What is Biblical repentance?

[Dave]

What does it look like?

Does it grow, or mature?

Is it always perfect?

This is a quote from caption below a Paul Washer you tube video called "Don't Expect a Perfect Repentance"

"Many people say that things like “I cannot repent” or “I’m trying to repent” thinking that they need a fully matured, perfect repentance before they can be saved. But we are not saved because we have a perfect repentance, but because we are weak and helpless and cast ourselves upon a perfect Savior. We cannot expect to see the same depth of repentance from a babe in Christ as we would expect from a person who has walked with God for 30 years."

Thoughts?

Dave

 

[Fred]

Does it grow, or mature?

Is it always perfect?

The more one sees how holy God is the more one also sees how horrible of a sinner one is and how great the mercy of God is.

 

[Arial]

What does it look like?

Does it grow, or mature?

Is it always perfect?

This is a quote from caption below a Paul Washer you tube video called "Don't Expect a Perfect Repentance"

"Many people say that things like “I cannot repent” or “I’m trying to repent” thinking that they need a fully matured, perfect repentance before they can be saved. But we are not saved because we have a perfect repentance, but because we are weak and helpless and cast ourselves upon a perfect Savior. We cannot expect to see the same depth of repentance from a babe in Christ as we would expect from a person who has walked with God for 30 years."

Thoughts?

Dave

The first and crucial repentance, as in "Repent and you will be saved." is not about repenting of individual sins. If it were it would be works based salvation. It means turning away from one thing and towards another. The natural state of mankind is away from God. We are at enmity with him. So repent unto salvation would be a complete change of heart and mind. And we know from John 3 and John 1:12-13, and the prophecy of Jeremiah that God will remove our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh (soft and pliable in his hands) and write his law upon our heart, that this turning is something God does.

It removes all our sins legally, as in justification by faith, but the sanctification, the gradual removal of sins as the Holy Spirit conforms us to the image of Christ, as we learn from his word and grow, is something that takes place over our lifetime. There are usually some sins the new Christian recognizes as sin at the beginning, things they have been doing that they now recognize they should not be doing as a child of God, but our sanctification goes much deeper than merely outward actions.