Vox Oculi
Puritan Board Freshman
Found something to provoke discussion.
Here's the gist: One of the internet-warrior heretic(?) types I've run into this year on FB has been the "repentance is works" guys. They claim -- and as far as I can tell, correctly -- that the Scripture doesn't ever use the specific word "repent" with "from sin" as the object. They claim that the exhortation to people to repent of their sin and trust in Jesus Christ is preaching works-based soteriology.
Now, the Scripture very clearly teaches two things I'm aware of that address this claim:
1. Timothy and Acts both contain verses that express that repentance is a GIFT from God. Just like faith, and faith is not a work. So repentance is not a work.
2. Now, they might complain that that's "repentance" and not "repentance of sin," but the second point is simply that there are repeated exhortations to leave one's lifestyle of sin, stop sinning, turn from sin, die to sin, be freed from sin, etc. So the meaning conveyed by the phrase "repent of your sins" is clearly taught in Scripture.
I suppose that my specific question is whether there are any further silver bullets to deal with this, or more specific arguments than what I brought up here already, or perhaps it's the case that the Bible does somewhere use 'repent of sin' as a sort of proof-text that can be used?
Basically, how would you go about demonstrating that repenting of sin is not a work and that it is clearly taught in Scripture to go hand in hand with regeneration/salvation?
Would you consider promoters of this belief heretics? Where does it come from? Or is it genuine error resulting from misdirected zeal? Also curious how you'd tackle that.
Here's the gist: One of the internet-warrior heretic(?) types I've run into this year on FB has been the "repentance is works" guys. They claim -- and as far as I can tell, correctly -- that the Scripture doesn't ever use the specific word "repent" with "from sin" as the object. They claim that the exhortation to people to repent of their sin and trust in Jesus Christ is preaching works-based soteriology.
Now, the Scripture very clearly teaches two things I'm aware of that address this claim:
1. Timothy and Acts both contain verses that express that repentance is a GIFT from God. Just like faith, and faith is not a work. So repentance is not a work.
2. Now, they might complain that that's "repentance" and not "repentance of sin," but the second point is simply that there are repeated exhortations to leave one's lifestyle of sin, stop sinning, turn from sin, die to sin, be freed from sin, etc. So the meaning conveyed by the phrase "repent of your sins" is clearly taught in Scripture.
I suppose that my specific question is whether there are any further silver bullets to deal with this, or more specific arguments than what I brought up here already, or perhaps it's the case that the Bible does somewhere use 'repent of sin' as a sort of proof-text that can be used?
Basically, how would you go about demonstrating that repenting of sin is not a work and that it is clearly taught in Scripture to go hand in hand with regeneration/salvation?
Would you consider promoters of this belief heretics? Where does it come from? Or is it genuine error resulting from misdirected zeal? Also curious how you'd tackle that.