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L i g k t on
P u z z l i n g P a s s a g e s and P r o b l em s
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By R. A . TORRET
• “ I have been told that we ought not to preach repentance in these days, that the preaching of repentance was for Old Testament times and that it has been done away since Pentecost. Is this true?” It certainly is not true. There is a school of thought that contends that the preaching of repentance does not belong to this present dispensation, but this statement is not' true and wholly without warrant in the Word of God. The Apostle Paul declares in Acts 20:21 that when laboring among the Ephes ians he “ testified both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” And in his address before King Agrippa, in describing his min istry, he says, “ I showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.” There can be, no honest mistaking of the mean ing of, these words. Paul certainly was led of the Spirit of God long after Pentecost to preach repentance and to preach it to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews. Furthermore, the keynote of the preaching not only of John the Baptist, but of Jesus Christ Himself, and the disciples on their first mis sionary tour, and Peter at Pentecost, was “ Repent.” This is seen from Matt. 3:2; 4:17; Mark 6:12; Acts 2:38. Nor is this all: the very heart of Christ’s parting commission to the twelve was that “Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jeru salem.” (Matt. 24:47, R. V.) Peter’s
second Epistle is one of the later epistles in the New Testament, but in that we are told that our Lord’s supreme desire concerning all men is that they should “ come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9, R. V.). Further still, the Apostle Paul, when preaching to the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who were Gentiles and not Jews, on Mars Hill, declared that God’s one command to “ all men everywhere” was “ to repent” (Acts 17:3). The only door of escape from perdition for any man is repentance. This our Lord Jesus Himself teaches in Luke 13:3, 5. But while saying this, we should bear in mind just what repentance is as defined in the Word of God. Repent ance is not merely a feeling sorry for sin or groaning over sin, nor is it even merely turning away from sin. “ Repent ance” is a change of mind about sin and a change of mind about God and a change of mind about Jesus Christ. xIn the New Testament usage of the word we find both the thought of regret and the thought of a change of purpose and action; but the emphasis is upon a change of purpose and action. Sorrow for sin is not repentance, but is an element in repentance. What the repentance or change of mind is about must in every case be determined by the context in which the word is used. In Acts 2:38, for example, one of the most important passages in the Bible on the whole subject, the change of mind is primarily about Jesus Christ, as the context clearly shows, a change of mind from that attitude of mind that cruci fied Christ (or that today rejects .Christ) to that attitude of mind that accepts Christ as Saviour and Lord.
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