Is it Faith or Repentance?

Luke 3:3

v. 3          The message that John brought to Israel was repentance for the forgiveness [remission] of sins.  You may notice that he didn’t mention faith here…or did he? Hold that thought. Regardless, it really wasn't the message that they thought they might hear because they prided themselves on being righteous.  They were a religious people.

But John confronts them with the fact that they are just the opposite of what they think they are. They are people deeply, profoundly affected by sin - they are headed for the judgment of God and greatly in need of the forgiveness of sins.  They don't need to improve and be better, rather, they need to recognize that they're actually horribly wicked from top to bottom and what they need is forgiveness. 

So, the message of God to humanity is always the same.  The message of God to fallen man is forgiveness.  That's the good news. God is willing to forgive all your sins. That is the gospel. That is the good news.  All true preachers preach it, and all the true prophets said it. It's always been the same whether Old Testament or New Testament or in modern times or ancient times. The message has always been the same. The good news is God wants to forgive your sins. A gospel without repentance is just therapy.

You're in a very serious condition of sin. It’s passed from one generation to the other. It's so much a part of the fabric of your nature that you can't do anything about it. You can't change it. You can't alter it. You can't overcome it and you can't cancel out the offenses you've made against God. Therefore, you're headed for judgment and damnation in hell, but God is willing to forgive your sin.  He is willing to literally wipe it all away and hold it not against you; and that can free you from hell, and open the gates of heaven to you.  That's the good news.  That's always been the message that all true preachers have preached.  The forgiveness of sins comes to those, according to verse 3, who repent.  It is repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 

It’s true that we turn to God in faith, but you cannot turn to something without turning away from something. So faith and repentance exist as the two sides of the same coin. But today most preach one or the other. Some emphasize believing only with no emphasis on taking care of our sin problem. They are afraid that repentance looks like works salvation, or changing in order to earn your way to heaven. On the other hand, some indeed do turn repentance into a work, without the faith aspect.  In actuality, faith in Christ and His cross is really Him doing the work for you.

God will forgive your sins, but only if there is repentance.  Today’s false idea that you just say a prayer and get saved, without any intention/desire for change is lulling people into hell. So this is where John focused his ministry.  He was preaching what God told him to: Repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Down in verse 8 there were people coming to him and he was warning them to repent.

And how about Jesus? What got Him killed? It wasn’t “love thy neighbor”, but rather “Repent!”

In Matthew 4:17 it says, "From that time," that is from the time when John was imprisoned and no longer preaching, and Jesus began, it says, "From that time Jesus began to preach and say, 'Repent.'"  In Luke 5 Jesus said, "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."  In Luke 13:3 and 5 He twice said, "I tell you unless you repent you will likewise perish." If Jesus had preached the way we do today He would never have been crucified.

The apostles preached repentance.  In Acts 20 Paul preached repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now today in our modern world repentance is not a popular topic.  We have literally stripped the gospel of its essence.  Repentance is critical in salvation.  It is a repudiation of sin.  It is a repudiation of one's old life.  It is a coming to a point where you reevaluate yourself, where you say, "I look at myself and I see sin and I don't like what I see, I resent/regret the sin, I don't like the guilt, the shame, the fear, the anxiety that comes as a result of it.  I live in fear of the consequence of sin - which is eternal judgment in hell.  I am wretched.  I see my sin and I want to be delivered from it." 

That is a repentant attitude.  It is looking at your life and instead of loving darkness and hating light you have begun to hate darkness and desire to step into the light.  You have begun to repudiate your old life.  You want to be delivered from the dominance of sin and its consequence.  That is a penitent attitude.

True repentance never exists except in partnership with true faith.  And wherever there is true saving faith, there is true repentance.  They go together.  They complete one another. They're the two sides of the very same coin.  It doesn’t matter if it’s heads or tails because either way it’s a decision to turn. Why do faith and repentance go together?  Because they are the same work of the Holy Spirit, who convicts the sinner of sin and then moves the sinner toward Christ.  Repentance is a definitive mid-course correction. 

Repentance is the opposite of saying, "I cherish my sin, I want my sin, I cling to my sin, I will not abandon my sin, in fact it's not even sin, it's just who I am and that's the way it is and these are the things I like to do." It is turning from those kinds of attitudes to saying, "I am bankrupt spiritually, I hate my sin, I resent what I am. I want to be delivered from its power and its penalty."  That is an attitude of repentance.  It is a definitive redefinition of who I am and a turning to God alone to remedy that.

That's why 1 Thessalonians 1:9 says that the people had turned to God from idols.  That's what repentance is.  “We don't want to worship false gods anymore. We don't want to be bound to our sin anymore. We turn from our sin to God.”  That's repentance. 

Verse 3 is another example of the fact that you don't get the forgiveness of sins without repentance.  Do you really think you are saved as you continue in the ways of sin without any guilt or desire for victory?

Now I want to say this very clearly.  Repentance is not a human work by which you earn salvation.  Salvation isn't given to you because you earned it by repenting.  Let me say it another way.  Repentance is not a pre-salvation attempt to set your life right.  Repentance is not doing anything to change your life in order to merit heaven.  Repentance is recognizing your true condition, and part of your true condition is that you can't do anything to change your life.  Only God can change your life, and He only does so when we change our mind, repent, and turn from sin to Him.

A repentant person isn't saying, "I'm going to fix my life and then God will save me."  A repentant person is saying, "I can't fix my life, and I have finally come to the recognition of how vile it is and that I can't do good enough and I am turning to God for He alone can do what I can't do."  That's repentance.  Preachers: How can you say you preach the gospel if you don't preach repentance? 

The Jews used to have a handle on repentance, but by Jesus’ time they had forgotten

2 Chronicles 7:14

¹⁴ If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Isaiah 1:16

¹⁶ Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

God's saying: You know you've got to deal with your sin. You've got to take a look at what you really are.  This is an indictment against them.   Then he says in

Isaiah 1:18

¹⁸ Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Ezekiel 33:13

^… if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it.

He may look right on the outside, but if on the inside his heart is wicked, it will show up in committing iniquity and he'll die in it.  But when you turn from the wickedness of your heart to God, you can believe on Christ and be saved.

Isaiah 55:7

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Jonah 3:10

¹⁰ And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. [they got saved!]

The Jews used to know better, but they had forgotten, as we have. So as John takes the center stage in the drama of redemption, his message isn't anything new, it's not anything unfamiliar to the people.  It's the old message of repentance and forgiveness. 

It is not just some simple remorse or regret over the consequences of things that you did or their effects on your life.  Repentance is a radical change in how you view yourself that causes you to see the reality of your wretchedness and sinfulness, its ugliness, and its effect on you in time and eternity.  Then it produces a radical reassessment of who you are.  It turns you completely 180 degrees and sends you in the pursuit of something completely different than you've been pursuing.  It creates disdain for the old life. And you begin to hunger and thirst for righteousness. So it’s not just a feeling of regret.

2 Corinthians 7:9

⁹ Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner…

Your confession then is the same as God's verdict upon you.  And it wasn't just, “Oops, I made a mistake.”  That's the way you hear people talk today.  “I’m not perfect.”

They’re sorry because they got caught.  And that's not repentance.  Repentance is seeing your sin the way God sees it. 

2 Corinthians 7:10

¹⁰ For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of [regretted]: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

You know there are people who have sorrow and they react wrongly: They go out and drink themselves to death, or they go out and take drugs until they're dead to try to dull the sorrow, or they go out and commit suicide.  That's the sorrow that produces death, and there's no virtue in that. That's not to be confused with repentance.  The sorrow of the world produces death. Repentance produces life.

But what was this baptism in our text?  This was new and this is how John got a nickname.  He baptized people. In fact, in Matthew chapter 3, verse 6 it tells us people out of Judea and Jerusalem were all going down to the Jordan River and John was dunking them in the river.  So, he became John the Baptizer, John the Baptist.

Now we know what Christian baptism is about. It's about symbolizing the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. That's clearly identified for us in the New Testament epistles, particularly Paul in Romans 6, and elsewhere.  But Jesus hadn't died and He hadn't risen again.  Christian baptism hadn't been instituted yet.  There was no such baptism of Jewish people in Israel.  So, John was doing something that was completely unique and brand new.

First, I want to say this.  John’s baptism didn't produce forgiveness.  The Jordan water doesn't produce anything.  People come home from Israel with little bottles of the Jordan water but it doesn't do anything.  But their baptism did say something very significant.  It didn't do anything, but it said something. 

In the Christian realm today, it says that “I am identifying with Jesus Christ in His death, burial and resurrection and I now live a new life.”  I’ve been saved and I testify of that publicly, and I am not ashamed. It doesn’t save us, but it pictures our salvation.

But back then - what was it saying for them?  I'll tell you what it was saying.  In Matthew 3:6 it says they were baptized while they were confessing their sins.  Now this is a little different.  When we are baptized today, when somebody is baptized today what do they confess?  They confess Jesus as Lord.  Okay, that's different.  When people were baptized in John's ministry, they confessed their sins. 

So, their baptism really did say something.  They were repenting and turning from their sin, but they needed to know what they could then turn to [or who.] And then Jesus walked up and John said, Behold the Lamb! We don’t know how many believed on Christ right then. He was just about to begin His teachings as the Messiah. But for many people, later on when it came time to put their trust in Jesus Christ, they wouldn't do it.  He didn't turn out to be the kind of Messiah they hoped for, you know, the one who would knock off the Romans, sit on the throne, and create a permanent welfare state.

Was it true repentance?  I'll say this again.  There is no such thing as true repentance apart from true faith in Christ.  True faith in Christ always includes true repentance, and true repentance always includes true faith in Christ. 

When a person comes to the point where they will acknowledge their true sinful condition and alienation from God and see themselves for who they really are under the convicting of the Spirit of God, they then can turn to God who alone provides the solution through faith in Jesus Christ.  That's gospel preaching and that's what John did, what Jesus did, what the apostles did, and what we always must do.

Are you really saved? Or did you just pray a prayer for fire insurance? I know you have faith, but is your faith a product of true repentance?