REPENTANCE:

PREFACE
When I was convert at age eighteen, I realized that I was a sinner and that Christ died
in my place to pay for my sins. I was overwhelmed that God loved a sinner such as I. I
trusted Jesus Christ. I wept. My life was transformed.
Soon after my conversion I heard preachers saying that in order to be saved one must
repent, insisting that repentance is a change in lifestyle. They said things like, “You must
turn from your sins.” I didn’t know much Bible or theology, but it seemed to me that
what they were saying was incompatible with the gospel of the grace of God. In some
cases it sounded to me like the preacher was telling people they had to change their life
before they could come to Christ to be changed by Him!
About that time, someone told me that the word “repent,” meant a “change of mind.”
That satisfied me, but, frankly, I wondered about some passages of Scripture.
Years later, I decided to do a study of repentance. I looked up every occurrence of the
words “repent” and “repentance” in the New Testament, only to discover that in most
cases those words did not have an object. The content of repentance had to be determined
from the context. I chose to limit my conclusions primarily to those instances in which
the word repent was followed by an object. For example, “repentance from dead works”
in Hebrews 6:1 clearly indicates that the object of repentance is dead works. Also, I
concluded that, although the word, “repent” in Acts 2:38 does not have an object, the
evidence from the context is overwhelming that Peter is speaking about repentance
concerning Jesus Christ. Based on that study I decided that there are four objects of
repentance, namely God, Christ, dead works and sin. That is what I put in my book
Evangelism: A Biblical Approach (1984).
In 1985 Robert Wilkin submitted his doctoral dissertation entitled, “Repentance as a
Condition for Salvation in the New Testament” to Dallas Theological Seminary.
Sometime after that, I received a copy, read it and filed it. Many years later (2003), I
decided to revisit the subject of repentance. In the process I reread Wilkin’s dissertation. I
mention Wilkin’s dissertation here because I found it very helpful, but since Wilkin wrote
his dissertation, he has changed his view of repentance. A revised version of his
dissertation was published in a series of six articles in the Journal of the Grace
Evangelical Society and so was an article explaining his change of mind. (See
bibliography for details. All articles can be seen at www.faithalone.org). I refer to both
his dissertation and his six articles.
When a person’s name appears alone in parentheses, it is the name of a commentator,
who is commenting on the verse under consideration. The name of the commentary, etc is
in the bibliography. All other references in the text will give the title of the book and the
page number.
Repentance is an important subject. It is required for salvation. Unfortunately, it is
one of the most abused subjects in the New Testament. May the Lord be pleased to use
this study to clarify the meaning of repentance so that we proclaim a clear message
concerning what God has said people must do in order to receive the gift of eternal life.
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G. Michael Cocoris
Santa Monica, CA