Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call." And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation."
Acts 2:37-40
It was popular in the 1980s among some Christians—even among some theologians to say that repentance is not necessary for salvation. They insisted that one could receive Christ as Savior, but not acknowledge His Lordship. They believed that repentance was a matter of human effort. Many of those who took this position did so in an attempt to exalt salvation by grace alone through faith alone. There are two fatal flaws with this position.
The first was a lack of understanding that, while salvation is by God’s grace alone, both faith and repentance are components of that saving grace. In other words, the only reason anyone believes or repents is that they are given the gifts of faith (Ephesians 2:8-9), and repentance (Acts 11:18,
2 Timothy 2:25).
And how does one receive these gifts? If we understand that lost people are dead in sin and unable to do anything to save themselves (including believe and repent), then we also understand that both faith and repentance are not human efforts but the work of God’s grace in the lives of those who are born again by His sovereign grace. We are not born again because we believe or because we repent. We believe and repent because, by God’s grace, we have been born again.
The second fatal flaw was that in their desire to exalt the grace of God, they had to ignore clear and compelling teaching in the Word of God on the subject of repentance. Note the following persons who insisted on repentance for salvation:
John the Baptist called people to repentance in Matthew 3:1-2, Jesus called people to repentance in Matthew 4:17. The twelve disciples were sent by Jesus to call people to repentance in Mark 6:7, 12. The Apostle Peter called people to repentance in Acts 2:37-39. God calls all men everywhere to repent in Acts 17:30. The Apostle Paul called people to repentance in Acts 26:19-20. Were these (including God) wrong? The Word of God is clear on the necessity of repentance.
Both faith and repentance are essential for salvation, and they are gifts God gives when we are born again.