committing their lives to Christ. Some people say that it doesn't make sense for somebody who has been a Christian all their life to be in the same state as somebody who did as they pleased all their life and waited until the last second to get their accounts square with God. 

There's a parable in the New Testament in which Jesus speaks about those who agree to work for a certain wage, and then at the last minute some other people are hired and only work for a few minutes but they get the same pay. The first group is really bent out of shape, and they say, "What's going on here? There's no justice in this!" Does the second group receive the same salvation? Yes and no. They are bought into a state of salvation; that is, they escape the punishment of hell and enter into the kingdom if indeed that last-breath repentance is genuine. The requirement for entrance into the kingdom of God is to repent and believe in Christ. 

The thief on the cross did it in the last minutes of his life, and Jesus assured him that he would be with him in paradise. There we have Exhibit A in the New Testament of somebody who actually did that and who was promised by our Lord himself that he would participate in Jesus' kingdom. Certainly it's possible for a person at the last moment of their life to repent sufficiently, believe, and be justified and enter into all of the benefits of membership of the kingdom of heaven. 

However, Paul speaks of those who make it into the kingdom by the skin of their teeth. I think a "deathbed" believer would be in that category. We tend to think that all that matters is getting there because there is an unbridgeable chasm between getting into heaven or missing it altogether. Yet Jesus tells us to work and to store up treasures for ourselves in heaven because he promises emphatically that there will be rewards dispensed to his people according to their obedience and their works. You don't get into heaven by your works, but your reward in heaven will be according to those works, according to the New Testament. What that says to me is that although people can make it by the skin of their teeth by repenting in their last dying breath, nevertheless their degree of felicity will not be nearly as great as those who have been serving Christ faithfully for many, many years. 

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