A Modern False Definition of Repentance - Glenn Conjurske
A Modern False Definition of Repentance
by the editor
A little booklet has lately been put into my hands, entitled “The Gospel,” written by Dallas Seminary graduate Ron Shea, published by the “Clear Gospel Crusade,” and endorsed by Curtis Hutson and John F. Walvoord. The booklet tells us that “Saving repentance is to stop trusting in gaining eternal life through religion, religious rituals, or obedience to God’s laws.” (And this slip-slop English was written by a man who has spent years in college and seminary, and earned master’s and doctor’s degrees. Our lot is cast in evil times.) The definition is based on one phrase from the book of Hebrews, “repentance from dead works,” while it ignores everything else in the Bible. This is typical of the Dallas school, having come originally from Lewis Sperry Chafer, but it is really perverse. It stands directly against the whole church of God for nineteen centuries, in which repentance was always defined as the forsaking of sin, and it stands directly against the Bible also. “God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent,” but a large segment of “all men,” including all the atheists, agnostics, and irreligious men of every sort, have nothing to repent of by this definition. They do no religious works, and some of them have never done a religious work in their lives. He presses Luke 13:1-5 into his service, and twists it to his own ends without quoting it, to support the assertion that “If he believes that obeying the laws of God are (sic) necessary to get to heaven, he must repent.” But that text says nothing whatever about obeying God’s laws, but of being sinners.
When John preached repentance, and men asked him “What shall we do then?” it was their sin he addressed, not their righteousness, nor their religion. He prescribes righteousness, and speaks never a word of religion. “Repent of this thy wickedness” the Bible says to Simon Magus, who thought to obtain the gift of God with money. “I gave her space to repent of her fornication.” “And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk. Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.” Are we to suppose all these things are religious works, by which men thought to gain a place in heaven?
This “clear gospel” is nothing other than the devil’s lie. “Ye shall not surely die,” though ye sin to your heart’s content. You must repent of your righteousness, but not of your sin. Can false doctrine sink lower than this?
Glenn Conjurske