What is repentance?

Salvation & the GospelIn theological review

The short answer

Repentance is a change of mind about sin and about God that turns into a change of direction. Peter's command joins both halves: repent and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away. It is more than feeling sorry, which can evaporate by morning. It is agreeing with God about your sin, grieving it, and leaving it, trusting the mercy that meets you on the way back.

The fuller answer

Peter's first sermon after the healing at the temple gate gives the shape of it in one command: Repent, then, and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away. Two movements: a turning of the mind and heart, repent, and a turning of direction, turn back. It is not a tax paid in tears. It is a change of verdict about your sin and about God, which then changes the road you walk.

Repent, then, and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away,

Acts 3:19 (BSB)

Later in Acts, when the first Gentile believers receive the gospel, the church in Jerusalem concludes that God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life. Repentance is a gift and a door to life, not a punishment cell. But it is a real door: it includes confessing the sin for what it is, grieving it rather than managing it, and forsaking it, with help, restitution where restitution is possible.

When they heard this, they had no further objections, and they glorified God, saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.”

Acts 11:18 (BSB)

That is why repentance and faith belong together and cannot be priced apart. Faith receives Christ; repentance leaves the sin he died for. A faith that never turns is not the faith the New Testament describes, and a sorrow that never trusts is despair, not repentance. The thief on the cross had time for little else, but his words show both: he confessed his guilt, and he asked Jesus to remember him.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Review status: in-theological-review. Every Contend page passes a human theological review against the Statement of Faith before it is published as approved teaching. This section is in that queue.

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How can I be saved?By grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and not by anything you contribute. Ephesians says it outright: it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. To be saved is to turn from your sin, confess Jesus as Lord, and trust that God raised him from the dead for you. The rest of your life is learning to live from that gift.What is faith?Faith is trusting God's word and God's Son with your whole weight. Hebrews defines it as the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see. It is not believing without evidence, and it is not mere agreement that something is true. It is the hand that receives what grace gives.Can a Christian lose their salvation?Christians have answered this question two ways for centuries, and this page will not pretend otherwise. What Scripture states without qualification is the keeping power of Christ: his sheep will never perish, and no one can snatch them from his hand. It also gives sober warnings to those who turn away. How those fit together is where faithful churches differ, and both readings are set out here fairly.Bible Character: PeterThe Galilean fisherman who confessed Jesus as the Christ, denied him three times on the night he was betrayed, was restored by the risen Lord, and preached at Pentecost.On the map: JerusalemFind it in the Lands of the Bible, with the verses that place it there.