Q. 48. What are repentance and saving faith?

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Turning. Repentance is an inward turn. It is a fundamental change of heart and mind. The repentant person turns their back on sin, completely forsaking their selfish ways, and turns towards God in humble faith.

Unto God. Repentance is not just sorrow for sin. It is an inward turn towards the God of all mercy, the only one who can save from sin. Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ, was deeply grieved over his sin, but he did not truly repent, since he hung himself in despair instead of turning to God for forgiveness.

Grief and hatred. A person does not truly repent unless they have a true sense of the seriousness of sin. When King Josiah heard God’s law, he “tore his clothes” (2 King 22:11) and “turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might” (2 Kings 23:25). It is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring this conviction of sin (John 16:8).

Receiving. Faith receives Christ as a bride receives her groom and entrusts herself to him in love. Martin Luther wrote of “the wedding ring of faith” by which we are wed to Christ: “Faith … unites the soul with Christ just as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this solemn vow, as the Apostle Paul teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh” (The Freedom of the Christian).

Resting. “[Faith] is not barely a speculative, rational thing, a cold, lifeless assent, a train of ideas in the head; but also a disposition of the heart … a full reliance on the blood of Christ; a trust in the merits of his life, death, and resurrection; a recumbency upon him as our atonement and our life, as given for us, and living in us; and, in consequence hereof, a closing with him, and cleaving to him, as our ‘wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,’ or, in one word, our salvation” (Wesley, Sermon 1, “Salvation by Faith”). “Justifying faith implies, not only a Divine evidence or conviction that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, but a sure trust and confidence that Christ died for my sins, that He loved me and gave Himself for me” (Wesley).

Christ alone. There is salvation in no one else (AOR 18). We cannot be saved while trusting in ourselves or in anyone or anything else for salvation. “The Holy Spirit kindles in our hearts a true faith that embraces Jesus Christ, with all his merits, and makes him its own, and no longer looks for anything apart from him” (Belgic Confession 22).