“I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Acts 20:20-21)

Paul frequently distils into a few words great and important truths, and he has certainly done it in this farewell address to the elders from Ephesus.

“Repentance towards God” was the first part of his apostolic message, he said, and the second, “faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ“. Simple enough, but also wonderfully profound.

Throughout the centuries since Paul, the Christian message has been pushed and pulled in all directions, sometimes grossly exaggerated, sometimes indistinguishable from the world from which it is to save us. In some places a culture grew up where the entire population was seen as Christian, but the truly faithful believers were viciously persecuted. Today we have the prosperity version of the gospel, where God is seen as a useful means to gain wealth and comfort. Some people seek a form of individual “spirituality” through the Christian message, stripped first, of course, of anything that offends the modern secular mind or current cultural fashions.

But many people in churches simply do not know the gospel. They have some knowledge of the Bible and of the events described in it, but it seems distant and largely unconnected with their life. While they say that they believe it, no change results, no emotion is stirred and no zeal produced. It is, to them, neither something to live for, nor to live by.

Paul’s message began with repentance – something much more than reciting a little prayer that begins, “Dear God, I know that I am a sinner…”. To repent means to turn, to turn away from sin and sins, and to turn to the Saviour Himself. We may not see the full extent of what that means at the beginning, but repentance does not end at the beginning, it begins there and continues through the rest of our life.

Repentance is not regret or disappointment that we are not better than we hoped or thought we were. Repentance involves recognising the grievous nature of the pride and the deliberate rebellion against God which is revealed by our sins. Soon we realise that sins come from a sinner, and that our separation from God is not only because of what we have done, but even more so because of what we are. This is a painful but necessary realisation. In repentance we not only turn away from what we have done, but also from what, in our deepest nature, we essentially are.

This may sound rather extreme, but it is the reason the Lord Jesus died for us. He gave His life because of our sin, not just our sins, and we are, by the grace and working of God, united with Him in His death and with Him in His resurrection, in order that we may learn to walk in “newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4). This is a full and complete salvation.

Where there is no true repentance, we find people unconnected to the Lord in heart and mind. Their faith, if we can call it that, is little more than a hobby or an opportunity for some social engagement. They are not His disciples, and therefore, sadly, not Christian at all.

Paul’s message was “repentance toward God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ“. Through faith in the Lord Jesus we find perfect forgiveness and life that is eternal. In this life, through on-going repentance and faith, we are called to continue until, face to face, we meet Him who has loved us with such great and everlasting love.