In this series on the doctrine of repentance, we have reached two fundamental conclusions. These are: (1) that repentance is not in any way a condition for eternal salvation; and (2) repentance is the decision to turn from sin to avoid, or bring to an end, God’s temporal judgment. All the statements about repentance by

As we have seen in our previous articles on repentance,1 biblical repentance is not a condition for a person’s eternal salvation. Instead it addresses the need that sinners have (whether saved or unsaved) to repair their relationship to God in order to prevent, or to terminate, His temporal judgment on their sins. The prodigal son,

As we have seen in our last two articles in Grace in Focus, Luke 15 is not at all about the repentance of unsaved people. On the contrary, the chapter is about the repentance and restoration of Christians who have wandered away from their Shepherd and His flock (15:4-7), from their place and role in

Luke 15 is the classic NT chapter on repentance. Here, if anywhere, we should meet the fundamental teaching on NT repentance. As we saw in our study of Luke 15:1-10 (last issue), the first two parables of the chapter—The Lost Sheep and The Lost Coin—very clearly refer to the repentance of a born-again person who

In the first article of this series, we maintained that the silence of John in his Gospel on the subject of repentance is a powerful argument that he did not regard repentance as necessary for eternal life. In the second article, we showed that John’s frequent reference to repentance in the book of Revelation reveals