Repenting about Repenting

There has been SO much bad teaching on this subject (I know because I received inaccurate teaching on this subject all of my life). I always heard my whole life preachers literally scream out "REPENT, TURN FROM YOUR SIN" to be saved. That's enough to turn the average person off or scare them off. This type of message is simply not true. The word "repent" does not mean turn from sin in the context of salvation. (That definition of repent comes into play after you are saved and God convicts you of some sin that you need to ask forgiveness about). The Greek word for repent is Metanoia and it simply means to "change your mind". In the context of salvation, you change your mind about what can make you righteous before God (such as good works, abstaining from certain things, being religious, church attendance, etc) and realize that only the shed blood of Jesus Christ can do that.

This is the way repent was used in Acts 2:38 where Peter is talking to the Jewish people after Christ was crucifed and then risen. They put Christ to death because Christ claimed to be God (which of course He is but they didn't know that). Peter is bascially saying, "Look... you thought you were killing an imposter but you killed the Messiah that was prohesied long ago. But now He is in Heaven at the right hand of the Father." The Jewish people were pricked at their hearts and asked Peter "what must we do?" Peter's answer was repent and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ. He was not telling them to turn from their sin or fast or go do good works or any of that. He was telling them to change their mind about who they just killed and realize they killed their Messiah.

The old hymn, "Just As I Am" had it right. The unsaved person is invited to come to Christ 'just as they are'. They do not "repent - turn from their sin" and then come to Christ as that would be impossible. We don't clean ourselves up to come to God, we come to God and He cleans us up. As sinful humans with an inherited depraved nature, we do not have the ability to turn from sin on our own. But once we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, God "cleans us up" and makes us right.

Repentance is necessary for salvation, but keep in mind that it means "a change of mind". Dr. C.I. Scofield, in the Scofield Reference Bible (copyrighted in 1909), has the following footnote, "Repentance is the translation of a Greek word (metanoia-metanoeo) meaning "to have another mind", "to change the mind", and is used in the New Testament to indicate a change of mind in respect of sin, of God and of self. This change of mind may, especially in the case of Christians who have fallen into sin, be preceded by sorrow (II Corinthians 7:8-11), but sorrow for sin, though it may "work" repentance, is not repentance. The son in Matthew 21:28,29 illustrate true repentance. Saving faith includes and implies that change of mind, which is called repentance." Dr. Scofield clearly points out that "saving faith" includes and implies that change of mind which is called repentance.

"Repentance, as it relates to Christ, means to change our minds about Him, who He is and what He's done to provide forgiveness, and deliverance from our sins. When we place faith in Jesus as having taken our place personally on the cross and borne the penalty due our sins, then we're automatically repenting, because we couldn't accept Him in this way without having to change our minds in some way concerning Him." (From the Liberation of the Planet Earth, by Hal Lindsey. (p. 133).

Therefore, I'd ask that you "repent" of how you previously defined repentance if you have always thought of it as only meaning turning from sin or sorrow for sin. Did you know in the Old Testament the word "repented" appears 46 times and over 60% of the time it is God who is doing the repenting? I don't think He had any sin to turn from, do you?