Gospel Repentance and Faith
Zion's Advocate, Vol. 42, No. 3, March 1903.
We have aimed to keep Zion's Advocate free from all unpleasant and hurtful controversies, believing that such disputes among us tend only to confuse and divide the people of God. We have been satisfied, also, to avoid difficult and obscure questions that few, if any, really understand, and have found a sufficiency of plain, wholesome gospel truths to fill up the pages of our magazine. We are grateful for the many letters we have received from our able brethren commending our course. We do not want to be understood as entering the field of controversy now, but we must speak out plainly on a question that has recently been raised in regard to gospel repentance and faith, some contending that all men should be called upon to repent in a gospel sense and believe the gospel. We desire to give our opinion on this question in the spirit of meekness and love, having nothing in view but the peace and prosperity of our beloved Zion.It seems that some of our brethren, in an effort to avoid Antinomianism and oppose that heresy, have allowed themselves to swing, pendulum-like, a little too far the other way. It is usually the case that bitterness toward one extreme drives us too far in the opposite direction. We should be careful, in trying to avoid a pit- fall on one side of the road, not to drop into one on the other side. If the way between seems narrow, we should try the harder to walk in it for its narrowness only proves it to be right. It becomes us to examine our moorings carefully that we may know that the anchorage of the vessel is sure on all sides. Many winds of doctrine are blowing, and we want to avoid being whirled from the safe course by any of them. A right division or application of the truth may sometimes be difficult, but its being difficult detracts nothing from its importance. To hold to a doctrine that supersedes the importance and necessity of good works is Antinomianism. If we say, in opposing that heresy, that the law or the gospel demands a gospel repentance and faith of all the human family, we become entangled in a maze of inextricable difficulties on the other hand.
Now if the law demands gospel repentance and faith of all its subjects, will that demand ever be met? It is admitted that ungodly sinners cannot meet it, and it is urged that their inability to do so does not remove the obligation. Christ never repented, for there was no need of his doing so, and he certainly had no need of faith in the sense in which we are brought to believe. Then if the law demands gospel repentance and faith, Christ failed to fulfill that much of its demands. As he did not and sinners cannot, it follows that this much of the law's demands has never been met and never will be. It may be claimed that his elect meet this demand when they are brought to repentance and faith in their regeneration. But this would render them necessary assistants of Christ in the important work of fulfilling the demands of the law and obtaining their release from its curse, and we could not consistently say,
"Jesus paid it all,
All the debt I owe."
The simple truth is, the law requires such obedience of us all that there is no place or necessity for repentance of any kind. Jesus fulfilled all the requirements of the law, and hence there was no place for repentance in his life. No government could stand with a provision in its law for repentance on the part of all offenders. The law makes no provision for a substitute, and calls upon no one to believe that another has fulfilled all its requirements, or that another ever will do it. All have sinned against it, and have fallen under its curse, and are already condemned by it. It requires that we pay, not that we look to another for payment. It is a grievous error to say that the law demands repentance and faith of its subjects. It says, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Ezekiel 18:20. It nowhere says that death or liability to die will be removed on the performance of repentance and faith as an obligation or duty.
Having shown that the law does not demand gospel repentance and faith of all or any of its subjects, we will now consider this subject from a gospel standpoint. Jesus is our great example in preaching his own gospel. He did not call upon sinners who were dead in sins to mourn over their sins, or teach that it was their duty to do so. He did say blessed are they that do mourn, but he did not say they were performing a duty in doing so. No poor mourner in Zion ever felt that he was mourning over his sins as a duty. All this being true it is inconsistent and erroneous to call upon unregenerated sinners to repent in the sense of having a true godly sorrow for sin. Jesus was exalted to give this repentance, and we should preach it in his name the same as remission of sins, for he said, "Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name." As repentance and remission of sins are both to be preached in his name, neither of them is to be preached as a duty to be performed by the sinner.
Christ did not call upon any to mourn, but he did say the mourner is blessed. He did not call upon any to thirst, but he did say, "If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink." Mourning and thirsting are blessed states and not acts of duty. Even coming to Christ from a sense of thirst is not to be regarded as an act of duty, but as the eager acceptance of a privilege extended to a living subject. Christ did not exhort sinners to labor to become weary and heavy laden, but he did tell those who were in this condition to come to him and he would give them rest.
Should we exhort all men to believe in Christ in a gospel sense, and tell them it is their duty to do so though they are unable to perform that duty? The gospel teaches that Christ died as a substitute for sinners. "By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their sins." Is it the duty of each sinner to believe that Jesus bore his sins? If so, he actually bore the sins of every sinner, for it cannot be the duty of any to believe what is not true. Universal atonement is the logical conclusion of such a premise. It may be said by those who are exhorting all the world to believe on Christ, and teaching that it is their duty to do so, that they do not mean it is the duty of all to believe on him in this sense. But is it not believing on him in a gospel sense to believe that he died for our sins according to the riches of his grace? It may be said that all that is meant is for them to believe the gospel? This is only putting the question in another form, and there is no escaping the conclusion that if it is the duty of all to believe that Christ died for them, then Christ died for all, and universal atonement is true. It may be explained, however, that all that is meant is that it is the duty of all to believe that Christ died for the elect. But we insist that this is nothing more than a historical faith, and is far from being that living faith which looks to Christ as a personal and efficient Saviour of the very one who thus looks to him.
J. R. D.
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