 Does the Bible ever actually say Repent of your sins to be saved? If you have been a Christian for any length of time you have probably heard somebody tell you that in order to be saved from hell or to get everlasting life you need to repent of your sins or turn from your sins. This is regarded by many Christians as an essential part of the Gospel message. But have you ever stopped to wonder if the Bible ever actually says this? There are no shortage of verses in the Bible that mention repentance. Unless you have lived your entire life in a cave you have heard of this concept. But the mistake that most Christians make when they define repentance is that they add these three mystical words of your sins after the word when those verses say no such thing. For example in Mark 1 15 it says repent to you and believe the Gospel. It doesn't say of your sins though. In Matthew 3 2 and 4 17 it says repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand but it doesn't say of your sins. In Luke chapter 13 3 and 5 it says accept you repent you shall all likewise perish and again it doesn't say of your sins. Acts chapter 2 38 says repent but it does not say of your sins. Acts chapter 3 verse 19 says repent but it doesn't say of your sins. Acts 17 30 says repent not of your sins. Acts 26 says repent not of your sins. I could go on and on about that but I'm sure you get the point. Now obviously I've handpicked these verses to make a point but if we are being honest there are verses in the Bible where someone could take those verses and say well actually yes the Bible does say repent of your sin. Not necessarily in that exact turn of phrase but certainly something synonymous so let's take a look at some examples. In Acts chapter 8 verse 22 Peter is correcting Simon the sorcerer about trying to buy the gift of the Holy Ghost and he says repent therefore of this thy wickedness. In Revelation 2 21 Jesus is rebuking the church at Thy attire for allowing Jezebel to teach and says I gave her space to repent of her fornication and she repented not. In second Chronicles 7 14 it says if my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways. So in reaction to those verses people will say well see the Bible does say repent of your sins and so that's what you have to do for salvation. But there's two problems with this assertion. The first problem is that if we take a closer look at these three verses they still do not substantiate the repent of your sins to be saved gospel message. In Acts chapter 8 verse 22 Simon is only being told to repent of a very specific sin. He is not being told to repent of all of his sins. As a sorcerer he definitely had a history of other sins but the only sin he is told to repent of is trying to buy the gift of the Holy Spirit. In Revelation 2 21 likewise Jezebel was told to repent of a very specific sin. Being a false prophetess it is very unlikely that this was the only sin she was guilty of but this is the only sin we are told she was supposed to repent of. Now second Chronicles 7 14 is a bit different because in that verse it's not about one sin specifically but about all sins generally. However this verse uses the word turn not the word repent. While turning and repenting are synonymous and can be used interchangeably they are still separate words so the word turn does not define the word repentance. So you can't make a connection between turn from their wicked ways and repent for the kingdom of heaven at hand because there's no discernable connection between those two verses. The second problem with defining repentance as turning from sins is that there are examples in the Bible of repentance being used for non-sin issues. Let's take a look. In Genesis 6 7 the Lord said it repents me that I have made them talking about making man and the beast of the earth. If repentance means turning from sin we have a major theological problem here because God is the one who repents in this verse and therefore that would make God a sinner. Contextually God did not repent of sin but of making the earth. In Exodus 13 17 there was a chance that if the people see war they would repent and in doing so they would return to Egypt. In this verse the context of repentance would be to return to Egypt. God's people were supposed to leave Egypt so this would be a bad kind of repentance. So because of these verses we see that repentance does not always mean to turn from sin although it can mean this. It is not a fanciful theological word it's just a simple word. Repentance is simply a noun. To repent is simply a verb. The context explains how the verb applies. Now before I finish this video there is one verse or well rather one statement that is arguably about as close to repentance of sin in a salvation context as you're going to get. So in Luke 5 32 and Mark 2 17 Jesus is explaining why he is reaching the lost. Most Christians would agree that this is in the context of salvation and he says I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. So people will say well see there it is but once again all we have to do is take a closer look and a closer inspection of this verse to see what's actually going on. The words repentance and sinners are both in their noun form. Jesus is not giving a commandment to sinners i.e repent of your sins. In this verse he is explaining why he is dining with publicans and sinners. There is only one verb or action word in this verse to call. Jesus is the one who is carrying the action so he is not telling sinners to repent of their sins. He Jesus is calling or doing the action sinners people who are in the states of sinners that would otherwise die in their sins. To repentance the state of having repented on to everlasting life and not dying in their sins. Therefore we cannot use a verse where Jesus is the one doing the action and make it into a commandment to men. We cannot fulfill the roles and responsibilities that belong to Jesus. Jesus is the one who saves sinners. Jesus is the one who calls. This verse is not a commandment towards men. So in conclusion the Bible does not actually say repent of your sins to be saved. It's just Christians parroting Christianese. It's not a gospel message that Jesus or the apostles ever delivered. Now a lot of people will be wondering at this point what does repentance actually mean then? In my Bible translation it does actually say repent of your sins. I disagree with your interpretation about a verse mentioned in this video. There are some verses that you have conveniently failed to mention in this video such as Luke chapter 15 verses 7 and 10. Well it would be impossible for me to answer all of these different questions in one video especially if we want to keep things short. So I'm going to park those questions for now but I will be publishing more videos like this to look in more detail about those verses and it's my intention to cover as many of these questions and verses in more detail as I can. So in the next video we'll be looking at the basic question. What does repentance mean? This is no nonsense Christianity proclaiming that nowhere in the Bible does it say repent of your sins to be saved.