You Cannot Truly Repent Without Having True Faith

Most Christians would say they have faith.  They would likely say they are alive spiritually.  They might even claim to be 100% certain about their salvation.

But then I always remember those “Christians” Jesus spoke about at the end of the Sermon On The Mount…and I wonder.

[stextbox id=”custom” caption=”Matthew 7:22-23″]Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’[/stextbox]

You see, there is a kind of faith that genuinely leads to salvation, but there is also counterfeit faith that is truly dead by itself.  “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself” (James 2:17).

Which variety of faith do you have?

It all boils down to whether or not you have repentant faith.

In the Great Commission passage of Luke 24:47, the Greek word translated “repentance” is “metanoian.”  Metanoian comes from two separate words.  The prefix ‘meta’ means “after” and implies change, while the second Greek word, ‘noeo’ means to perceive as with the mind.  Metanoian literally means, “to perceive afterwards…hence signifies to change to one’s mind or purpose, always in the New Testament, involving a change for the better.”

Repentance, then, means doing a 180-degree turn morally, spiritually, and in one’s very thought life.  It is the absolute opposite of what a person used to think, believe, and do about practically all things moral and spiritual, concerning both themselves and the God of the Bible.

But “works” of a repentant heart is not, by itself, repentance.  Repentance is the change of mind and works are the natural product of a changed mind.  You see, works are the fruit of a repentant heart…not what leads to repentance.

Repentance is a rich and beautifully significant word that is so intertwined with the substance of saving faith that if you were to try and separate the two you’d be left with unrecognizable rags of a rancid religion.  A person cannot truly repent without possessing true faith, and a person cannot have true faith without biblical repentance.  For why would a person suddenly reject, forsake, and abandon everything they always assumed to be true unless they had a catastrophic, 180-degree change in their thinking?  Would a person forsake and turn away from sin, self-righteousness, and everything else contrary to the will of God unless they truly believed that what they had done was thoroughly wrong and now they wanted what is entirely right?  Would a person ever turn away from their love of sin unless they were first totally convinced that their old ways were wicked and they now desired only the things of God?

Of course not.

It is for this reason that repentance and faith go hand-in-hand, just as James, our Lord’s half-brother, wrote, “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.”

Pastor Mark Dever wrote, “Repentance and this kind of belief, or faith, or reliance, are really two sides of the same coin.  It’s not like you can go for the basic model (belief) and add repentance at a later point when you want to get really holy.  No!  Repent is what you do if you really start thinking this way and believing Jesus with your life.  Any purported belief without change is nothing but a base counterfeit” (Mark Dever, The Gospel & Personal Evangelism, page 42).

J.I. Packer went so far as to say, “evangelism is the issuing of a call to turn, as well as to trust; it is the delivering, not merely of a divine invitation to receive a Saviour, but of a divine command to repent of sin.  And there is no evangelism where this specific application is not made” (J.I. Packer, Evangelism & The Sovereignty Of God, page 40).

Many churchgoers in American Christianity today are religious schizophrenics.  They are suffering from a sin disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and bizarre delusions. They are walking around thinking they are Christian but in reality they’re deceived.  They are religiously delusional.  Blinded by the corruption of their own hearts and minds, they have eyes to see, but cannot see.  They have ears to hear but those ears cannot hear.  They claim to have saving faith but they lack genuine repentance.  “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed” (Titus 1:16; italics mine).

Unless God grants them repentance for the forgiveness of sins, they will be swept away by the tide of wrath they have been storing up for themselves in the coming day of wrath.  And there will be no one to blame but themselves.

QUESTION: How you ever had a radical spiritual change of mind like this?