Is Repentance Necessary for Salvation?

Our question for this issue is too long to quote in its entirety. Its essence is found in the following extracts: "What I'm concerned with is whether we should tell people to forsake sins and repent to be a Christian. I believe Calvin wrote this: 'Now it ought to be a fact beyond controversy that repentance not only constantly follows faith, but is also born of faith....' But when we preach to nonbelievers, should we be telling a person that to be saved, he has to forsake his sins? Would that not be legalistic?... Faith results in repentance...so logically the call to repentance will be made to a Christian and not a non-Christian. So is it misleading to tell a person to forsake sins or be willing to forsake sins to be saved?... How does repentance fit into our preaching to the unbeliever?" This is followed by another related question: "Isn't following Christ (and faith) the calling of the believer, not the unbeliever?"

There are several issues here. They are: (1) whether repentance follows faith, so that only the believer can be called to repentance, and, closely related (2) whether an unbeliever can be called to repentance and faith without denying the sovereignty of grace, i.e., does not the calling of an unbeliever to repentance and faith imply some ability or free will on his part - that he is able to do these things or chose to do them.

We will take the second question first. It is a very important question and gets at some crucial issues. The answer to this question, for example, separates true Calvinism from what is sometimes called hyper-Calvinism.

Hyper-Calvinism is traditionally identified as the teaching that the unbeliever cannot be called to faith and repentance because that would be a denial of total depravity and would imply that the unbeliever has some natural spiritual ability to do these things. The true hyper-Calvinist, therefore, refuses to issue a general call to faith and repentance in the preaching of the gospel. This is wrong.

It is very clear from Scripture that the call to faith and repentance must be given generally (Acts 17:30). Note, however, that it is a call, not an offer. If it was an offer it would imply that the sinner has some ability to respond. Because it is a call, it does not.

What we must understand is that the call itself is the means by which God gives the grace to respond. By the call to repentance and faith God produces and creates repentance and faith in the hearts of the elect. That is the reason, too, why that call must be heard everywhere and always in the preaching of the gospel.

It is by the call of the gospel, then, that God works in the elect both to will and to do His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). That call is the power of God unto salvation (I Cor. 1:18). By the call of the gospel God says in the heart of the sinner, "Let there be light" and there is light (II Cor. 4:6).

This is something seldom understood about the preaching of the gospel. Preaching is not like other speaking and teaching because in it men here the voice of Christ Himself and are powerfully and irresistibly called to salvation (Jn. 10:27-28; Eph. 2:17). It is the means God has appointed for working by His sovereign grace in the hearts of the sinners.

The call to repentance and faith, therefore, is not a new legalism and a denial of sovereign grace, but part of the doctrine of sovereign grace. Augustine understood that long ago when he insisted that the call was the grace!Rev. R.Hanko

(Calvin comments on I Tim. 2:4): "The other texts adduced are not declarative of the Lord's determination respecting all men in his secret counsel: they only proclaim that pardon is ready for all sinners who sincerely seek it (Ps.145:9). For if they obstinately insist on its being said that God is merciful to all, I will oppose to them, what is elsewhere asserted, that 'our God is in the heavens; he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased' (Ps. 115:3). This text, then, must be explained in a manner consistent with another, where God says, 'I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy' (Ex. 33:19). He who makes a selection of objects for the exercise of his mercy, does not import that mercy to all. But as it clearly appears that Paul is there speaking, not of individuals, but orders of men, I shall forbear any further argument...."

(Calvin's Institutes, Book III, Chap. 24, XVI)