Does Your Mind Need Changing? Repentance Reconsidered -- By: Robert N. Wilkin
Journal: Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society
Volume: JOTGES 11:1 (Spring 1998)
Article: Does Your Mind Need Changing? Repentance Reconsidered
Author: Robert N. Wilkin
JOTGES 11:1 (Spring 98) p. 35
Does Your Mind Need Changing?
Repentance Reconsidered
Associate Editor
Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society
Irving, TX
Editor’s note: The following is a revised form of a paper delivered at the March 30-April 1 GES Conference on repentance, held in Grapevine, TX.
I. My Testimony:
Many Changes of Mind Concerning Repentance
While growing up in Southern California, I was heavily influenced by a religious boys’ club that taught an extreme form of Lordship Salvation. Repentance was a key part of my instruction. I was taught and believed that to be saved a person had to turn from his sins and progress in holiness.1 And, if he were fortunate enough to obtain salvation, then he had to maintain a sinless life to stay saved. One sin and salvation was lost, never to be regained.2
Then one day a friend from the club, John Carlson, challenged me with a pointed question: “Is it possible, Bob, that your view of the gospel might not be correct?” I accepted his invitation to go to a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting at the University of Southern California. After the meeting there were people using profanity and smoking.
JOTGES 11:1 (Spring 98) p. 36
Because of my past association with the boys’ club, it was unthinkable to me that these people could be Christians!
When I told John about my reservations concerning the spiritual condition of these people, he said, “Well, maybe there is such a thing as Christian growth.” As odd as it might seem, this was a revolutionary thought to me. I thought one had to be good to get saved and perfect to stay saved. To think that a person had to be bad to get saved and then stayed saved even after sinning was mind boggling to me.
Shortly after this I came to believe in Christ for eternal salvation, knowing that I was saved once and for all. I had learned from the Bible that eternal salvation was “not as a result of works, lest anyone should boast.”3
As best as I can recall, I didn’t even think about the issue of repentance when I came to faith—other than the wonderfully insightful comment by my friend John. I imagine if someone had asked me at the time, I would have said, “Paul said we’re saved by grace through faith and that it is not of works lest anyone should boast. If I had to repent to be saved, then I’d be able to boast. Repentance is a part of the Christian life, not something we must do to be saved.” I had changed my mind about repent...
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