Repentant Faith vs. Repentance and Faith

[CharlieJ]

I recently had a discussion with a friend who ... ok, I won't give the back story, b/c it would just distract you.

During the course of the discussion, he kept saying things like "repentant faith" and "repentance is a part of faith." I'm guessing there's a good bit of John MacArthur-influenced thinking going on.

Do phrases like "repentant faith" confuse law and gospel, or undermine the doctrine of justification by faith alone?

 

[MW]

Do phrases like "repentant faith" confuse law and gospel, or undermine the doctrine of justification by faith alone?

I've heard the phraseology but I don't think it is popular. The phrase "repentant faith" doesn't convey what might be intended. One thinks of a repentant or penitent sinner. His state of being a sinner is something to repent of. To speak of repentant or penitent faith gives the immediate impression that faith itself is something to repent of. This is not what is intended but it is what the wording naturally leads to.

On the understanding that "repentant faith" intends to say something like faith itself is accompanied with repentance or that the act of faith includes the act of repentance, this is perfectly sound when referring to salvation as a whole. If it were to be used with specific reference to justification -- namely, that a man is justified by repentant faith -- this would not only undermine the doctrine of justification by faith alone but would be a serious error in itself. The preposition "by" intends to state the instrumental means of justification. The reason why faith is the only appropriate instrument is due to the fact that it is passive and empty in the act of receiving. Including "repentant" in the act of believing unto righteousness adds an active and contributive grace into the instrument and overturns the "faith alone" principle. The same applies to any adjective which is supplied to faith in the act of justification, e.g., obedient faith, persevering faith.

 

[Pergamum]

I am glad for repentant faith and also faithful repentance, but I do think faith and repentance are two distinct responses to the Gospel in our conversion, though they be like 2 side of one coin.

Am I missing something?

Why would this phraseology compromise justification by faith alone? I have never met anyone with true faith that did not also possess true repentance.

 

[Jack K]

I'm guessing there's a good bit of John MacArthur-influenced thinking going on.

I agree. It sounds to me like a person whose chief concern is that faith alone may be misunderstood as a license to continue sinning.

While that may often be a valid concern, my own chief concern is that in the phrase "repentant faith" we lose the scandal of the gospel—that God saves us apart from anything we might do to earn his favor by good living or churchy habits. "Repentance and faith" is a straight from the Bible way to phrase it, and it seems to me that it better preserves the faith alone distinction while still linking repentance with that faith.

 

[CharlieJ]

On the understanding that "repentant faith" intends to say something like faith itself is accompanied with repentance or that the act of faith includes the act of repentance, this is perfectly sound when referring to salvation as a whole. If it were to be used with specific reference to justification -- namely, that a man is justified by repentant faith -- this would not only undermine the doctrine of justification by faith alone but would be a serious error in itself. The preposition "by" intends to state the instrumental means of justification. The reason why faith is the only appropriate instrument is due to the fact that it is passive and empty in the act of receiving. Including "repentant" in the act of believing unto righteousness adds an active and contributive grace into the instrument and overturns the "faith alone" principle. The same applies to any adjective which is supplied to faith in the act of justification, e.g., obedient faith, persevering faith.

Thanks, this is what I was trying to convey, but I'm not sure I did a good job. From my conversations with people like this, usually reformed/reforming Baptists from a Dispensational and/or Fundamentalist background, they view "repentant faith" as a guard against easy-believism. That is, they think that if the make faith harder, they can weed out false converts. If I understand correctly, Reformed people can't really weed out false converts at the front end, only over time, as the process of godly instruction and church discipline reveals false converts.

 

[MW]

Thanks, this is what I was trying to convey, but I'm not sure I did a good job. From my conversations with people like this, usually reformed/reforming Baptists from a Dispensational and/or Fundamentalist background, they view "repentant faith" as a guard against easy-believism. That is, they think that if the make faith harder, they can weed out false converts. If I understand correctly, Reformed people can't really weed out false converts at the front end, only over time, as the process of godly instruction and church discipline reveals false converts.

I remember a striking statement on easy believism some time ago but can't recall the source. It was something like, "salvation is a simple matter of believing but believing is no simple matter." If faith were nothing more than knowledge and assent it would be an easy process of education, but it includes the element of trust. Trust requires the laying of one's life and well-being upon another. In this light "true faith" contains all the potential for the complete transformation of the individual because he has subjected himself to the all sufficient and complete Saviour of sinners.

 

[CharlieJ]

I totally agree with this. When I read some of these people, though - MacArthur, Chantry, various semi-Reformed Baptists who still have some Dispensational leanings - what they add to knowledge and assent is not trust but promises to obey.

There is one part of the WCF that confuses me. I understand 11.1, which says that imputation is for Christ's sake alone. I follow 11.2, which says that faith is the alone instrument of justification.

Now, in 14.2, it gives a list of things faith does. It even says that "by this faith, a Christian ... acteth differently." I think this is where my friend was arguing that justifying faith already includes repentance. I was arguing in response that the "principal acts" of faith refer to faith that justifies, and that this faith is empty, passive, and receptive, in contrast to any later acts of faith. How is 14.2 to be understood, especially the relationship between faith's "principal" acts and other acts?

 

[Peairtach]

The Lord's brother, James, distinguished between dead faith and living faith:

So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (Jam 2:17)

and also between faith that was "justified" before God and man by works and faith that wasn't:

But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (Jam 2:18)

So this kind of thing has been felt to be necessary and has been going on for a long time. Obviously one must be careful with the language used.

We are justified by faith alone, but ultimately we are not sanctified by faith alone or saved by faith alone, because repentance, new obedience and good works are part and parcel of sanctification, and sanctification is an aspect of salvation.

 

[cih1355]

I recently had a discussion with a friend who ... ok, I won't give the back story, b/c it would just distract you.

During the course of the discussion, he kept saying things like "repentant faith" and "repentance is a part of faith." I'm guessing there's a good bit of John MacArthur-influenced thinking going on.

Do phrases like "repentant faith" confuse law and gospel, or undermine the doctrine of justification by faith alone?

Those who say "repentant faith" mean that both faith and repentance are involved in conversion. They are not denying that faith is the sole instrument that receives justification.

 

[CharlieJ]

This is the quote that provoked the discussion:

‎"The error of the Judaizers is a very modern error indeed, as well as a very ancient error. It is found in the modern Church wherever men seek salvation by 'surrender' instead of by faith ... or by 'making Christ master in the life' instead of by trusting in His redeeming blood." ~ J. Gresham Machen

My friend took issue with this statement, saying that Machen created a false dichotomy. I really fear that some of these people using terms such as "repentant faith" think that coming to Christ for salvation has to include some sort of promise to obey God from now on or a promise to forsake this or that sin in their lives. We can't deny salvation by good works only to allow salvation by good intentions.

 

[Peairtach]

My friend took issue with this statement, saying that Machen created a false dichotomy. I really fear that some of these people using terms such as "repentant faith" think that coming to Christ for salvation has to include some sort of promise to obey God from now on or a promise to forsake this or that sin in their lives. We can't deny salvation by good works only to allow salvation by good intentions.

Well when we are regenerated and have justifying faith implanted, love for the true God is put at the bottom of our hearts, there is a new commitment placed there to obey God completely from now if we could, and to be done with sin, but a promise and intention that is not realised until perfection in sanctification at death.

But that a deep and sincere intention to be done with sin is placed in our hearts with justifying faith, doesn't change the fact that we are saved by faith alone.

Even if the desire, aspiration and intention to be rid of sin were actually fulfilled at conversion or later in this life we still must be justified by faith alone; apart from anything less what about the sins that we comitted before we had faith which mar the record of our life? To be justified by our own lives we have to be sinless from birth, not sinless from conversion. It's biblical for preachers to point to such a hypothetical CoW to their hearers and its impossibility of being fulfilled.