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REPENTANCE AND REMISSION OF SINS
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February 27, 1997 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - The following message, "Repentance and Remission of Sins," is by Baptist preacher B.H. Carroll (1843--1914). This is extracted from a sermon he preached in September 1889, and though it is more than 100 years old, it is as timely today as when first delivered --
Just before the Lord's ascension to heaven, he thus addressed his wondering disciples:
"And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:44-47).
Let it be carefully observed that the text itself is a dependent clause. The structure of the phrase, "And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached," shows that the efficacy of such preaching grows out of a preceding statement, to wit: "Thus it is written, and thus is behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day." Which means that without the death and resurrection of Christ as meritorious basis no repentance and no faith would avail. Hence, the repentance and remission of sins must be preached in his name. That is to say, no sorrow for sin, no confession of it, no forsaking of it, no change of mind toward God, and no faith in him can compensate for or atone for sin. The old doctrine of repentance and faith never regarded either one of them as a procuring cause or meritorious ground of salvation. But that old doctrine does require the preaching and the exercising of both, one as much as the other, as conditions of life. Whatever they mean, therefore, whether severally or conjointly, they must be preached. I mean that both must be preached, that both must be preached among all nations and to every creature of all nations. Not repentance in one place and faith in another, but both repentance and faith in every place and to all men.
I mean that you cannot become a disciple by faith alone nor by repentance alone, but both repentance and faith are necessary to discipleship in every case. I mean more, that the order of "repentance and remission of sins" is not accidental, but designed and philosophical, and that every place in the Scripture which mentions both repentance and faith in the same connection preserves this order--first repentance, then faith, which secures remission. So preached John the Baptist (Acts 19:4). So preached Jesus (Mark 1:15). So taught Jesus (Matt. 21:32). So preached Paul everywhere (Acts 20:21). From which it follows that there can be no true faith and no salvation without repentance.
It was Christ's high mission to call men to repentance (Matt. 9:13). Whosoever does not so call them is no true minister of Christ. Christ commanded all men to repent (Acts 17:30). Whoever does not preach it leaves out half the commission--half of discipleship. Repentance is unto life (Acts 11:18). It is unto salvation (2 Cor. 7:10). Therefore, there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth (Luke 15:7). Whatever then it means, woe be to that man who leaves it out of his preaching. Woe to that faith unpreceded by it.
The preacher who leaves out repentance commits as grave a sin as the one who leaves out faith. I mean he must preach repentance just as often, and with as much emphasis, and to as many people as he preaches faith.
To omit repentance, to ignore it, to depreciate it, is rebellion and treason. Mark its relative importance: You may make a mistake about baptism and be saved, for baptism is not essential to salvation. You may be a Christian and not comprehend fully the high-priesthood of Jesus Christ (Heb. 5:11), but "Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish." So said the Master Himself.
Repentance is a fundamental duty. Fundamental means pertaining to a foundation, and Paul commences the enumeration of the first principles of the oracles of God by saying, "The foundation of repentance" (Heb. 6:1). A foundation is that upon which the superstructure rests. The man whose faith, whose religion has no foundation of true repentance underneath it, has built his house on sinking sand. When the storm comes, and the hurtling rain and the wrestling winds, that house will fall, and great will be the fall of it. Faith without repentance is a structure in the air.
Following other figures, repentance is a preparatory work. For thus saith the Lord: "Break up your fallow ground and sow not among thorns." I submit before God, who will judge the quick and the dead, that to preach faith without repentance is to sow among thorns. The other figure was architectural, this is agricultural. No harvest can be gathered from an unplowed field. Let me tell you a secret. You people that are concerned about so many unconverted church-members, and whose case you try to remedy by refined changes in faith, come and hear this secret. Where there are such cases indeed, you cannot help matters by merely tinkering with their faith, or by recasting it. It would be like sowing for a second crop among thorns. The last state of that man is worse than the first. To teach faith without repentance is to sow by the wayside, or in stony ground, or among thorns. The devil steals the first, the second endures but for a season, and the third is choked by the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. But when God's convicting grace has led to true repentance then faith brings forth thirty, sixty, and one hundred fold. In all such cases then you may be sure the plow is needed. The fallow ground needs to be broken up. "The hurt was healed too slightly by saying, Peace, peace, when there was no peace." "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." How can a man who claims that he is well, who has no realization of deadly disease, be induced to trust himself to a physician?
The most striking instance on record of repentance as a preparatory work was the ministry of John the Baptist. "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain: and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." (Isaiah 40:3-6). He was sent "to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." He did it by preaching repentance, and Mark says his preaching was "the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Here is the true starting point. Whoever starts this side of repentance makes a false beginning which vitiates his whole Christian profession.
When true repentance was preached and emphasized, there were not so many nominal professors of religion. To leave out or minify repentance, no matter what sort of a faith you preach, is to prepare a generation of professors who are such in name only. Paul says: "I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died." Much of modern repentance has not power to wither or to slay. It was, little sick, little well. It was, little sinner, little Savior. They never saw the ax laid at the root of trees, nor heard the voice, "Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire." Chaff--chaff instead of wheat. We need preachers of repentance, who, like John, are burning and shining lights. We need Jonathan Edwards again, to preach his sermon on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." We need Spurgeon to re-preach his famous sermon on "The Withering Work of the Holy Spirit" as preparation for life. Deeper conviction makes brighter faith. We need preachers who can show "sin to be exceedingly sinful." Then we will have less complaint about shallow faith.
I give it as my deliberate conviction, founded on twenty-five years of ministerial observation, that the Christian profession of today owes its lack of vital godliness, its want of practical piety, its absence from the prayer meeting, its miserable semblance of missionary life, very largely to the fact that old-fashioned repentance is so little preached. You can't put a big house on a little foundation. And no small part of such preaching comes from a class of modern evangelists who desiring more for their own glory to count a great number of converts than to lay deep foundations, reduce the conditions of salvation by one-half and make the other half but some intellectual trick of the mind rather than a radical spiritual change of the heart. Like Simon Magus, they believe indeed, but "their heart not being right in the sight of God, they have no part nor lot in this matter. They are yet in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity." Such converts know but little and care less about a system of doctrine. They are prayerless, lifeless, and to all steady church work reprobate.
See "Unscriptural Presentations of the Gospel"