Repentance in the Gospel of John - Glenn Conjurske

Repentance in the Gospel of John

One of the common arguments of those who oppose the scriptural doctrine of repentance is its supposed absence from the Gospel of John. That argument is stated very forcefully by Sir Robert Anderson:

“And the Gospel of John—-pre-eminently the gospel-book of the Bible—-will be searched in vain for a single mention of it. The beloved disciple wrote his Gospel, that men might believe and live, and his Epistle followed, to confirm believers in the simplicity and certainty of their faith; but yet, from end to end of them, the word `repent’ or `repentance’ never once occurs. It is to these writings before all others, that men have turned in every age to find words of peace and life; and yet some who profess to hold them as inspired will cavil at a gospel sermon because repentance is not mentioned in it: a fault, if fault it be, that marks the testimony of the Apostle John, and the preaching of our Lord Himself, as recorded by the Fourth Evangelist. The repentance of the gospel is to be found in the Nicodemus sermon, and in the gracious testimony to the woman at the well. And, I may add, any repentance that limits or jars upon those sacred words, is wholly against the truth.”

These are bold enough words, in which he includes John’s epistle as well as his gospel. Of the epistle I shall say but little. I only remark that some of the strongest statements in the New Testament requiring righteousness, and implying the necessity of repentance for salvation, are to be found in the book of First John. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” “He that doeth sin is of the devil.” “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him”—-“and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone,” as John also tells us. (Rev. 21:8).

But one of the gravest errors in Anderson’s words consists of the contrast which he draws between the gospel of John and the other gospels, or the rest of the New Testament. John is “pre-eminently the gospel-book.” What then? Are the other gospels defective in their message? If the preaching of the Lord as recorded by John contains no mention of repentance, yet Anderson knows very well that his preaching as a whole was characterized by a strong call to repentance—-that he came to call sinners to repentance—-and that he commissioned his apostles after him to preach repentance to all the world. In the light of all of this, Anderson must of course concede that repentance is necessary to salvation (and he does so), but in the light of this concession, what is the point of insisting upon its absence from the gospel of John? If repentance is necessary as preached by the Lord himself and the other apostles in the other gospels, what can be gained by insisting upon its absence from John’s gospel?

But the real fact is, repentance is not absent from John’s gospel. Though the word “repent” is not used, the substance of repentance is surely there, and surely insisted upon.

John 1:12 is one of the strongholds of those who preach the antinomian gospel of faith only. It says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” “Received him” is of course applied to receiving him as Saviour, and it is openly preached by a multitude in our day that men may receive Christ as Saviour without receiving him as Lord. But even if the rest of the New Testament had nothing to say on the subject, such an explanation would be treading on dangerously thin ice. Does the bride thus “make herself ready” (Rev. 19:7), by purposing that she will take everything the rich bridegroom will give her, but will neither give herself nor anything else to him? Such notions, I know, men have of grace, but those notions are gross perversions—-neither more nor less than “turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Jude 4).

But be that as it may, I am bold to say that John 1:12 alone, according to its simple face value, when not pared down to fit antinomian notions of grace, will of itself wholly overturn those antinomian notions. The use which is commonly made of John 1:12 in our day is directly against the expositions of better men who lived in better days. Thus Richard Baxter:

“This faith by which we are justified and saved, is the Receiving of Jesus Christ as Jesus Christ; and as a Saviour entirely; and as a Physitian of our Souls, to cure us of, and save us from both Guilt and Power of sin, and the misery due for it. And so it is the Receiving of Christ as a Prophet to Teach us, and a King to Rule us, and a Priest, after the Order of Melchizedeck, now to intercede for us, and not only as a Sacrifice for our sins, or a satisfier of Justice for us. Its the Receiving of whole Christ.”

To receive Christ is to receive him as he is: to acknowledge his claims, to submit to his authority (“Take my yoke upon you”), and to receive his grace. But there is more. The text gives the right to become children of God to those who “believe in his name.” That is, says antinomian theology, to all who believe in his name, though they do nothing more than this. But in the very next chapter John himself overturns that notion. There we read, “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man.” (John 2:23-25).

Jesus did not commit himself to them. Whatever else this may be thought to mean, it unquestionably means that he did not become their Saviour. That he could not do without making a great and lasting commitment to them. Yet we are told that they “believed in his name”—-that is, they did the very thing spoken of in the previous chapter, in description of those who are given the right to become the children of God. Some will of course object that in John 1:12 it is said they believed on his name, and here that they believed in his name—-though it is doubtful whether the objectors could tell us what the difference is. And no matter if they could, for any difference is only apparent, not real. The difference is only in the English translation. In the Greek original “on his name” and “in his name” are exactly the same words, without variation of jot or tittle. “Believe” is the same word also. What then? Plainly this, that those who believe in his name, and thus obtain the right to be children of God, cannot be those who merely believe in his name, and do nothing else, for we are plainly told that these many did in fact “believe in his name,” and yet he would not commit himself to them.

What else then must they do? They must do what Jesus Christ himself preached that men must do. They must “Repent, AND believe the gospel.” (Mark 1:15). Robert Anderson can speak of “the preaching of our Lord Himself, as recorded by the Fourth Evangelist,” as though that somehow sets aside his preaching as recorded by the other evangelists, but the fact is, John was not writing to overturn or supercede the other gospels (as a certain brand of dispensationalists would have it), and it cannot be denied that, wherever recorded, all of the preaching of Christ took place during the same ministry. In some sense John takes up where the other gospels leave off. He begins with a rejected Christ. He assumes the necessity of repentance—-as well he might, for it was the first point of the message which Christ himself preached (Matt. 4:17), and the first point which he commissioned his apostles after him to preach to all the world (Luke 24:47).

But to move on, “For every one that doeth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.” (John 3:20). What then? Can no one ever come to the light? Can no one then be saved? Not indeed while they “do evil,” not while they continue in it. They must first repent. So we are also asked in John 5:44, “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?” The fact is, they cannot believe, not with the faith of the gospel, not till they repent of such a state of heart.

And speaking of the whole life which men have lived on the earth, the Lord says, “all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth, they that have DONE GOOD unto the resurrection of life, and they that have DONE EVIL unto the resurrection of damnation.” (John 5:28-29). I have heard this verse commonly explained away by referring it to John 6:29, which says, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” But this is such a shift as ought to be met with indignation. No one would dream of interpreting any other document in such a manner—-unless perhaps it were a rich uncle’s will, and then no court of law would allow it. The fact is, both “good” and “evil” are both plural and definite in the original, and will bear no other meaning than “the things which are good” and “the things which are evil.” Those who have done “the things which are good” will be raised in the resurrection of life. Those who have done “the things which are evil,” in the resurrection of damnation. To reduce an implied lifetime of doing “the things which are good” into a single act of faith—-and that followed by an implied lifetime of doing evil, for it is only to make allowance for that that such interpretation exists—-is simply unconscionable.

And in the eighth chapter of John the Lord himself thoroughly overturns any such idea. “Then said Jesus TO THOSE JEWS WHICH BELIEVED ON HIM, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:31-32). This is as clear as the sunlight. These Jews already did believe on him. They had already “done good,” and so were assured of the resurrection of life, according to the interpretation referred to in the last paragraph. But the Lord’s words completely disallow any such idea. They believed in him, but they were not his disciples indeed. There was a further condition for that. Further, they were not free, for as he tells them but two verses later, “He that committeth sin is the servant of sin.” They believed on him, but they were the servants of sin, and therefore destitute of eternal life, for as Paul plainly tells us, “But now BEING MADE FREE FROM SIN, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” (Rom. 6:22). And John himself tells us elsewhere (employing the selfsame words which Christ uses in John 8:34), “He that committeth sin is of the devil.” (I John 3:8). And Jesus himself tells these same Jews in verse 44, “Ye are of your father the devil,” and in verse 37, “my word hath no place in you.” These are remarkable things to be said “to those Jews which believed in him,” and we are ready to ask with astonishment, What, then, could their believing have consisted of, and what could it have been worth? The answer is, their faith was of exactly the same sort as the faith of a great multitude of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals in our own day, and as to the worth of it, it is worth just nothing. “Faith without works is dead.” Faith in Christ, without true repentance and true discipleship, will leave the soul just as lost as if Christ had never come, and never died. All of this is plainly taught in the eighth chapter of THE GOSPEL OF JOHN.

Finally, in John 12:25 we read, “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” This is one of the strongest statements concerning discipleship in the New Testament. Discipleship includes and implies all that belongs to repentance. But frankly, I have very much hesitated as to quoting this text at all, for I am well aware of the plausible shifts by which it is commonly emptied of its meaning, and made to speak only of a loss of reward, and so long as Fundamentalists hold the doctrines which they do, I really despair of convincing them of anything with respect to this verse. Nevertheless, for those who have ears to hear, I have quoted the verse, and proceed to point out that to lose our life, in the language of Christ, means to lose our soul, and not merely to lose our lifetime of opportunity for gaining of rewards. The very words “life” (in this sense) and “soul” are identical ( v). If the lifetime were meant, some other Greek word would be used. There are several which could serve the purpose, but v is not one of them. Thus:

Luke 1:75, “all the days of our life,” ( v).

I Tim. 2:2, “a quiet and peacable life,” ( v ).

II Tim. 2:4, “the affairs of this life,” ( v ).

I Pet. 4:3, “the time past of our life,” ( v ).

Heb. 2:15, “all their lifetime,” ( ‘ —-infinitive of v ).

All of these refer to our lifetime, and the fact is, it would produce senseless jargon to thrust the word v into any of these texts. The v is the life itself, the living principle, or else the soul, which is the self. This is how the Lord uses it in John 12:25, as is plain from the parallel statement in Luke 9:24-25. There he says, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself, or be cast away.” This is the Lord’s own exposition of his own words. To lose his life or soul is to lose himself. And this is the doctrine of John’s gospel.

Glenn Conjurske