The Redefinition of Repentance
- Brent Madaris
- 21 hours ago
- 10 min read
Biblical Meaning and Modern Reduction
In the previous article (The Modern Debate Over Repentance and Salvation), we observed that the controversy surrounding repentance is not primarily about whether repentance exists in the gospel message. Almost no one denies repentance outright. Instead, the debate centers on what repentance actually means. This is the subject of this article.
In many contemporary gospel presentations, repentance is described merely as a “change of mind about Christ.” Such explanations are usually motivated by a sincere desire to protect the doctrine of salvation by grace alone. Yet when the biblical data is examined carefully, it becomes evident that Scripture presents repentance as something richer and more comprehensive than a purely intellectual adjustment.
The question, therefore, is not whether salvation is by grace through faith—it most certainly is—but whether the modern reduction of repentance accurately reflects the biblical witness.
Four Common Lexical Errors
Modern debates about repentance often arise from misunderstandings of the biblical terminology. Four errors appear repeatedly in contemporary discussions.
1. Reducing Repentance to Intellectual Change
Some explanations limit repentance to a purely mental adjustment—changing one’s opinion about Christ. While repentance certainly involves the mind, the biblical evidence consistently connects it with moral and spiritual turning.
2. Ignoring the Prophetic Background
The New Testament writers assumed the Old Testament prophetic framework. When Jesus and the apostles called sinners to repent, they were echoing the prophets’ call to return to God.
3. Collapsing Repentance into Faith
Although repentance and faith occur together, Scripture consistently distinguishes them. Repentance turns the sinner toward God; faith rests upon Christ for salvation.
4. Removing the Moral Dimension
When repentance is reduced to a purely internal decision, the ethical seriousness of the biblical call is diminished. Yet throughout Scripture repentance is connected with abandoning evil and returning to righteousness.
Let's examine this in greater biblical, lexical, and historical detail.
The Gospel Proclamation of Repentance
The earliest proclamation of the gospel in the New Testament joins repentance and faith together while maintaining a distinction between them. The ministry of John the Baptist illustrates this pattern clearly.
John first appeared in the wilderness of Judaea preaching a message centered on repentance:
“Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:2; cf. Luke 3:3).
This call to repentance was not merely verbal. John demanded evidence of genuine heart change from those who responded to his preaching:
“Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.” (Matthew 3:8; cf. Luke 3:8).
Later, the apostle Paul summarized John’s ministry in terms that unite repentance with faith in Christ:
“John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.” (Acts 19:4).
Thus the earliest gospel proclamation did not treat repentance and faith as competing ideas but as complementary responses to the message of salvation. Nor did the preaching of John the Baptist reduce repentance to merely a “change of mind.” Rather, repentance involved an inward turning of the heart that produced outward evidence in the life.
The events of Pentecost illustrate this same pattern. When Peter preached Christ to the assembled crowd, the hearers were “pricked in their heart” and cried out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). Peter then commanded them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). Those who “gladly received his word were baptized” (Acts 2:41). In this case the evidence of repentance appeared immediately in their conviction of sin, their submission to the apostolic message, and their public identification with Christ in baptism. This was no small evidence, especially when one considers that only fifty days earlier the city had crucified the very One whom they now publicly acknowledged and confessed as Lord.
Further, when our Lord began His public ministry, the Gospel record states:
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” Mark 1:15
The structure of the command is significant. Christ issues two imperatives:
repent, and
believe.
If repentance were merely another word for believing, the statement would become redundant. Instead, repentance and faith appear as distinct yet inseparable responses to the gospel message.
This same pattern appears later in apostolic preaching. The Apostle Paul summarized his evangelistic ministry as:
“Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” Acts 20:21
Here again the distinction is clear. Repentance is directed toward God, while faith rests in Christ. Together they form the proper response of the sinner who hears the gospel.
Nor was repentance a temporary feature of early preaching. After His resurrection, Christ declared that:
“Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations.” Luke 24:47
Thus repentance was not merely a preliminary message of John the Baptist. It remained a central element of the gospel proclamation entrusted to the church.
The Prophetic Framework of Repentance
The New Testament call to repentance did not arise in a theological vacuum. It rests firmly upon the language and theology of the Old Testament prophets.
A particularly illuminating example appears in Book of Jeremiah 18:7–8:
“At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation… to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; If that nation… turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.”
This passage establishes a clear pattern concerning repentance:
Human Response | Divine Response |
Turning from evil | God relents from judgment |
The repentance of the people involves turning from evil ways, while the “repentance” attributed to God describes His judicial decision to withhold judgment.
Recognizing this distinction prevents a common misunderstanding. When Scripture speaks of God “repenting,” it is not suggesting that God changes His moral character or acknowledges sin. Rather, the language communicates God’s relational response within history to the conduct of human beings.
Charles Feinberg states, concerning this matter of the Lord’s repentance, that
“with God, repentance is not a change of mind but his consistent response according to his changeless nature to the nation’s conduct.”¹
The prophetic literature therefore does not weaken the biblical concept of repentance. Instead, it reinforces the connection between repentance and a genuine turning away from evil.
The Hebrew Background: Shuv
The Old Testament vocabulary of repentance is dominated by the Hebrew verb שׁוּב (shuv), meaning “to turn,” “to return,” or “to go back.”²
The prophets frequently used this word to call Israel to return to covenant faithfulness. For example:
“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him.” Isaiah 55:7
Here repentance includes both:
Forsaking wicked ways
Returning to the Lord
The emphasis is relational and moral rather than merely intellectual. The people are called not only to reconsider their beliefs but to turn back to God Himself.
The Greek Vocabulary of Repentance
While the authority of Scripture rests in the inspired text itself, consulting standard Greek lexicons simply helps modern readers understand how the original words were used in the first century and how those words were commonly understood by the earliest readers of the New Testament.
The primary Greek words translated “repent” in the New Testament are μετανοέω (metanoeō) and μετάνοια (metanoia).³
These terms literally involve a “change of mind,” but the phrase must be understood in its ancient context. In biblical usage, the change of mind described by metanoia is not a detached intellectual reconsideration but a profound transformation of perspective that leads to a change of direction.
The Greek vocabulary of repentance reflects this broader sense.
The standard Greek lexicon defines metanoia as a “change ones mind,” and also uses terms such as “turning away from something,” "turning about," "be converted," "Feel remorse," "repent"⁴
The Theological Lexicon of the New Testament has the following definitional aspects:
To know after...a change one's mind or feelings
Repentance is often accompanied by regret, sorrow, or shame at the former opinion or attitude.
Repentance entails a change of conduct or of future status
In describing this expereince it is written, "There is no longer any question of distinguishing between change of thoughts, of heart, of actions. The change is that of the soul, of the whole person (the new creature), who is purified of stains and whose life is transformed, metamorphosed."⁵
This confirms that the biblical concept of repentance cannot be reduced to a momentary intellectual adjustment; it describes a profound reorientation of the heart and life toward God.
The preaching of John the Baptist makes this point unmistakably clear. He commanded his hearers:
“Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance." Matthew 3:8
Repentance, in other words, produces observable results. John did not teach salvation by works, but he insisted that genuine repentance could not remain hidden. He refused to baptize anyone without visible evidence/fruit of repentance.
A Historical Shift in Explanation
Within twentieth-century American fundamentalism, repentance was often described using the language of turning from sin to God. This terminology appeared frequently in the writings of earlier leaders such as John R. Rice.
Rice consistently explained repentance as a change of mind about sin and about God that results in turning to Him.
During the latter decades of the twentieth century, some evangelistic teachers sought to guard the doctrine of salvation by grace from any suggestion of human merit, and also to make it easier to "win souls." In that context, the definition of repentance was sometimes narrowed in evangelistic instruction. One example appears in the teaching of Jack Hyles, who explained that the repentance required for salvation is not a turning from sin but a turning from unbelief to belief. In a chapter devoted to the subject, Hyles wrote that “we have to repent only of the thing that makes us unsaved, and that is unbelief.”⁶ In this form of presentation, repentance from sins was treated primarily as something that occurs after conversion through the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life rather than as part of the sinner’s initial response to the gospel.
This approach represented a noticeable shift in emphasis from much earlier evangelistic preaching, where repentance was commonly described not merely as abandoning unbelief but as a decisive turning of the heart toward God that inevitably involved a changed attitude toward sin.
Because Hyles’ conferences and training programs reached thousands of pastors, his explanation became widespread in many Independent Baptist circles.
After Rice’s death in 1980, editorial leadership of the Sword of the Lord ministry passed to Curtis Hutson, who likewise stressed that repentance should not be presented in a way that suggested human merit.
The intention behind these warnings was understandable. Nevertheless, the practical result in some contexts was that repentance came to be defined almost exclusively as changing one’s mind about Christ.
A Subtle but Significant Change
Once repentance was reduced to this narrower meaning, the language of evangelism began to shift.
Earlier gospel tracts frequently included appeals such as:
repent of your sins
turn to God
confess your sin before the Lord
Later tracts often emphasized statements like:
believe on Christ
accept Jesus
pray this prayer
Repentance was not entirely removed, but its meaning was sometimes narrowed until it became virtually indistinguishable from belief itself.
This subtle shift helps explain why modern debates about repentance often generate more confusion than clarity. Different speakers may use the same word while intending very different definitions.
Repentance and Grace
It is crucial to emphasize that repentance does not contradict salvation by grace.
Scripture never presents repentance as a meritorious work performed in order to earn forgiveness. Rather, repentance is the Spirit-wrought response of the heart when a sinner encounters the holiness of God and the mercy revealed in Christ.
Repentance and faith therefore stand together as two sides of the same response to the gospel: the sinner turns from sin toward God and places trust in the finished work of Christ.
Conclusion
The modern controversy over repentance often arises not because repentance has been openly rejected, but because its meaning has gradually been reduced.
The biblical witness presents repentance as more than a momentary mental adjustment. Rooted in the prophetic call to return to the Lord, repentance involves a profound change of heart that turns the sinner toward God.
When repentance and faith are preserved in their biblical relationship, the gospel retains both its gracious invitation and its moral seriousness. The church’s task is therefore not to abandon repentance nor to redefine it, but to proclaim it faithfully as part of the message Christ commanded His disciples to preach to all nations.
The purpose of this discussion is not to create division among those who love the gospel of Jesus Christ. The issue before us is not whether salvation is by grace alone—it most certainly is—but whether our explanation of repentance reflects the full witness of Scripture. When the prophets called men to return to the Lord, when John the Baptist demanded fruits meet for repentance, and when our Lord Himself proclaimed, “Repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15), they were not inviting sinners to perform meritorious works, but summoning them to a decisive turning of the heart toward God (wrought in them by God Himself).
If the language of repentance has been narrowed in some circles, the solution is not controversy but clarity. The church must recover the biblical balance in which repentance and faith stand together in the gospel proclamation—repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21). Only when the message is preserved in its scriptural fullness will the church faithfully declare the good news entrusted to her by Christ.
The discussion above illustrates how the language surrounding repentance has sometimes been narrowed in modern evangelistic instruction in an effort to protect the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. Yet this raises an important historical question: Was this always how repentance was understood in Baptist and revivalist preaching? A careful examination of earlier evangelistic literature suggests that the language used by many influential preachers of the past was noticeably broader. In the next section, we will examine how earlier voices—particularly figures such as John R. Rice—described repentance in their preaching and writing, and how their presentations of the gospel help illuminate the historical development of this discussion.
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Footnotes
Charles Feinberg, Jeremiah: A Commentary, (The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids Michigan, 1982) 135.
Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. “שׁוּב.”
Walter Bauer, Frederick Danker, et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, s.v. “μετάνοια,” and “μετανοέω.”
Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, rev. and ed. by Frederick William Danker; trans. by William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 567 .s.v. “μετανοέω.” See the fourth edition here - https://www.agathonlibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/BDAG-A-Greek-English-Lexicon-of-the-New-Testament-and-Other-Early-Christian-Literature-Walter-Bauer-Frederick-William-Danker-etc.-z-lib.org_.pdf
Ceslas Spicq and James D. Ernest, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 474, 475.
Enemies of Soul Winning (Hammond, IN: Hyles-Anderson Publishers, 1970s edition), 30–41 (specifically 35, 38, 40). See also https://archive.org/details/jackhylesbooks/Enemies-of-Soul-Winning-Dr.-Jack-Hyles/page/n35/mode/2up?q=One+thing
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