Repentance is a synonym for Salvation.
There can be no believing without repentance.
There can be no salvation without repentance.
[Acts 17:30-31, 20:21, 26:20, Rom. 2:4]
- John MacArthur
The doctrine of repentance is the missing note in many otherwise orthodox and fundamentally sound circles today.
Professed preachers of grace, who, like the antinomians of old, decry the necessity of repentance lest it seem to invalidate the freedom of grace.
Shallow preaching that does not grapple with the terrible fact of man's sinfulness and guilt, calling on all men everywhere to repent, results in shallow conversions. And so we have myraids of glib-tongued professors today who give no evidence of regeneration whatever. Pratting 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.
- Dr. Harry A. Ironside [From the book 'Except Ye Repent]
There must be a true and actual abandonment of sin and a turning unto righteousness in real act and deed in everyday life. repentance to be sure must be entire. How many will say "Sir, I will renounce this sin and the other but there are certain darling lusts which is must keep and hold" Oh Sirs, in God's name let me tell you.
It is not the giving up of one sin nor fifty sins which is true repentance. It is the solemn renunciation of every sin. If thou doest harbor one of those accursed vipers in thy heart, and doest give up every other, that one lust like one leak in a ship will sink thy soul. Think it not sufficient to give up thy outward vices fancy it not enough to cut off the more corrupt sins of of thy life, it is all or none that God demands. Repent says HE, and when He bids you repent, HE means repent of all thy sins otherwise He can never accept thy repentance as real and genuine.
All sin must be given up or else you will never have Christ. All transgression must be renounced or else the gates of heaven must be barred against you. Let us remember then that for repentance to be sincere it must be entire repentance. True repentance is a turning of the heart as well as of the life. It is the giving up of the whole soul to God to be HIS forever and ever. It is the renunciation of the sins of the heart as well as the crimes of the life.
-CH Spurgeon
