Faith that apprehends the blessing of Christ involves repentance that comes from a deep and sincere sense of unworthiness.

Thursday, May 1st, 2008
by Justin

In his book All of Grace (Chicago: Moody, pp. 97-100) Charles Spurgeon wrote:

Repentance is the inseparable companion of faith. all the while that we walk by faith and not by sight, the tear of repentance glitters in the eye of faith. That is not true repentance which does not come to faith in Jesus, and that is not true faith in Jesus which is not tinctured [stained] with repentance. Faith and repentance, like 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 warp and woof of the fabric of real conversation.

Repentance adds nothing to faith but is rather an integral part of it. Saving faith is repentant faith. “Repentance toward God and faith in [the] Lord Jesus Christ” are inseparable (Acts 20: 21). Because they are inseparable, Scripture sometimes refers to salvation as repentance. Paul declares that “the kindness of God leads you to repentance” (Rom. 2:4), and Peter that God does not desire “for any to perish but for all to come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9). [MacArthur, Matthew 8-15: Moody, p. 470)