In the previous installment of this series, I briefly examined the biblical doctrine of conversion. In that brief examination, I especially noted that conversion is not a one-time event, but conversion is that benefit of salvation that characterizes the entire life of the elect, regenerated sinner. The entire life of the elect sinner can be said to be a mortification of the old man and a quickening of the new man. This is the traditional Reformed view that has been handed down to us from Reformed fathers such as John Calvin, who said, “Repentance consists of two parts, i.e., the mortification of the flesh, and the quickening of the Spirit.”¹

Moreover, the believer daily hates and flees from sin and seeks to live according to the will of God in all good works. This is the fruit of the work of God in regeneration, whereby he takes the elect but by nature dead sinner and makes him alive. In that regenerated heart of the elect sinner, God the Holy Spirit works faith, uniting that sinner to Jesus Christ and filling him with all the fullness of Christ. Having the dominion within the heart of the elect sinner by faith, Christ rules in that heart by his word and Spirit. By the word and Spirit of Jesus Christ, the elect sinner also is rightly said to repent.

At the end of the previous article, I briefly mentioned that conversion, which characterizes the entire life of the child of God, is also a calling. The call to be converted is just as much a calling as the call to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, where the one is, the other is also implied. For one cannot be said to believe if he does not also repent. Certainly, repentance and faith cannot be confounded, so that you get some strange mixture of the two. That is a present danger as well. Repentance and faith can and must be distinguished. However, they cannot exist separately under any circumstances.

The place for conversion is often given in conjunction with the call to believe. Together they are often referred to as the twofold call of the gospel: repent and believe (Mark 1:15). The call to repent and believe must be the incessant cry of the church in all her preaching and writing, in all her labors in evangelism and missions, in the home and in the school. Every day and in every circumstance, the church needs to hear that call: repent and believe. The church that preaches the call to repent and believe is assured that she is true in her calling because it is this same call that the Lord Jesus Christ, the only king and bishop of his church, preached and commissioned his disciples likewise to preach.

That there is such a thing as a call to repentance is evident from such passages as I have already referenced. Jesus taught his disciples that except they be converted and become as little children, they shall not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 18:3). John preached the baptism of repentance (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3). And the apostles came to their audiences and preached this exhortation: “Repent ye, therefore, and be converted” (Acts 3:19).

God’s Sovereignty in Man’s Repentance

The gospel together with the call to repent and believe must be preached unto all nations wheresoever God will send it, and then the end shall come. The effect that such a call has on the hearts of those to whom it is preached is limited by the sovereign will and determination of God. For some, God wills that they hear the call and be saved. And for others, God wills that they hear the call and be damned.

This much is clear from the Reformed creeds, which teach that the reason that some obey the call and are converted and others do not believe and are damned is not to be ascribed to man or to man’s free will but is to be ascribed alone to God. This is the teaching of Canons of Dordt 3–4.10:

But that others who are called by the gospel obey the call and are converted is not to be ascribed to the proper exercise of free will, whereby one distinguishes himself above others equally furnished with grace sufficient for faith and conversion, as the proud heresy of Pelagius maintains; but it must be wholly ascribed to God, who as He has chosen His own from eternity in Christ, so He confers upon them faith and repentance, rescues them from the power of darkness, and translates them into the kingdom of His own Son, that they may show forth the praises of Him who hath called them out of darkness into His marvelous light, and may glory, not in themselves, but in the Lord, according to the testimony of the apostles in various places. (Confessions and Church Order, 168)

There is much noise today about the call to repentance. Many charge the Reformed Protestant Churches with making man a stock and a block for apparently denying that man has any responsibility whatsoever to believe and repent. It is my contention that those who make such charges do so because they themselves cannot conceive of a call without it first implying that in some specific sense man’s activities precede God’s blessing. When they hear the call to repent, or to be converted, they see only that which man must do to be forgiven of his sins.

I have personally experienced this negligence with regard to the doctrine of repentance in a sermon that I recently listened to by Prof. Ron Cammenga on Lord’s Day 33, which Lord’s Day serves as the basic Reformed doctrine on true conversion.² My intention in listening to this sermon was not at all to benefit from it. However, I was glad to have listened to it. I was not glad because I enjoyed the sermon. But I was glad because it gave me a renewed perspective on the place that the confession of Christ has in the Protestant Reformed Churches. That much is obvious. There is no place. At least, Christ is not of primary importance in their preaching.

As was evident in the sermon, when coming to the phrase in the Lord’s Day that mentions the operation of the word and Spirit of Jesus Christ, Professor Cammenga simply ran out of time to discuss it:

God accomplishes this daily conversion in our lives through his word, under his word. I don’t have the time to say much about that this morning, but that is a critical component of the Reformed doctrine of conversion.

And is there anything else? Apparently, it would have taken entirely too much time to develop that operation of the word and Spirit any further.

In my estimation the professor had no time for explaining the operation of the word and Spirit of Christ in man’s conversion because he failed to recognize what stood at the very heart of that Lord’s Day. And what stands at the heart of the Lord’s Day? Jesus Christ in his person and perfect work, his headship, and his lordship in man’s conversion were utterly removed in place of man’s activities (worked by the grace of God, of course). All the emphasis in the sermon was strictly kept on the level of the temporal, on the experience. Failing to preach Christ, the sermon did not take me to heaven with the doctrine. There was no time to preach Christ in that sermon because there was no room for Christ in that sermon. Indeed, it was a Christless sermon.

After listening to the sermon, I could only remember the name Jesus Christ mentioned as many times in the sermon as I have fingers on my one hand, maybe even less. There was no room for Christ in that sermon. For if there had been room, then the entire sermon would have been preached from that perspective. Instead, there was in the sermon more time given to explaining how God makes man active, so that he is not a stock and a block, than there was time given to Jesus Christ. And that kind of preaching is what in large part fueled my desire to write about true conversion.

The emphasis of scripture and the Reformed confessions is in no sense that God makes men active, so that they can and do convert themselves. While it is true that there is an activity of man in his repentance, that is not the emphasis of the Reformed doctrine of conversion. Rather, the emphasis is upon the sovereignty of God in the sinner’s conversion. God is sovereign in the sinner’s conversion. Therefore, the conversion of the sinner is a wonder of grace and is not at all the work of man. Conversion, or repentance, is that act of God whereby God operates by his word and Spirit in the heart of the elect sinner, whom God has regenerated, and turns that sinner from the hatred of God and the love of sin to the love of God and the hatred of sin.

Conversion, therefore, is utterly and even outstandingly the work of God, even more outstanding than the work of God whereby he created the heavens and the earth. For the world was made ex nihilo, or out of nothing. However, in conversion God takes that which is by nature cold, refractory, and set at enmity against him and makes it a willing servant of God in Jesus Christ. There is the power of our God. There is the power of our God in raising the dead, which power belongs to him alone.

Furthermore, in conversion there is a deep, profound change of heart and mind that results in a deep sorrow over sin. Knowledge of who God is, who Christ is, and who we are by nature in relationship to God enters into our own consciences and experiences by faith; and by a wonder of grace, we are mysteriously altered, so that whereas formerly sin was good, and God was evil, now the opposite is true. And what explains this? Certainly, a man can change his mind about a great deal of things. However, a man cannot change his mind about sin any more than a leopard can change his spots or an Ethiopian his skin (Jer. 13:23). For man by nature exists at enmity against God and would not come to God or draw near to God on his own (John 6:44).

What, then, if God were to draw a man? Then man cannot do anything but be turned. This is the testimony of the scriptures concerning man’s repentance. “Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.” (Lam. 5:21). Therefore, it is utterly impossible that conversion be that act of man by which he receives or the way in which he experiences the remission of his sins. Truly, in conversion God is everything, and man is nothing.

Repentance: The Call of the Gospel

The truth of conversion over against the lie that militates against it can further be demonstrated from the call to repentance. Notice that the call to repent is not itself the gospel. No man was ever saved by the mere call to repentance. Apart from the gospel the call to repentance is devoid of any true meaning or saving properties. However, in a similar way that repentance and faith cannot be separated, so also the gospel and its call can never be separated. The call to repentance is found throughout the Old Testament in many places, most often employing the word turn. In the New Testament that same calling carries through or simply takes on the word repent.

In this connection let us call to mind the words of our Lord Jesus Christ:

14. Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,

15. And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. (Mark 1:14–15)

No one had ever preached the gospel like Jesus Christ, nor shall any man ever preach the gospel like our Lord Jesus Christ. And when the Lord preached the gospel, he preached that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The Lord also preached repentance and faith. Jesus Christ called upon all men to repent and believe.

What a statement! The kingdom of heaven is at hand! That kingdom, which God promised to restore and build when Messiah the prince should come (Dan. 9:25), is the kingdom that has come in Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ entered upon the scene of this present world, taking upon himself the flesh and blood of children, the kingdom of heaven had fully come. And thus Jesus came preaching the gospel, the good news of that kingdom, saying, “Repent and believe the gospel,” or more literally, “Repent and believe in the gospel.” The covenant and kingdom of God had been fully realized in Jesus Christ. And it is with a view toward the salvation of those who had been appointed to citizenship in that kingdom that Jesus came preaching the gospel and with that gospel the call to repentance.

Our Lord Jesus Christ preached that which ought to be the pattern for all gospel preaching in the church: preaching the call of the gospel indiscriminately to all men, as all men are in duty bound to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. For the time has come! The kingdom of God is at hand! Whenever and wherever the gospel is preached, Jesus Christ comes and calls upon men to repent and believe. For some, God wills that they believe and repent; and for others, God does not will that they believe and repent, whereunto they were appointed and whose damnation is just.

On the one hand, the call to faith is the call to entrance into that kingdom in Jesus Christ alone. When the kingdom of God came in Jesus Christ, he accomplished for us a wide entrance into that kingdom, throwing wide open the everlasting doors of heaven by his perfect work and righteousness, which he accomplished all his life long and especially on the cross. By the cross of Christ and by faith alone in Jesus Christ, Christ by his Spirit causes us to enter that kingdom, which he has established and of which he makes us the proper citizens.

Legally, God makes us worthy of entering that kingdom, forgiving us all our sins and adopting us as his children and heirs of that kingdom, through Jesus Christ in our justification. This justification is part of the good pleasure of God in his eternal counsel and as such is an eternal reality. Indeed, the reality of our justification is as eternal as the cross of Jesus Christ, which stands as the basis of our justification. For “Christ,” who died as a lamb without spot or blemish, “was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God” (1 Pet. 1:19–21). It is because of our justification from eternity and at the cross of Jesus Christ that God makes us the proper citizens of that kingdom in our own consciences and experiences through the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of Jesus Christ both renews us, who are by nature dead in trespasses and sins, and works faith in our hearts by the gospel, so that we who by nature stand outside of the kingdom are brought before the very presence of God into the kingdom in Jesus Christ.

A citizen of the kingdom of heaven does not work to enter that kingdom. A citizen of the kingdom of heaven does not have to do anything to assure himself of his name and place in that kingdom. All the riches of the kingdom, including the forgiveness of sins and everlasting righteousness, are personally ours on the basis of Jesus Christ and his cross. Upon the basis of the cross of Jesus Christ, the kingdom is established as upon a sure foundation. And it is by faith alone, which at its essence is union with Jesus Christ, that we have access into that kingdom.

Therefore, on the other hand, it is unto those who have been made the citizens of that kingdom that the gospel comes and calls them to repentance. That is what takes place whenever the gospel is preached. God manifests his gracious rule in the hearts of his elect people by the preaching of the gospel, which is the means whereby God accomplishes his good pleasure in them or works in them true conversion. For as God lives, he does not delight in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live (Ezek. 33:11). Therein is revealed the unchanging, immutable, and determinative counsel of God in man’s conversion.

When the preaching of the gospel comes and calls all men to repent, God calls those who have been brought into that kingdom and who have been made the worthy citizens of that kingdom in Jesus Christ to live as citizens of that kingdom. For it is impossible that those who have entered the kingdom and covenant of God and have been made the proper citizens of that kingdom in Jesus Christ to not live as citizens of that kingdom. Certainly, a man or woman would not be considered a citizen of the kingdom who sneaks off in the cover of night and conspires with the enemies of that kingdom.

The citizens of the kingdom of heaven, having been justified in Christ by faith alone, are also called in their own consciences and experiences out of darkness into God’s marvelous light. They are translated from out of the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, so that they are no more rebels but citizens of that kingdom. Because we have been renewed in Jesus Christ, God also lays hold on us with the grace of conversion, so that we no longer are the servants of sin and unrighteousness but are the servants of God, who seek to live according to the will of God in all good works. That is the meaning of the Heidelberg Catechism in question and answer 90 when it states,

Q. What is the quickening of the new man?

It is a sincere joy of heart in God, through Christ, and with love and delight to live according to the will of God in all good works. (Confessions and Church Order, 121–22)

God does not call us to repent because our forgiveness in some sense depends upon it. For our name and place in the kingdom, including the possession of all the riches and benefits of that kingdom, are ours as soon as we are brought into that kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ. Rather, when the call comes to us and says, “Repent,” God comes and demands that in all our conversation we love God and live out of the principle of regeneration, which is as a deep root in us, whereby we know God in Jesus Christ as the God of our salvation. That demonstrates itself in a life of daily conversion unto God, which is the God-given, God-worked sign of the one whose sins have been forgiven.

That conversion, then, which God works in us, begins first of all with a renewal of the mind, so that we know who God is, who Christ is, who we are by nature and as sinners, and who we are in Jesus Christ. And if we know the truth by faith as it is in Christ Jesus, then we ought to put off the old man and his deeds. Then we ought not to speak and behave ourselves like we have never heard the gospel, but we ought to put on the new man. We ought to start speaking, thinking, and living as those who have been called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light. As those who have been joined to Christ by faith, whose sins are forgiven by God on the basis of Christ and his cross, who have been renewed after the image of God in Jesus Christ, we are also called to live out of that principle and bear fruits that are worthy of repentance in every area of our lives.

The Call to Repentance: Its Antithesis

It is this call to repentance that stands over against every false doctrine that makes repentance necessary for entering the kingdom or experiencing covenant fellowship with God. Repentance can never be a prerequisite for entering the kingdom or for experiencing covenant fellowship with God. We enter the kingdom and experience covenant fellowship with God in our own consciences and experiences through the forgiveness of our sins by faith alone in Christ. It is only when our sins are forgiven that God then lays hold upon our hearts and causes our hearts to break with sorrow over sin and love toward God. Therefore, repentance as it is rightly taught and confessed is a great blessing to the church. The Reformed confessions clearly set forth that reality in Canons of Dordt 5.7:

For, in the first place, in these falls He preserves in them the incorruptible seed of regeneration from perishing, or being totally lost; and again, by His Word and Spirit, certainly and effectually renews them to repentance, to a sincere and godly sorrow for their sins, that they may seek and obtain remission in the blood of the Mediator, may again experience the favor of a reconciled God, through faith adore His mercies, and henceforward more diligently work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. (Confessions and Church Order, 174)

The meaning here is not hard to understand. For it is here that we read that God, who is absolutely sovereign in salvation from beginning to end, is also willing and able to preserve his elect people in that salvation unto eternity. This article in the Canons of Dordt takes the believer right to heaven when the article makes losing the seed of regeneration, or being completely lost and perishing, an utter impossibility for the believer.

It can be inferred that repentance, as the fruit of regeneration, is the way in which the elect child of God ordinarily walks. There is, therefore, no such thing as an unconverted believer. The rare instance that a believer loses the sense of God’s favor for a time is not first due to a lack of repentance but to a lack of faith. Although that one is joined to Christ by faith, he does not live by that faith but walks as an unbeliever for a time. The fruit of that unbelief is that he does not hate and flee from sin as he ought, but he continues in the way of sin for a time.

And it is considering this rare but real possibility that the doctrine of the preservation of the saints teaches us that at such a time when God lays hold on his wayward sons and daughters and calls them by his word and Spirit, he renews them again to repentance and causes them to experience his favor once more. God does not leave his people who fall into sin, for God is not cruel toward his people but is merciful and gracious. God in his mercy delivers them from the clutches of sin and restores unto them the experience of a reconciled God. Not first because they repented. The child of God who is restored to the way of serious repentance does not experience the favor of a reconciled God because he has repented.

Rather, when God restores the experience of his favor, he does so by faith in Jesus Christ. For that believer, all the while he was walking in sin, never lost the favor of God. Faith in Jesus Christ knows certainly and personally that God has freely forgiven all my sins in Jesus Christ and will not hold them against me. Faith seeks the remission of sins and finds it in Jesus Christ. Faith does not work for the remission of sins. Faith does not repent to be forgiven. Rather, faith in the child of God receives that forgiveness that is his in Jesus Christ.

Therefore, it is the necessary fruit of faith that the one whom God restores also is sorry for his sins and henceforward more diligently works out his salvation with fear and trembling. That working out of the believer’s salvation is not the fear of terror or trepidation, so that the believer can never be certain that he is truly saved or forgiven of his sins. Rather, when the Canons speak of working out salvation with fear and trembling, it is speaking of the entire life of the believer as he sees his sins, more and more hates and flees from his sins, and seeks for the remission of his sins in Jesus Christ. The converted sinner’s heart is broken out of love for God, and he shudders at his own sinfulness, so that the sinner sorrows deeply over his sins and desires to do what is right and well-pleasing in the sight of God in the way that God has prescribed in his law, which law serves as the guide for a thankful life. These things do not gain the assurance of salvation, but they form the living confession of the one who knows that he is saved in Jesus Christ and is worthy of eternal life.

In Jesus Christ the elect, converted sinner is personally assured that forgiveness of sins and everlasting righteousness is his possession. The elect sinner is not constantly tossed in and out of assurance according to the degree that he repents, but he is kept by the power of God and is continually assured of his preservation by the word and Spirit of Christ. That assurance is supported by the means of grace, especially the preaching of the gospel. And that assurance is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, who works by means of faith. The Spirit testifies by faith within the heart of the elect sinner that the sinner is a child of God and is worthy of everlasting life.

For all that conversion is, it is certainly not the way in which we receive the forgiveness of our sins or a prerequisite for our entering the kingdom or experiencing covenant fellowship with God. That is not the urgency with which we issue forth the call to repent. Rather, when God calls men to repent through the preaching of the gospel, he works certainly and effectually in the hearts of his elect people, so that having been assured of the forgiveness of their sins by faith only, they may walk as those who are forgiven and might seek to serve him in all love and cheerfulness. God does not call us to repentance out of compulsion, demanding us to work so that we may experience his favor. Rather, God calls us to repentance in love as our gracious and merciful God and Father who willed our repentance and works that repentance in us as a free gift of his grace.