"And Jesus answering said unto them...except ye repent, ye shall all likewise

perish.”  Luke 13:2-3

           More and more it becomes evident that ours is an "age of sham." God desires truth in the inward parts. The blessed man is still the one “in whose spirit there is no guile.” It is forever true that “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” It can never be out of place to proclaim salvation by free, unmerited favor to all who put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. But it needs  ever to be insisted on that the faith that justifies is not a mere intellectual process— not  simply crediting certain historical facts or doctrinal statements; but it is a faith that  springs from a divinely wrought conviction of sin which produces a repentance that is sincere and genuine. 

            Our Lord’s solemn words, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish,” are as important today as when first uttered. No dispensational distinctions, important as these are in understanding and interpreting God’s ways with man, can alter this truth. No one was ever saved in any dispensation excepting by grace. Neither sacrificial observances, nor ritual service, nor works of law ever had any part in justifying the ungodly. On the other hand, neither were any sinners ever saved by grace until they repented.

           Shallow preaching that does not grapple with the terrible act of man’s sinfulness and guilt, calling on “all men everywhere to repent,” results in shallow conversions; and so we have a myriad of glib-tongued professing Christians today who give no evidence of regeneration whatever. Prating of salvation by grace, they manifest no grace in their lives. Loudly declaring they are justified by faith alone, they fail to remember that “faith without works is dead”; and that justification by works before men is not to be ignored as though it were in contradiction to justification by faith before God. We need to reread James chapter three and let its serious message sink deep into our hearts, that it may control our lives.

            No man can truly believe in Christ, who does not first repent. Nor will his repentance end when he has saving faith, but the more he knows God as he goes on through the years, the deeper will that repentance become. A servant of Christ said, "I repented before I knew the meaning of the word. I have repented far more since than I did then." Undoubtedly one great reason why some earnest Gospel preachers are almost afraid of, and generally ignore, the terms "repent" and "repentance" in their evangelizing is that they fear lest their hearers misunderstand these terms and think of them as implying something meritorious on the part of the sinner. But nothing could be wider of the mark. There is no saving merit in owning my true condition. There is no healing in acknowledging the nature of my illness. And repentance, as we have seen, is just this very thing.

What Repentance is Not

           But in order to clarify the subject, it may be well to observe carefully what repentance is not and then to notice briefly what it is. Repentance is not to confused with penitence (regret or remorse over one’s sinfulness), although penitence will invariably enter into it. But penitence is simply sorrow for sin. No amount of penitence can fit a man for salvation. On the other hand, the one who is not penitent will never come to God seeking His grace.“Godly sorrow,” we are told, “worketh repentance… not to be repented of,” or, “not to be regretted.” (2 Corinthians 7:10).   On the other hand, there is a sorrow for sin that has no element of piety or salvation in it: “the sorrow of the world worketh death.” In Peter’s penitence we see the former; in the remorse of Judas, the latter. Nowhere is man exhorted to feel a certain amount of sorrow for his sins in order to come to Christ. When the Spirit of God applies the truth, penitence is the immediate result and this leads on to repentance, but should not be confounded with it. This is a divine work in the soul.

              Let us also remember that reformation is not repentance, however close it appears to spring out of it. To turn over a new leaf, to attempt to supplant bad habits with good ones, to try to do good instead of evil, may not be the outcome of repentance at all and should never be confounded with it. Reformation is merely an outward change, whereas