The Burning Bush - Far Eastern Bible College

REPENTANCE IN SALVATIONKo LingkangIntroductionThe preaching of repentance as a doctrine is as old as the Bibleitself. One can clearly see throughout the Scriptures that for any sinner tobe saved, he must repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That is theclear teaching of Christ and His Apostles.However, over the years, even this simple teaching of repentanceand faith has come into question. There have been some who claim thatbelief or faith in Christ does not require any repentance from sin. Theyassert that repentance from sin is something that is optional. According toKenneth Gentry, such a teaching has been propounded by theologians inthe past such as classical dispensationalist author Lewis Sperry Chaferwho was founder, president and professor of systematic theology ofDallas Theological Seminary. 1 This same issue also came into contentionduring the “Lordship Salvation” debate in the 1970s-80s, when theforemost proponents of non-Lordship salvation, Zane Hodges 2 andCharles Ryrie, 3 described repentance as simply a changing of one’s mindabout Jesus Christ, and not the turning away from sin as evangelicalrepentance is often described. 4More recently, there have been those who take a Ruckmanite viewof the King James Bible, 5 who preach “Easy Believism,” that repentanceof sin has no part in the gospel, but should only be taught to those whoare already saved, 6 who with their faulty Bibliology view anyone whopreaches that repentance is necessary in salvation to be heretical, thatsuch a doctrine is “rank heresy of the worst form”. 7What then is the biblical response to such a view of repentance andthe gospel? The purpose of this paper is to refute the view that repentanceis not necessary in salvation. It will do so by first defining what biblicalrepentance is, and then proceed to study the teachings of Christ and His7