Albert Martin wrote,
We must
repent, and we must believe. Although it is necessary to discuss these as
separate concepts, we must not think that repentance is ever divorced from
faith or that faith is ever divorced from repentance. True faith is permeated
with repentance, and true repentance is permeated with faith. They
interpenetrate one another in such a way that, whenever there’s a true
appropriation of the divine provision, you will find a believing penitent and a
penitent believer. (What is a Biblical Christian? Used by Permission).
Louis Berkhoff wrote,
Moreover,
true repentance never exists except in conjunction with faith, while on the
other hand, wherever there is true faith, there is also real repentance. The
two are but different aspects of the same turning-a turning away from sin in
the direction of God. The two cannot be
separated; they are simply complementary parts of the same process. (Systematic Theology, by permission, Banner
of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 1998, p. 487).
Mark Dever wrote,
And what is
the prescribed response? Is it to walk down an aisle? Is it to fill out a card,
or to lift up a hand? Is it to make an appointment with a preacher, or to
decide to be baptized and join the church? While any of those things may be
involved, none of them necessarily is. The response of the Good News – the
message that Paul preached and other Christians preached throughout the New
Testament – is to repent and believe. Once we’ve heard the truth about our own
sin and God’s holiness, about His love in sending Christ, and about Christ’s
death and resurrection for our justification, then, as instructed by the first words
of Jesus recorded in Mark’s gospel, our response is to “Repent and believe the
good news!” (1:15). (Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Crossway,
2000, p. 77).
CH Spurgeon wrote,
Repentance is
the inseparable companion of faith. All the while that we walk by faith and not
by sight, the fear of repentance glitters in the eye of faith. That is not true
repentance which does not come of faith in Jesus; and that is not true faith in
Jesus which is not tinctured with repentance. Faith and repentance, like the
Siamese twins, are vitally joined together. Faith and repentance are but two
spokes in the same wheel, two handles of the same plow. Repentance has been
well described as a heart broken for sin and from sin, and it may equally well
be spoken of as turning and returning. It is a change of mind of the most
thorough and radical sort, and it is attended with sorrow for the past and a
resolve of amendment in the future. Repentance of sin and faith in divine
pardon are the ways and woof of the fabric of real conversion.
AW Pink wrote,
Repentance is
the hand releasing those filthy objects it had previously clung to so
tenaciously. Faith is extending an empty
hand to God to receive His gift of grace.
Repentance is a godly sorrow for sin.
Faith is receiving a sinner's Saviour.
Repentance is revulsion of the filth and pollution of sin. Faith is a seeking of cleansing therefrom.
Repentance is the sinner covering his mouth and crying, “Unclean,
unclean!” Faith is the leper coming to
Christ and saying, “Lord, if You will, You can make me
clean.” (Salvation From the
Penalty of Sin).
