This is part 11 of a series on forgiveness. See the index here.
And what is the clear teaching of Scripture related to sin and forgiveness? It is this:
Forgiveness of sins is a consequence of man’s repentance, and repentance is a consequence of the activity of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. So in the end, it seems that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is nothing more or less than the unrelenting rejection of His advances.
What’s missing from this “clear” teaching that repentance is required for salvation? I’ll give you a hint:
That right, faith is conspicuously missing.
This is quite the achievement: a theology of forgiveness without faith! It seems that Gould—an associate professor philosophy and religion, with a masters in Philosophy and Religion and Ethics and a Ph.D. in Philosophy—is more focused on philosophy than theology and it shows.
Now pay close attention to that scripture citation in John: something quite key is “missing.” Do you see what it is? There is no reference at all to repentance.
You have to go to the conclusion of Gould’s article to even see any reference of faith…
Or have you placed your faith/trust in Jesus—to forgive you of your sins, and to satisfy your heart and soul? If so, then you cannot commit the unforgivable sin—this is part of the good news—if you have trusted Jesus for your salvation—your sins, past, present, and future are forgiven once and for all. This is good news indeed!
…and there we find forgiveness of sin through faith without reference to repentance.
Recall in Part 5 how we had trouble finding verses that associated repentance with forgiveness? That’s because what scripture says is that if you believe, you have crossed over from death into eternal life. Here are a great many verses which promise forgiveness as a result of faith. And the following table does not even include all of them:
| Reference | What is Promised | Condition (Belief) | Repentance Mentioned? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew 9:2-6; Mark 2:5-10; Luke 5:20-24 | Forgiveness of sins | Faith of the paralytic and friends | No |
| Matthew 26:28 | Forgiveness of sins | Jesus’ blood poured out for many | No |
| Luke 7:48-50 | Forgiveness of sins, Salvation | Faith and love of the woman | No |
| Luke 8:48 | Salvation | Faith of the woman | No |
| Luke 18:42 | Salvation | Faith of the blind man | No |
| Luke 19:9-10 | Salvation | Receiving Jesus joyfully (faith implied) | Yes |
| Matthew 24:13 | Salvation | Enduring to the end | No |
| Matthew 19:16-29; Mark 10:17-30; Luke 18:18-30 | Eternal life | Keep commandments, give to poor, follow Jesus | Implied |
| Luke 10:25-28 | Eternal life | Love God and neighbor | No |
| John 3:16-18 | Eternal life Not condemned |
Belief in the Son | No |
| John 5:24 | Eternal life, no judgment | Hearing and believing | No |
| John 6:35-40 | Eternal life, resurrection | Coming to/believing in Him | No |
| John 6:47 | Eternal life | Believes | No |
| John 11:25-26 | Eternal life | Believes in Him | No |
| John 20:31 | Life in His name | Belief in Jesus as Christ | No |
| Acts 10:43 | Forgiveness of sins | Belief in Him | No |
| Acts 13:38-39 | Forgiveness, justification | Belief | No |
| Acts 16:31 | Salvation | Believe in the Lord Jesus | No |
| Romans 1:16 | Salvation | Belief | No |
| Romans 3:22 | Righteousness | Faith in Jesus Christ | No |
| Romans 3:26 | Justification | Faith in Jesus | No |
| Romans 3:28 | Justification | Faith | No |
| Romans 4:5 | Righteousness | Belief in the justifier | No |
| Romans 5:1 | Justification, peace with God | Faith | No |
| Romans 10:9-10 | Salvation | Confess and believe | No |
| Romans 10:13-14 | Salvation | Call on the Lord, believe | No |
| Galatians 2:16 | Justification | Faith in Christ | No |
| Galatians 3:6-9 | Blessing, righteousness | Faith | No |
| Galatians 3:22 | Promise of faith | Belief | No |
| Ephesians 2:8-9 | Salvation | Faith (gift of God) | No |
| Philippians 3:9 | Righteousness | Faith in Christ | No |
| 1 Timothy 1:16 | Eternal life | Belief | No |
| 1 John 5:11-13 | Eternal life | Belief in the Son | No |
These professions of faith and all promise forgiveness in one of its forms. None explicitly mention repentance.
Outside the gospels, repentance is mentioned approximately 33 times, with most of those in the Books of Acts and Revelation. Paul mentions repentance just seven times in his letters. Between the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, Luke’s references account for more than 40% of the references to repentance in the New Testament. Without Luke’s perspective, repentance would be a minor theme in the New Testament.
But something extremely curious happens when you look closely at the references to repentance:
And in those days John the Baptist publicly appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea, saying, “Repent, because the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near.”
Come now, produce fruit that is consistent with repentance,
I baptize you with water as a symbol of your repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I am—I am not even worthy to carry his sandals! He will baptize you with holy spirit or with fire.
John came baptizing in the desert and preaching a baptism that was a sign of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
And [John the Baptist] went into the whole region around the Jordan, preaching baptism as a sign of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,
[Paul said] “Before his coming, John had proclaimed to all the People of Israel baptism as a sign of repentance.”The focus on baptism and repentance was a specific theme in the New Testament attributed to John’s baptism of the Jews prior to Jesus’ ministry. This is an extremely important observation. In the book of Acts, Paul forcefully sends home this very point:
And Paul said,
And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Paul is making reference to this:
After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the good news of God, saying,
John the Baptist taught repentance (to the Jews) but foretold that Jesus would come teaching belief. And that is exactly what happened. Jesus taught repentance and belief (to the Jews). The apostles taught belief (to the Gentiles) with only occasional references to repentance. If we look at the references more closely, this becomes even more starkly obvious.
In Matthew, every reference to repentance was addressed to the Jews. The same, when implicit or explicit, is true of both Mark and Luke. The Fourth Gospel—written after the fall of the Jews as a nation in 70AD—does not mention repentance at all.
In Acts 2:38 and 3:19, Peter preaches baptism and repentance to the Jews. Then Peter gets even more explicit:
But Peter and the apostles answered and said,
Peter was an apostle to the Jews, so it is no surprise that he continued this teaching (e.g. Acts 8:22; 1 Peter 2:25; 2 Peter 3:9). Similarly, just as James was written to the Jews, James 5:19-20 emphasized repentance for atonement. The writer of Hebrews, writing to the Jews, did similar in Hebrews 6:1 and 6:6. Paul’s sole reference to repentance in the book of Romans was addressed to the Jews (in Romans 2:4). Paul preached repentance in Acts 20:21, but it was to a mixed group that included Jews.
Of course, it is not the case that only Jews repented…
And when they heard these things, they calmed down, and glorified God, saying,
…testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and trust toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
[I] declared both to those in Damascus first, and also in Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works that are consistent with repentance.…or that God didn’t want everyone to repent…
God overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has set a day in which he will judge the inhabited world righteously by the man whom he has appointed, having given proof to all people by raising him from among the dead.”
…but it was not a focus for the Gentiles like it was for the Jews who had been previously living under the first covenant.
It is not a coincidence that all of these quotations come from Acts. An examination of the New Testament’s references to repentance outside of Acts shows a clear and obvious thematic bias of exhorting repentance to the Jews, while barely mentioning it at all to the Gentiles. I could hardly find any proof that the New Testament instructed a group solely made up only of Gentiles to repent. The citation immediately above from Acts—regarding the men of Athens—is what I could find.
It is trivial to find many references to salvation (or forgiveness; eternal life) by faith alone. There are many listed in the table above across multiple books. But, if you want to see what the New Testament says about mostly Gentile congregations regarding repentance, you have to search hard to find them. Here are the ones from Paul’s letters:
2 Corinthians 7:8-10, 12:21
1 Thessalonians 1:9
2 Timothy 2:25.
That’s it! These are not particularly common or popular scriptures. It’s entirely possible that your pastor has never quoted from or taught on any of these.
I can only speculate as to why there has been so much emphasis on repentance relative to faith and forgiveness among modern Christians, but, like atonement (see footnote 2), what we can say for sure is that it is not based on any emphasis found in the New Testament.
The New Testament would seem to confirm what Bruce Charlton has stated:
The point is not to “live without sinning”, nor even to try such an absurd impossibility.
(Jesus came to save sinners, after all – and did not require of disciples or followers that they cease from sinning, but that they “follow Him”.)
The point is to know evil, and repent sin by choosing the side of Good.
Repentance sounds simple and easy, maybe too easy? It is simple, but apparently it is not easy, or seldom so; since repentance is so rare.
To be clear, we should try to eliminate sin in our lives and to strive not to sin. But we should not try to be sinless, for that is impossible. Moreover, the point of Christianity is not to eliminate sin—yet—it is to take the side of Christ through faith in him alone. As it turns out, that’s really the only way to eliminate sin anyway.
i was looking around on YouTube and came across this Wayne Dyer(a motivational speaker that i had never known about) video
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Fo7XPf9j9lo
Then on his Wiki entry i found this:
My beliefs are that the truth is a truth until you organize it, and then it becomes a lie. I don’t think that Jesus was teaching Christianity, Jesus was teaching kindness, love, concern, and peace. What I tell people is don’t be Christian, be Christ-like. Don’t be Buddhist, be Buddha-like.[25]
Religion is orthodoxy, rules and historical scriptures maintained by people over long periods of time. Generally, people are raised to obey the customs and practices of that religion without question. These are customs and expectations from outside the person and do not fit my definition of spiritual.[26]
See how he didn’t notice or care (as MOST Christians don’t either)about JESUS’ lordship or owner claims just that he taught kindness, love, concern, and peace?
IOW?
He believed in Hippie Jesus?
Where does this modern notion of a hippie Jesus come, where Jesus is just this nice guy who never judged anyone? Except of course those who judge. And the only reason he was against the pharisees, is because they were too “judgy”, and imperialists and capitalists.
And they say traditional churches are the modern pharisees. And that jesus was actually for marxism, totally pro lgbt, pro transgender pro feminism.
They take then this one verse out of context in which it says “dont judge”, but take it out of context.
They also take the thing where he said something about people who care too much about money, and then take this as him being against capitalism, and being ofr marxism.
And because he was “friends” with prostitutes, they think he approved of what prostitutes did, and other sinners.
And then they say only progressives can be true christians. And all conservatives are the modern day pharisees.
When did this image of a hippie Jesus start exactly, and why do they think jesus was a revolutionary, and not God and messiah?
Fiction
Jesus Christ Superstar
Godspell
and Pure ignorance of the bible
We are in a critical time where God’s been warning about so much. Just heard a pastor testify about his dream where Churches are swallowed up by storm clouds as is the leaders of churches. God showed him how many men and women of God are carrying the burden of this coming revival alone, and others have become poisoned by the crowd and likes and entertainment.
There’s leaders asking for prayer cuz they got the equivalent of spiritual STD’s.
God put’s me to shame because he used that pastor to show why he was most likely convicting me; I am called to forgive and lift my brothers and sisters up.
So it’s good we all recognize this issue, how do we fix it?
Prayer, as the pastor was speaking and Holy Spirit was powerfully upon me, he said God showed him no one is praying, our leaders not praying.
This is why people are not getting healed or seeing breakthrough. We need to get back on our knees and start fasting.
Wooo I feel Holy Spirit! Let me tell ya, this revival may be coming but God puts me to shame, we gotta wake up our brothers and sisters and not just blindly make observations. I see that now.
What good is all this discussion, if it does nothing?
Draw close to God and stay close and you can encounter his lessened daily, every second, like I do.
He has no favorites. What he does for me, he will do for you, if you let him.
The original greek word “Arsenokoitai” still refers to homosexuality. It literally means men going to bed with other men. It only didn’t when people didn’t want it to so they started making these arguments that it could mean something else but you do not translate by having a conclusion and seeing if you can reach that conclusion even if there is evidence of another conclusion.
There are people who feel Allah, feel the universe, feel the love of “a god” even when not following the true God at all, and feel all sorts of things. Scripture is how we test these things and if you’re in contradiction to scripture, you’re deceived by your feelings.
On the revolutionary thing I honestly have no idea. No joke here but I’ve heard some people say they think Jesus dying on the cross was a metaphor and didn’t actually happen 😭😭😭.
“For those whom the Lord loves He corrects, Even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.” Proverbs 3:12 AMP
What is everyone forgetting about above?
HINT!
JESUS said WE judge ourselves by our verdicts=judgements as with forgiveness too as stated here:
i just found this interesting video on Youtube too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKOMCpe-rqM
Jim Carrey Delivers Powerful Speech About Jesus, Suffering & Forgiveness (MUST WATCH)
1,482,983 views Jul 29, 2024 #aboveinspiration #Jesus #God
In this powerful video Jim Carrey talks about Jesus & Salvation. He reminds us that in our suffering we can either become vengeful or we can forgive just as Jesus did on the cross.
Besides Jim Carey’s speech at the beginning of the video(which lasts only 12:33), there is much preaching on forgiveness that matches Derek’s forgiveness series.