Introduction
In the last three articles in this rubric, I dealt with Rev. Martyn McGeown’s series “Preaching Repentance and Forgiveness” from the blog of the Reformed Free Publishing Association.1
The articles in his series stand in the service of promoting official Protestant Reformed dogma that there are activities of man that precede the blessings of God. This statement of Protestant Reformed dogma was adopted by the Protestant Reformed synod in 2020. The Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) have since qualified and modified the statement, but it still stands in all its naked Pelagianism as it was originally adopted, and all the qualifications and modifications do not make the statement better. Those qualifications—God-wrought, God-worked, by grace—serve only as deception and cover for the false doctrine of the statement.
The theology of the statement takes many different forms and has many different permutations and iterations. But they are all united in the theology’s promotion of man. The Protestant Reformed Churches have committed themselves to giving man a place in his salvation in some shape, form, or fashion, whether it be by teaching faith as that which man must do to be saved, repentance as that without which God may not forgive a man, forgiveness of the neighbor as a prerequisite to God’s forgiveness of the believer, or the godly life as the way to assurance of salvation.
In short, the theology is conditional—a theology of prerequisites. First man must do something—fill in the blank—and then God does something in response—fill in the blank. Unless and until man does what is required, God cannot and may not bless, assure, comfort, forgive, and the like. It is a man-first-and-God-second theology.
This theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches is also united in being terrified of God’s decree. Reverend McGeown is typical of Protestant Reformed ministers and theologians in his oblique criticisms, cautions, and warnings against sound, Reformed, decretal theology. This attack on the decree takes the form of an attack on eternal justification, but all of his warnings and cautions about eternal justification apply equally to the decree in general. The decree makes him nervous and fearful that perhaps the decree will not leave enough room for man, and so he goes about to undermine confidence in the decree and to make decretal theology to appear antinomian. In his series, for instance, he makes this statement:
If God forgave our sins without repentance or before we repented, he would be communicating to us that sin does not matter. We might conclude that God approves of our sin, and it would even encourage us to continue in sin.2
Reverend McGeown is absolutely petrified of the gospel of the cross of Jesus Christ. God communicated to us that he forgave our sins before we repented when he said in Romans 4:25, concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ, “And was raised again for [because of] our justification.” Justification is forgiveness, or, better, forgiveness is one side of justification. When God says, “Justification,” he includes in that forgiveness of sins. He forgave our sins at the cross before we repented. And according to 2 Corinthians 5:18–19, he will have that preached in the whole world:
When God says, “Not imputing their trespasses unto them,” he means forgiveness of sins and justification. When he forgave their sins, he reconciled them to himself. All who claim to be ministers, such as Reverend McGeown, are to preach the ministry of reconciliation or they are utterly unfaithful to God, who sends ambassadors into the world to proclaim these glad tidings. God demands that ministers of reconciliation, if they be that, declare exactly what Reverend McGeown and the whole PRC find so offensive. By that same measure there is no ministry of reconciliation in the PRC. The ministry of reconciliation declares that the elect are forgiven! They are reconciled! God is not communicating in this that sin does not matter. He judged his Son at the cross because sin does matter. The cross stands as the testimony against Reverend McGeown’s invented fear about preaching forgiveness without repentance.
The theology of the Protestant Reformed Churches is apostasy from the historic position of the denomination. These churches would cast out Herman Hoeksema as antinomian and call for a reexamination of all his theology. He loved eternal justification, and he would have nothing to do with man-first-and-God-second theology. He loved decretal theology and was neither nervous nor fearful about it. The theologians of the Protestant Reformed Churches make an appeal or two to Herman Hoeksema when it suits their purposes, but they are done with the theology of the man at its essence, which was to give all glory to God. He was accused of being one-sided, but the Protestant Reformed Churches are finished with being one-sided. Being apostasy from the positions of their fathers, the dogma of the Protestant Reformed Churches is also apostasy from the Reformed faith for which their fathers stood.
Reverend McGeown’s attack on the decree stands in the service of his theology of faith, repentance, and forgiveness, all of which for him mean man and what man does in his salvation. His theology is not decretal—that is to say, God first—theology, but it is temporal—that is to say, man first—theology.
I warn that if anyone starts to argue with you about a temporal order, he is up to no good. He is an Arminian. The Arminians are all about what happens in time. For the Arminian what happens in time is what God therefore decreed. The Arminian loathes the idea that what God decreed is what happens in time. For the Arminian time—by which he means the will and works of man in time—is decisive in salvation. Time and what happens in time are decisive for the Protestant Reformed Churches as well. Time for them is real. The decree is an abstraction.
Reverend McGeown’s man-centered, man-first theology is that justification is by faith and repentance. For him God does not and God may not forgive sinners unless and until they repent and believe—with an active faith and by God’s grace, of course. McGeown’s doctrine of justification is that in a man’s mind and conscience he is not justified until he repents. His doctrine is the same as Professor Engelsma’s doctrine. It is a repentance-first-and-then-remission doctrine, or it is a repentance-first-and-then-justification doctrine. Or, better, McGeown’s doctrine is justification by faith and by repentance. For him man must first repent, and then and only then will God forgive him. God may not and God does not forgive unless man repents. This doctrine of repentance first and then remission is a corruption of the doctrine of justification by faith alone and is the teaching of justification by faith and works. Reverend McGeown’s doctrine that he teaches the churches, that he teaches his church, and that he promotes on the blog of the Reformed Free Publishing Association is a doctrine of justification that is the same in essence as Rome’s doctrine.
He introduces so many distinctions in his series that it is hard to keep them all straight. There is a distinction between faith and repentance, a distinction between repentance and conversion, a distinction between repentance and works, and a distinction between justification and forgiveness. Then when he should make a distinction—between faith and repentance—he mashes them together into a single entity.
In his series he is supposedly explaining Christ’s words in Luke 24:44–49. I quote the passage in its entirety:
Two Sides of One Coin
Reverend McGeown begins his treatment of forgiveness by faith and repentance with an explanation of repentance. It is noteworthy in light of his later classification of repentance as not a work that he quotes from the Greek scholar Richard C. Trench, who says about the word repentance that it “gradually advanced in depth and fullness of meaning, till [it came to express] that mighty change in mind, heart, and life wrought by the Spirit of God.”3
I note that Trench also quotes favorably from William Chillingworth:
But that repentance to which remission of sins and salvation is promised, is perpetually expressed by the word metanoia, which signifieth a thorough change of the heart and soul, of the life and actions.4
Thus it is well established that repentance encompasses the whole life. This idea is not some oddity of rabid and radical Reformed Protestant ministers. This is why Luther wrote, as the very first of his Ninety-five Theses, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” And again Luther wrote, as the third of the Ninety-five Theses, “Yet it does not mean solely inner repentance; such inner repentance is worthless unless it produces various outward mortifications of the flesh.”
This is also the view of the Heidelberg Catechism in Lord’s Day 33:
Q. 89. What is the mortification of the old man?
A. It is a sincere sorrow of heart that we have provoked God by our sins, and more and more to hate and flee from them. (Confessions and Church Order, 121)
The Reformation, and with it the Reformed creeds, recognized that repentance involves the whole life. Repentance is a way of life. Repentance is a description of the works of the believer. Along with this, when the gospel promises salvation to the repentant, the gospel does not do that because repentance is the cause or condition of salvation but because repentance is the mark of God’s children, who are forgiven and to whom God has promised eternal life. By that repentance, as manifested in its fruits, the child of God is made known in the world.
But the important thing for Reverend McGeown is not simply the definition of repentance but that definition as he crafts it in order to declassify repentance as work. He writes,
If repentance is a “change of mind,” how exactly do we classify it theologically? Confusion in the church world forces us to face that question. Is it something we do, is it something God does, is it a gift to us, is it an activity of man, is it part of our salvation? These questions are asked today.5
Reverend McGeown does not state that there is confusion about the doctrine of repentance only because of the Protestant Reformed false doctrine of repentance that is necessary in order to receive forgiveness or of repentance as a prerequisite to the forgiveness of sins. Over against this is the clear teaching of the Reformed Protestant Churches that repentance is not faith. That is the issue. The issue is not whether repentance is an activity of man, a gift, or something God does. The issue is whether repentance is faith. And if repentance is not faith, then repentance belongs to those things that may be called works.
It is here that Reverend McGeown goes to work on the understanding of repentance. He writes,
Third, repentance is not a work, that is, repentance is not the doing of a good work, such as obedience to the law is a good work.6
It is here that we see why Reverend McGeown in his definition of repentance was so concerned to separate it from the life of the believer. He supposes that he can escape the charge against his doctrine of justification by faith and repentance that his doctrine is justification by faith and works. His supposed proof in question and answer 91 of the Heidelberg Catechism for excluding the life of the believer from repentance is foolish. He writes,
Heidelberg Catechism A 91 defines good works, and does not include repentance in that definition: “Only those which proceed from a true faith, are performed according to the law of God, and to his glory.”7
His appeal to the Catechism is wrong. Answer 91 in its definition of “good works” is explaining its statement about the “quickening of the new man,” that it means “to live according to the will of God in all good works” (Confessions and Church Order, 121–22). McGeown must remember that the Catechism in Lord’s Day 33 is explaining conversion. The negative side of this is sorrow of heart for sin and to hate and flee from it, and the positive side is to live according to the will of God in all good works. You could just as easily say that the Catechism is describing the whole life of repentance, by which the child of God becomes manifested in the world. In this case repentance includes not only the sorrow of heart or change of mind but also the good works that are the fruits of this.
I note only in passing that Reverend McGeown quotes favorably from G. I. Williamson’s commentary on the Westminster Confession:
We could not more radically misconceive repentance than to regard it as a work performed…Repentance, far from being a conscious act of obedience well-pleasing unto God and bringing in return his blessing and reward, is rather a consciousness of one’s total inability to please God or to do anything to secure his blessing and reward.8
Obviously, this matter of repentance not being work is very important to Reverend McGeown. He spends a great deal of time making sure no one can think that repentance is work. He even breezes over Williamson’s total corruption of the idea of work in the believer, which Williamson defines as “a conscious act of obedience…bringing in return his blessing and reward.”
Really! So work brings reward. Well, if that is what a work is, then there are no works in the Christian religion because the very idea that obedience brings a reward in return is anathema. By that measure Reverend McGeown can include the whole Christian life as that which is outside the concept of work, for where in the Christian life does anyone ever consciously obey to bring a reward from God in return?
But none of this corruption is allowed to detain Reverend McGeown in his pursuit of the idea that repentance is not work. And the question is, why? What purpose does that serve? It serves the purpose of allowing him to teach justification by faith and repentance.
Still pursuing the idea that repentance is not a work, Reverend McGeown also treats us to his theory that “repentance is not conversion.” He also reminds us that “theological precision and distinguishing of concepts are important.”9 And he is not finished making distinctions. He denies that repentance is conversion, with the obvious purpose to blunt the sword of the Heidelberg Catechism that would be used against his distinction between repentance and conversion. He writes,
The Heidelberg Catechism [LD 33] teaches about the mortification of the old man, which is one part of the two parts of conversion….Repentance is not the same thing as mortification of the old man.10
This is rich! He must take his audience for fools. He had written previously,
When God brings us to repentance, we see our sins as God sees them…and we hate them. Because we hate them, which is a radical change of mind concerning them, we turn from them.11
But now because Reverend McGeown has to distinguish repentance from conversion and the Heidelberg Catechism stands against him, he simply redefines his terms. But he runs afoul of the Catechism again because in Lord’s Day 33 the Catechism teaches about conversion. As part of conversion the Catechism teaches about the “mortification of the old man.” In its description of that mortification, the Catechism speaks about “sincere sorrow of heart,” “hate” of sin, and “flee[ing]” (let’s say turning) from sin. Previously, Reverend McGeown had written that these things belong to repentance, but now—since repentance is not conversion and the Heidelberg Catechism says that all the things that Reverend McGeown says belong to repentance belong to conversion—these things must be gotten rid of. This is just theological nonsense—jabberwocky! He is simply inventing distinctions and definitions as they suit his purpose. What is his purpose? He intends to teach forgiveness by faith and repentance.
He continues his distinction. He writes, “Fifth, repentance is not faith and faith is not repentance.”12 All right, there is something with which we can agree. Faith is not repentance, and repentance is not faith. Amen.
But it is not amen for Reverend McGeown. Having distinguished faith and repentance, he now proceeds to deny the distinction:
Nevertheless, faith and repentance are inseparably connected. Since we believe in Christ for salvation from sin, we necessarily repent of our sins at the same time. We cannot look to Christ in faith for salvation from sin while we hold to our sins. If we have true faith, we change our mind concerning our sins. Thus repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin.13
Oh, now I see why repentance could not be work, and repentance could not be conversion or mortification of the old man. It is because Reverend McGeown makes repentance part of one coin with faith. He goes on later to write about separating faith and repentance, as though that is what he is all about. But separating faith and repentance is an entirely different thing from making faith and repentance “two sides of the same coin.” A coin is a single entity. So faith and repentance are now a single entity. At this point there is no more danger of separating faith and repentance than there is of separating heads from tails. The purpose of all his silly, pointless, stupid, and deceptive distinctions is to make faith and repentance one entity. You must remember that. Thus when he says, “By faith alone,” he means faith and repentance. And when he says, “Repentance,” he means faith and repentance. It is one coin, these two. He continues and quotes Acts 20:21 to prove his one-coin theory: “Testifying both to the Jews and the Greeks repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”14
But that is a corrupt use of the passage. The passage is not teaching that faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin. But the passage is teaching—just as every other place in scripture that mentions faith and repentance—two distinct graces of God. The one is faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. We are saved by faith alone. The gospel that declares Jesus Christ as the only way to the Father likewise calls for faith in Christ and warns all who do not believe that they will certainly perish. That gospel also speaks of the sure and certain mark of God’s children of repentance toward God. But nowhere in the passage—or anywhere in scripture—does it speak about faith and repentance as two sides of one coin.
Reverend McGeown does not care about the separation of repentance and faith. He cares very much that they are two sides of one coin. He goes on to quote from Calvin, as though Calvin supported this monstrosity of a coin that consists in faith and repentance. Calvin does not say, “Make faith and repentance a single entity,” but he says, “Even though they cannot be separated, they ought to be distinguished.”15
The theologian can say that about a lot of things. You cannot separate faith and obedience. You cannot separate justification and sanctification or election and calling. But warning against separating these things does not give the theologian license to make them a single coin. Many things are to be distinguished but not separated. So repentance and faith are not to be separated. But then to go on to make them a single coin is as bad a theology as making justification and sanctification a single coin. You have heresy at that point.
McGeown goes on to pretend that he is still concerned about not separating faith and repentance and that the Canons support him. He quotes Canons 1.3: “God mercifully sends the messengers of these most joyful tidings…by whose ministry men are called to repentance and faith.”16 Here the article in the Canons does what Calvin said. The article does not separate but distinguishes faith and repentance. But nowhere in the Canons or in the Reformed creeds are faith and repentance made two sides of a single coin. This is false doctrine. It is the false doctrine of justification and salvation by a repenting faith or by a repentant faith or by faith and repentance.
This is the same false doctrine as Rome. Cardinal Sadoleto said the following about faith:
Moreover, we obtain this blessing of complete and perpetual salvation by faith alone in God and in Jesus Christ. When I say by faith alone, I do not mean, as those inventors of novelties do, a mere credulity and confidence in God, by which, to the seclusion of charity and the other duties of a Christian mind, I am persuaded that in the cross and blood of Christ all my faults are unknown; this, indeed, is necessary, and forms the first access which we have to God, but it is not enough. For we must also bring a mind full of piety towards Almighty God, and desirous of performing whatever is agreeable to him; in this, especially, the power of the Holy Spirit resides. This mind, though sometimes it proceeds not to external acts, is, however, inwardly prepared of itself for well-doing, and shows a prompt desire to obey God in all things, and this in us is the true habit of divine justice. For what else does this name of justice signify, or what other meaning and idea does it present to us, if regard is not had in it to good works? For Scripture says, that “God sent his Son to prepare a people acceptable to himself, zealous of good works;” and in another place it says, that we may be built up in Christ unto good works. If, then, Christ was sent that we, by well-doing, may, through him, be accepted of God, and that we may be built up in him unto good works; surely the faith which we have in God through Jesus Christ not only enjoins and commands us to confide in Christ, but to confide, working or resolved to work well in him. For faith is a term of full and ample signification, and not only includes in it credulity and confidence, but also the hope and desire of obeying God, together with love, the head and mistress of all the virtues, as has been most clearly manifested to us in Christ, in which love the Holy Spirit properly and peculiarly resides, or rather himself is love, since God is love. Wherefore, as without the Holy Spirit, so also without love, naught of ours is pleasing and acceptable to God. When we say, then, that we can be saved by faith alone in God and Jesus Christ, we hold that in this very faith love is essentially comprehended as the chief and primary cause of our salvation.17
The two sides of Sadoleto’s coin were faith and love. We are saved by faith alone, as long as we understand that faith is a double-sided coin of faith and love. That is the same false doctrine of Norman Shepherd and the federal vision and their obedient faith. You can see all my writings on federal vision where I prove this.18 The two sides of the federal vision coin are faith and obedience or, as the federal visionists are fond of saying, “Trust and obey.”
Reverend McGeown has labored so long, so hard, and so deceitfully to make sure that everyone understands that repentance is not work and to distinguish repentance from about everything else under the theological heaven, in order that he can make repentance another side of the coin of faith. The importance of distinguishing faith and repentance is the same as the importance of distinguishing faith and love or faith and obedience. When any of those—repentance, obedience, or love—is made one coin with faith, you no longer have the gospel but what is damned by the apostle Paul as anathema. Reverend McGeown’s two-sided coin is simply another manifestation of the Protestant Reformed Churches’ appalling apostasy from the gospel. However one classifies repentance, obedience, and love—which in the end are the same—the important thing is that they are not faith. Justification is by faith alone, which is to say for Christ’s sake alone. Justification is free, absolutely free.
Forgiveness Not Justification
In his ongoing assault on the gospel of free grace and gracious justification, Reverend McGeown turns to yet more distinctions. This time he is going to distinguish between the forgiveness of sins and justification:
In the minds of some, forgiveness of sins is the same thing as justification by faith alone and, since we are justified by faith alone without works (and the same people often define repentance as a work), to connect the forgiveness of sins in any way to repentance jeopardizes the truth of justification by faith alone.
He continues,
Forgiveness or remission of sins is not exactly the same thing as justification. Justification is very similar to forgiveness of sins and they are related, but we should distinguish them from one another.19
Of course we should! Let’s distinguish some more! This should be interesting.
When he mentions “some” and “the same people,” he is talking about the ministers and members of the Reformed Protestant Churches. We have a controversy with the Protestant Reformed Churches over the gospel truth of justification by faith alone. The PRC have corrupted that doctrine, as we see with Reverend McGeown’s two-sided coin consisting of faith and repentance. Now we are told that justification is not forgiveness, and forgiveness is not justification.
We will see what slippery McGeown does with this novel distinction; but first, scripture and the Reformed creeds demolish the distinction between justification and forgiveness.
He labors hard to prove that justification and forgiveness are “not exactly the same thing.” He makes appeals to the creeds. I will not trouble you with those appeals. The reply to all of his supposed proof for his distinction is that here is where his coin analogy would work perfectly. Justification is the act of God to declare the elect righteous for Christ’s sake. That one act—one coin—has two parts to it. First, the forgiveness of sins. Second, the imputation of righteousness. Sometimes scripture speaks of forgiveness of sins, and sometimes scripture speaks of the imputation of righteousness. When scripture mentions the one or the other, it is not distinguishing between justification and the forgiveness of sins any more than it is distinguishing between justification and the imputation of righteousness. Rather, when scripture speaks of the forgiveness of sins, it means justification and refers to it by one of its parts. Scripture substitutes the part for the whole. It is like when someone says that a teenager got a nice set of wheels. Wheels stand for the whole car. So forgiveness of sins simply stands for the whole act of justification. And one’s doctrine of justification, then, cannot differ from one’s doctrine of forgiveness. There is one truth.
Scripture uses the words forgiveness of sins and justification interchangeably. So, for instance, in Psalm 32:1: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” The subject obviously is the forgiveness of sins. It is the forgiveness of sins in the believer’s conscience and daily. In Romans 4:6–7, where the issue is justification, scripture explains Psalm 32:1 as being about justification:
Scripture does not distinguish between justification and forgiveness but treats them as one and the same. In Luke 18:13 the publican prayed—if he prayed for anything—for the forgiveness of his sins: “God be merciful to me a sinner.” And Jesus’ conclusion to the parable in verse 14 was this: “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified.” Jesus did not distinguish between justification and forgiveness.
Neither do the creeds distinguish. However, for his distinction Reverend McGeown tries to take the creeds to his side by appealing to article 23 of the Belgic Confession. He writes,
Similarly, the Belgic Confession does not say in Article 23 that the forgiveness of sins is justification, but that “[in the forgiveness of sins] our righteousness before God is implied.”20
He handles the creeds as deceitfully as he handles scripture. He is a manipulator of men, of scripture, and of the creeds. Article 23 of the Belgic Confession says, “We believe that our salvation consists in the remission of our sins for Jesus Christ’s sake, and that therein our righteousness before God is implied” (Confessions and Church Order, 51). This means that we believe that God forgives our sins, and in that forgiveness of sins our justification is implied. The creed grounds this in scripture: “As David and Paul teach us, declaring this to be the happiness of man, that God imputes righteousness to him without works. And the same apostle saith that we are justified freely by His grace.” For the Belgic Confession forgiveness of sins and the imputation of righteousness are two sides of one coin—justification.
The better question is, why does Reverend McGeown labor so hard to distinguish what is the same in scripture? The reason, as always, for Protestant Reformed distinctions is to get man involved in his salvation, in this case in the forgiveness of sins. Scripture is crystal clear that justification is by faith alone. God justifies the ungodly. The ungodly has nothing, including faith and repentance, and has only sin. The one who believes that God justifies the ungodly is justified. Reverend McGeown cannot very well say that justification is by faith and repentance. He would be exposed. So he labors to separate forgiveness from justification so that he can teach forgiveness by faith and repentance. In the service of this false doctrine, his understanding of justification is that it is a one-time event. He writes,
If we have been justified, our sins have been forgiven. Yet even after justification we commit sin. When that happens, we do not need—strictly speaking—to be justified again…we need to be forgiven.21
Justification is a one-time event. Forgiveness, by comparison, is an ongoing need. Never mind that Jesus said the publican went home justified. These small and inconvenient details cannot be allowed to bother Reverend McGeown. And we can say based on his next comment that justification is not only a one-time event but is really an abstraction:
We need to be forgiven in our consciousness concerning particular sins so that we know God’s forgiveness and are assured of it.
Now we are in the realm of experience and assurance. This is where scripture particularly applies the truth of justification, for instance in Romans 5:1: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The scripture has spoken of Abraham and of David and their justification and even their justification over against specific sins and their assurance about God’s forgiveness for those specific sins. But this cannot be allowed to mar the theological reconstruction project of Reverend McGeown. For him justification for specific sins is not strictly needed. Justification happened once, and now what we need is forgiveness; and this forgiveness gives us the knowledge and assurance of our salvation. He refers to David and writes, “How miserable David was until he repented!” So McGeown’s thought is, as he wrote earlier, that
when a believer (who has already been justified) commits a gross transgression of God’s law he “incurs a deadly guilt” (Canons 5:5); yet…such a believer “does not forfeit the state of justification.”22
A man is justified before God and yet does not hear in his conscience that God forgives him his sin. Really, the issue is, how does a man come into the knowledge of his justification? Justification before God is made an abstraction, what is unknown. You have justification but do not know it. But how does justification come into your conscience and experience?
And Reverend McGeown finally gets to the issue: “We want to examine more closely the relationship between repentance and the remission of sins.”23 It was, of course, interesting to see all of his other false doctrine, but this is the issue. And I want everyone to understand that all of his other false doctrine follows from his corruption of the truth at this point of the relationship between repentance and remission. To go wrong on this point of the relationship between repentance and remission is to go wrong on the gospel, and then you go wrong on every other doctrine. It is inevitable.
Reverend McGeown first states the relationship between repentance and remission as a simple matter:
Quite simply, God forgives the sins of those who repent, or God forgives sinners when they repent…That should be enough—God forgives us when we repent—but to dispel confusion, we should explain the relationship further.24
McGeown’s further explanation not only does not dispel confusion, but it also creates confusion and further denies the gospel. In his explanation of the relationship between faith and repentance, he first checks all the appropriate orthodoxy-boxes. Repentance is not the ground for remission of sins. We do not earn remission by repenting. Repentance is not meritorious. Importantly, for a Protestant Reformed audience to whom he is about to teach conditions, he writes, “Repentance is not a condition that we fulfill in order to get or obtain forgiveness.” And he immediately qualifies this:
It is true that repentance precedes or comes before forgiveness, so that God forgives us after—not before—we repent, but that does not make repentance a condition for forgiveness.25
To make sure that his definition of repentance before forgiveness is not viewed as conditional, he defines a condition as “not something that comes before another thing, but a condition is something that we must do upon which the obtaining of something depends.”26
But that is not an adequate definition of a condition. A condition is simply A, without which B does not come. And that is the conditionalism of Reverend McGeown’s repentance. Repentance is the A without which the B of God’s forgiveness does not come. God cannot and God may not forgive sinners before those sinners repent. When he says that God gives repentance, Reverend McGeown is not saving the theology from being conditional. Every heretic who has taught conditions has said that man fulfills the conditions by grace.
Now we are beginning to see why he labored so hard to deny that repentance is work and to make sure that justification is distinguished from forgiveness. Forgiveness is that which does not come and the believer does not have until and unless he repents. God cannot and may not forgive until or unless we repent, by God’s grace of course.
A Shocking Statement
And at the conclusion of his long and convoluted explanation of the distinction between justification and forgiveness, Reverend McGeown makes an utterly shocking statement that exposes his theology of repentance and remission as another gospel:
Justification, which is not the same thing as forgiveness, is by faith alone without works, and repentance is not a work that we perform in order to obtain any blessing from God.27
Is forgiveness by faith alone and without works? This Reverend McGeown cannot and will not say.
He means in his statement above, first, that his doctrine of repentance and remission is a different doctrine from the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The doctrine of justification by faith alone does not have a place in his doctrine of repentance and remission. Since he is dealing with what must be preached according to the command of Christ, justification by faith alone really has no vital place in the preaching of the gospel of repentance and remission. Indeed, in the practical and real life of the church, his doctrine of forgiveness by faith and repentance replaces justification by faith alone in the preaching of the church. Job asked, “How shall a man be right with God?” That is the pressing question of the church and of the believer every day. Reverend McGeown’s answer is not justification by faith alone but remission by faith and by repentance.
The second admission of the statement is that repentance is that which is performed, done, an activity that indeed does obtain. Whatever else his doctrine of repentance and remission means, it does not mean the same thing as justification by faith alone. And that is damning for his doctrine of repentance and remission. It is also fatal to his view of what Christ’s actual commission to the church was. Christ’s commission to the church in Luke 24 can without any injustice to the command be understood this way: when Christ said that “remission of sins should be preached,” he meant preach justification by faith alone for the sake of Christ’s atonement and through the mercy of God and absolutely without works. The works and deeds of the sinner, the activities and acts of the sinner, and the sins and sinfulness of the sinner are not the reason he is justified or not justified or the reason he experiences or does not experience peace with God, nor the reason he has the knowledge of eternal life and enjoys the assurance of his salvation. Christ’s death alone is the reason.
When Christ said to preach remission, he was telling the church to preach him. Remission was to be preached “in his name” (Luke 24:47). Whatever else that means, it means that all who are united to Christ by a true and living faith have on the basis of his atoning death everlasting righteousness and eternal life in their consciences.
And when Christ said to preach repentance, he was telling the church to preach that calling and sure mark of all his children, whom he has forgiven apart from their deeds, works, and activities. This too is the meaning of “in his name.” This means that all who bear the name of Christ and have the forgiveness of sins by the free mercy of God shall become manifested in the world by repentance. That repentance is not merely an inward change of mind, but repentance includes the whole life of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. It is, as Christ said elsewhere to the church, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations…teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20). This is not a separate command of Christ to his church in distinction from and in addition to what he taught in Luke 24. Rather, it is Christ’s explanation of what preaching remission and repentance means. His ministers are to teach faith in Christ and remission for his name’s sake, and they are to teach thankful obedience to Christ, beginning in the heart with repentance and being made manifest in all one’s life by obedience to Christ’s commands.
Reverend McGeown wants to make repentance that which the believer performs and without which he cannot be forgiven. He thereby makes repentance a condition unto justification. This is of a piece with his doctrine of faith. In another article on the blog of the Reformed Free Publishing Association, he actually had the temerity to say that faith is “not God’s act” and to mock the doctrine of true faith by making it look foolish, as though we are teaching that God believes for us.28
But his mockery aside, if one is going to err in the doctrine of faith, then I would say, “Err on the side that God believes for us and not on the side of Reverend McGeown that faith is ‘not God’s act.’” For Reverend McGeown faith is “not God’s act,” but faith is man’s act. Faith is what man must do to be saved, which of course is sheer Arminianism and not Reformed at all.
The Reformed faith speaks differently. The Reformed faith teaches that faith is God’s act entirely and in all its parts, from beginning to end. Faith is God’s act. Faith is as much God’s act as conversion is God’s act. At one time this was considered good Protestant Reformed language about repentance. Repentance is God’s act. Faith is the same; it is God’s act. The Reformed faith expresses this by saying that faith is the gift of God. He “produces both the will to believe and the act of believing also” (Canons 3–4.14, in Confessions and Church Order, 169). The Heidelberg Catechism says that I am engrafted into Christ. To be engrafted is passive. That graft with Jesus Christ is my union with him, and that union is my faith. Is that man’s act? That is God’s act.
I suspect that Reverend McGeown does not believe that union with Christ is really faith. But in the Reformed faith, that union with Christ is the essence of faith. And this means that union with Christ is what faith really is. It is what faith is in an infant, in an adult, and even in my being dead. Faith is union with Christ. I am joined with him and am made a partaker of his riches, gifts, and treasures. And this means that even when, in the language of the Heidelberg Catechism in Lord’s Day 7, we talk about faith as “a certain knowledge” and “an assured confidence,” we are still talking about union with Christ (Confessions and Church Order, 90). The essence of that activity is union with Christ. When we speak of faith in any sense, we mean Christ Jesus, for the simple fact that faith as to its essence is union with Christ. By faith I am one with Christ, and by faith Christ is in me and I am in him.
This, of course, all bores Reverend McGeown to death because the truth bores him to death, and he cannot wait to get to man and what man does.
Now in this dreadful piece of theologizing, he makes yet another spiritual gift of grace to be a condition. This time it is repentance. Faith and repentance, now two sides of one coin, are that by which a man experiences his forgiveness. Reverend McGeown’s doctrine of justification is justification by faith and by repentance. His doctrine is a denial of the gospel, a corruption of the truth of faith, a mangling of the doctrine of repentance, and a displacement of Christ, in whose name repentance and remission are to be preached.
This now is Protestant Reformed theology.
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