Is repentance once and for all? Does Christian need repentance or does it apply only to sinners?
What can the prayer of repentance do and why is it necessary? Read the opinions of ministers.
Daniel Kolenda, missionary, evangelist, an associate of Reinhard Bonnke, and president of Christ for All Nations Ministries, (Orlando, FL, USA):
The word “repent” means to turn around and go the other way. But many believers think that only Gentiles need to repent. Some teach that when believers repent, it demonstrates a lack of confidence in what has been done on the cross. But such teaching itself demonstrates a lack of understanding of the most important mystery of the victorious life of the Christian.
The misunderstanding begins when we think that repentance is an act of turning away from sin, turning 180 degrees. But a person can turn away from sin and remain lost. For example, if a man is lost in the woods, he takes his compass and uses it to determine that he has lost his way. But turning in the right direction is not enough. It is necessary to be sure that you are really moving toward your destination. It is important to renounce sin, but the direction in which you turn is far more important than the direction to which you turn your back. We don’t need to turn away from sin as much as we need to turn toward Jesus. By the way, if a person turns to Christ, he automatically turns away from sin.
Let’s assume that our traveler deviated just two degrees off course. Despite this small error, he still needs a correction if he is to get to the right place. The traveler must constantly check the compass. The notion that repentance belongs only to the inveterate sinner is mistaken. Repentance is not only for those who continually sin and live immoral lives. Repentance is righteousness put into practice. We must turn our hearts toward God, from darkness to light, from the flesh to the spirit, from the temporal to the eternal, from death to life.
If I have experienced lust or sinned, I need repentance. Yes, but I don’t just turn away from sin, I turn toward Christ. I focus on Him again. If I focus on sin, I lose my true meaning and may even go astray. Instead, I recognize that sin is a symptom of a deeper problem, that I am moving in the opposite direction to Christ. If there is hatred, anger, envy, or rivalry in my heart, it signals to me that my heart has turned away from Jesus. I have to refocus it. I have to refocus it.
Alexander Steinhardt, Prophetic Culture Ministries, (Essen, Germany):
Today there is a teaching that says that you don’t need to repent after you are saved because all your sins are forgiven. On the face of it, it looks nice, but in fact, this false teaching removes an important element of restoring a relationship with God by putting to sleep the conscience of the regenerate person, which always reacts keenly to the wrong things in our lives. For example, if a person used to be able to steal, when he is born again he begins to listen to his conscience and stops stealing. Not only because it is a sin, but also because it is no longer peculiar to his new nature as his conscience testifies. However, this false teaching attempts to put the conscience to sleep so that we stop responding with repentance if in some way we stumble. Which actually separates us from God in the end.
We need to understand the fact that Scripture is addressed specifically to believers. A large part of it is about God’s love for us, but no small part of it is about correcting human behavior by indicating the standard by which we must live. Despite our new nature, the messages contain many directives on how to live. This indicates that we are given a new nature, but we still need to go through the process of learning how to live in a new way, and for that, we need to learn to think in a new way. And in practice, we see that the change in thinking takes time. It is also a lifelong process.
Rom. 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may know what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.
Paul makes it clear that it is we who choose how we think. Either by gaining the knowledge of God we choose the standards of the world as our way of thinking, or we work on the renewal of our minds to learn to think anew.
In other words, sanctification, righteous living, purification of the heart, and more are solely our responsibility. It is not simply the result of a new nature, but our conscious choice to live differently.
Arthur Pink (1886-1952), English Protestant exegete:
Even in those cases where repentance is still recognized as necessary for the sinner to become saved, repentance itself is viewed extremely superficially. Many believe that if a person sheds tears or seems broken because of his unrighteous walk in life, it proves that God’s saving grace has begun its work in that person’s soul. But this conclusion is wrong. The remorse of an unclean conscience must not be confused with the conviction and awareness of sin that the Holy Spirit gives. Esau shed tears, but he was not a regenerated man. Felix trembled as he listened to Paul, but there is not even a hint in Scripture that he went to heaven. Many people are deluded on this point, and today’s preachers do very little to bring them out of this delusion. Everyone who thinks about his soul and its future in eternity must carefully examine his own repentance in the light of Scripture and make sure that his repentance is of God and not of man, supernatural and not natural.
The first mention of the word “repent” in the Bible is what gives us the key to understanding its meaning. In Genesis 6:6 we read: “And the Lord repented that he had made man on the earth.” The phrase is figurative here, for He, who has infinite wisdom and is unchangeable in His decisions, never changes His mind. “God is not a man to lie to Him, nor is He a son of man to be changed” (Num. 23:19). And also, “And the Faithful One of Israel shall not speak untruth nor repent, for He is not a man, that He should repent” (1 Samuel 15:29); and “the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor a shadow of a change” (James 1:17). We conclude, therefore, that in Gen. 6:6 (and similar verses) the Almighty condescends to speak in a familiar style of speech, as He also does in Psalm 78:65; 87:6; Isaiah 59:16, etc.
So, noting the meaning of this word in Gen. 6:6, we find the following. First, the reason for repentance is sin, for Gen. 6:5 says that “the Lord saw that the corruption of men on the earth was great.
Second: The nature of repentance is a change of mind: given the circumstances, a new decision was formed: “And the Lord repented that he had made man on earth.
Third, true repentance is associated with sincere regret for sin, for that is what causes a change of mind: “And He was sorrowful in His heart” (2 Corinthians 7:10).
Fourth, the result or consequence of repentance is to undo (renounce and, if possible, correct) that which one regrets: “And the Lord said, I will destroy men from the face of the earth” (v. 7). All of these elements of repentance are also present in that repentance which produces the gracious and supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the sinner.
