IS REPENTANCE NECESSARY ANYMORE?

Arisha asked whether repentance is necessary anymore since those she called grace teachers have taught that we are forgiven our sins from the past, present and future?

I don’t know who these grace teachers are and I am not sure of the background as well as the context of these people but I have to say that repentance is still relevant within the realm of Justification by Grace through Faith.

I construct my thesis from three premises:

1. Who God is
2. What he saves us from
3. What our repentance effects

Who God is:

It is important to understand that God is eternal and therefore acts within his time which is eternal (past, present, and future). So God being omniscient (all knowing), if he involved himself in the business of loving people or even forgiving sins, then he cannot act out of his time zone which covers all tenses.

What we are saved from:

However, recently I addressed the issue of sin, sinning and sinner and I at least implied what God died and resurrected to save us from. God died because our problem couldn’t be forgiven or negotiated. He died for our sin (Hamartia) and therefore dealt with it in all tenses and all places in the universe.

So I appreciate the grace teachers if by we are forgiven past, present, and future intend SIN (hamartia) and not sinning for the two are different. If you know Greek you will have issues with the way John uses the term Hamartia in 1 John. (but this will be for another day).

The death at the cross and resurrection of God was to save us from SIN and not from sinning.

What does repentance effect?:

We must understand that we are not saved because we repent and are forgiven by God. Our salvation was purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. If forgiveness through our repentance could save us, then God wouldn’t have died on the cross but would have asked all of us to repent and whoever did could be forgiven past, present and future.

Repentance means changing direction, turning around and it could be practically and that is when it kicks-off from one’s psychology. When we repent we are becoming better citizens in this chaotic world. Our repentance is for the good of our sociology and what we repent is not Hamartia but Sinning.

Now please understand that while it is true that people will not enter heaven based on the repentance sheet, no one will go to hell because of the sinning they never repented. The gate to heaven is belief in Jesus and the ticket to hell is disbelief in Jesus.

So repentance is not saying am sorry but instead doing the sorry. As you can see, if God’s forgiveness is to be invoked based on repentance we all know the sinning we have really repented and the existing sinning in our lives that we are just apologetic about but not repentant

So we are justified for eternal purposes past, present, and future, but as we live here on earth, we must repent our sinning and become better people, even though our repentance has no effect whatsoever on one’s salvation.

Not repenting your sinning will hurt you on Earth. We must repent our adulterous acts, thieves must, drunkards must, etc. For all these sins make life difficult here on earth. Knowing why we repent makes repentance an exciting experience.

God bless you, I invoke TRUTH, REASON AND FAITH

Pr. ITM White
The Gospel Hawker