There has never been asked a more solemn question – neither in the Bible nor in history.  The simple answer was, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your house!”  (Acts 16:30-31).

Why didn´t Paul and Silas say to him, “Repent and believe…”  Ah,  look at him as he “fell down trembling…”.  What does repentance mean?  It means “a change of mind”, or a change of attitude.  It was already there, wasn´t it?

I remember a young girl (13), who at one evening meeting on an island outside the Norwegian west coast thrust herself in the arms of one of the elderly sisters weeping incessantly.  O, she wanted to be saved.  What did I do?  Did I tell her to repent?  Of course not, she was sobbing in repentance, and I remember the peace and joy that came to her convicted soul as we read together John 1:12, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name!” And from now on I saw a radiant face.

“What shall we do?” the Jewish brethren asked Peter when they had listened to him.  In that case the answer was, “Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins…”  (Acts 2:37-38).  Why this answer?  Remember “repent” means “change your mind”, implying “change your mind concerning the rejected Christ and show it by publicly siding with Him in the waters of baptism”, which was a most contemptible thing for a Jew to do.

It has been argued that there´s no repentance in John´s gospel, but that doesn´t mean that repentance (change of mind) is not there at all.  Nicodemus saw in Jesus a “teacher come from God”, but he had to change his mind about Christ.  The Samaritan woman saw to begin with just a Jewish gentleman in Jesus.  As her sin was exposed (“Go, call your husband!”) she changed her mind (repented) and owned Him as Messiah and Savior and became even a soul winner.

So repentance is there.  The religious blindness and unaffected hearts of Israel are mentioned,  and so they didn´t “turn to me to heal them” (John 12:40, NEB).  A different word is used, but the idea is practically the same.  It means “to change your direction”, “to turn around”.

It takes a close walk with the Lord to speak the right words at the right time to the right kind of people.  John Wesley once preached to a respectable audience in London on “Brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance!”  (Mt. 3:7-8).  “You can´t preach like that to us, do that at Billingsgate instead” , a lady said to him  (Billingsgate was a market place of bad language).  He replied, “At that place I would preach on “Behold!  The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Did you get the point?  I hope you did.

Oct. 1, 2012 – jn