 Is repentance a work? This is a controversial question because you will hear a variety of answers on this topic. Now part of the problem is the question itself is fundamentally flawed, because different people are going to define repentance in different ways depending on who you ask. And they have different definitions of repentance, but it's all conflated into this same thing called repentance. So two different people will give you two different answers because they're defining repentance slightly differently. But they argue as if they're talking about the same thing when they're not. Now the reason why this question matters is because if we just assume for the sake of argument that repentance is a work, it involves work, and we say that you have to repent to be saved, well that's work salvation essentially, you have to do works to be saved. Now I already alluded to this in the third video in the series, when I answered the question do we have to repent to be saved? And I explained in that video that it really depends on how you're defining repentance. So if you define repentance as turning from sin, well then that's work salvation, so I would say no. But then people will misappropriately saying that and say that I'm proclaiming that you don't have to repent to be saved. Which is false, we do have to repent to be saved, but I'm arguing from a different definition of repentance than they are, that you have to repent of your unbelief, or repent of say trusting in your own obedience, or trusting in another God. The verb to repent can act as both a transitive and an intransitive verb. For this reason there are actually two questions to be answered in this video which are often confused as if they are the same question. So the question from the point of view of the intransitive is is repentance a work? But from the transitive point of view it's is repentance of sins a work? You see the transitive of sins is often conflated with the intransitive, but these are not the same thing. When the Bible uses the intransitive verb the surrounding context is needed to define repentance. You cannot just tack the words of sins in the verse itself. So to illustrate this I'm going to give you two carnal scenarios when it comes to repentance that it may be a work or it may not be a work depending on how you're defining. In the first scenario, Brother in Christ number one tells me privately that he really really hates Brother in Christ number two. Brother one hasn't done anything to brother two, he hasn't expressed any hatred directly towards brother two who doesn't even realize that Brother one hates him. So brother one only hates brother two in thought but not in word or deed and he's only telling me privately. Ivan explained to him the commandments from Jesus to love one another and to forgive one another and insist that he has a more graceful attitude towards brother two. Brother two has no idea that brother one hates him or that we have had this conversation. In this scenario I haven't actually asked brother one to do anything differently. Since he has not directly expressed hatred towards brother two or done any evil deed towards him there is no action to repent of. He just needs to change his attitude or mind about brother two and in such scenario repentance is a change of mind but not action. So you might argue strictly that repentance is not a work at least in the strictest sense of the word. Now you could argue that it works in the sense that it's his obedience to various commands but there's no outward evidence of this repentance. It's just a positional change of mind. In the second scenario, brother number one constantly shows utter contempt towards brother two even if brother two hasn't done anything wrong or isn't retaliating. He keeps causing problems for brother two and making his life difficult. Ivan rebuked brother one, demanded that he forgives brother two, treats him as a brother in Christ and actually makes an effort to undo some of the damage that he has done to brother two. In this scenario repentance is a work. I am asking brother number one not only to have a loving mind towards brother two but to actually make amendments and do works of love towards brother two. So in the first scenario repentance was not a work or at least arguably. In scenario number two repentance was a work. Christians argue with and contradict each other whether repentance is or not a work but they are arguing from multiple scenarios or circumstances and confusing them all with this singular thing called repentance. The confusion is that most Christians automatically assume that repentance means to turn from sin and although they agree on this definition they cannot quite agree on what turning from sin means. Some say you just have to have an attitude change towards sin while others say to actually turn from sin and stop doing it. Others say it means a changed lifestyle. Some say that this must involve doing good works also. Now at this stage I've done more than enough videos to show that repentance doesn't automatically need turn from sin. And we've covered several things such as the unrepentant cities, sinners to repentance. Obviously I'm not going to repeat everything that I've said but referring back to the aforementioned video three. Do we have to repent to be saved? I explained that this depends on your definition. So if you say that you have to repent by changing your mind about the gospel such as turning away from a false God or turning towards the true God or turning from unbelief towards belief then yes you have to repent but I said that if you have to repent of your sins then no because that's work salvation. So even though I've alluded to it before that's going to be the focus of this video is repentance and specifically repenting of sins of work. I will explain this with scriptural support. In summary I am saying that if repentance means change what you believe then no repentance is not a work rather it is faith. If repentance means change what actions you do i.e turn from sin then yes repentance is a work but these are not the same thing. Hence you see the confusion when asking is repentance works or faith? Now those of you that are already saved and know the bible fairly well will be very familiar with the fact that many of these lordshipers and sinless perfectionists and basically anybody who sneaks in works they all talk like a politician right with double talking this pithety right? So rage is comfort and is ill they'll say that we're saved by grace not of works so repenting of sin is not works but then these same people say well faith is works because it's something you do so they constantly use these tricks all the time to confuse you into thinking that they're right. In the same video that I showed you in the overlay Ray Comfort also quoted John the Baptist as saying bring forth works meet for repentance but that's not what John the Baptist actually said he's confusing what John the Baptist said with what Paul said when Paul said do works meet for repentance but John the Baptist said bring forth fruits not bring forth works or do works and he's not the only person with his double talk of course many lordshipers do this but even on the more extreme end of the spectrum such as the sinless perfectionists they even can't get their own story straight on whether it is a work or it isn't to work. So let's take a look at a few examples that I've handpicked of people saying whether repentance is of sins is a work or isn't a work and I will just look what the Bible says. Todd Freel from Reshid says that repentance is not a work because you are not doing a thing by turning from sin or refraining from sinning henceforth you are ceasing to do something so it is not a work and this is in his video is repentance a work for example if he doesn't punch you in the face this is not a work rather he is just not doing something so repentance just means to stop sinning it doesn't mean to do works for rewards therefore it's not work salvation in conclusion because repenting of your sins is not works you don't get rewarded for not sinning not sinning is just how you're expected to live you don't get praise for not being evil it's just your basic responsibility now I don't know why he would mention doing something for rewards when salvation is a gift that's a non-sequitur but never mind that now Adam from Abide in the Word who many of you will know is a reprobate I've exposed on my channel before he says that repentance is absolutely a turning from sin and one of the verses he uses to justify this is Acts 26 20 where it talks about doing deeds for repentance so in this way he is defining repenting of sins as works because he's quoting a verse that says you have to do works and equates that with turning from sin now how chief he says that repentance is not a work it is an intention to do that work and so if we don't do that work it shows that the repentance was not genuine and this was in his video what does it mean to repent but frankly he's on good terms with Abide in the word anyway and they consider themselves to be brothers in Christ so one says it is a work another says it's just an intention to work but we have to see that work anyway so I'm just going to assume that this is really a difference without distinction so anyway different people have different answers on whether repenting of sin is a work or is not a work you know it's sort of like pulling petals off a daisy it is a work it's not a work it is a work it's not a work I already answered earlier in this video that repentance may or may not involve a change of action depending on the context I am asserting that if repentance for salvation is a change of mind only a change from unbelief to belief then it is not a work however if repentance either for salvation or some other reason is a change of action then it is a work now in video number four we looked at John the Baptist's repentance evidence from the account in the synoptic gospels would suggest that John the Baptist was not preaching to churches of believers so he was not commanding repentance for the benefit of the saints rather he was preaching repentance as a one time message for the remission of sins so basically preaching the gospel it's the initial message to transition people from being unsaved to saved and we saw in that video that Matthew 21 32 proves without a shadow of a doubt that the message of repentance that John the Baptist preached was to believe on the Christ that he was preaching so legalists can joke on this verse and just in case someone wants to wriggle their way out of Matthew 21 32 acts chapter 19 verse 4 also complements this exact same principle that the baptism of repentance was to believe on the Christ coming after so again legalists can joke on this verse as well so when it comes to repentance as part of the gospel for salvation repentance is defined as turning in faith look towards the Christ believe on him trusting in him to bring about your salvation and consequently the remission of sins now Ray Comfort and James White and all these Calvinist and lordships will play various tricks with this and they'll say things like for example well believing is a verb and a verb is an action that you do so it's works but this is really just playing word games to brainwash people the Bible explicitly contrasts faith from works thereby showing that faith is not work the fact that believing is a verb or an action is a red herring because that's just how linguistics and grammar operates for example in Romans 328 Paul explains justification onto righteousness as being by faith without the needs of the Lord deeds being a synonymous word for works he later explains in chapter 9 describing the stumbling of Israel that they sought it by works and not faith now some people will again play these tricks and say that this just refers to works without faith not works and faith and we need works and faith to be saved but the Jews believed in God they weren't atheists so this is once again just one of their filthy tricks now there's more I could say on this but we don't want to drift off topic so repentance in belief or faith that's not works that's just a change of mind it's not a change of action faith is not works because Paul explicitly contrasted faith and grace as being the opposite of works as it pertains to righteousness but what about a change of action otherwise known as repent of your sins is this works or is it faith now I did briefly explain this in video 11 when we looked at the repentance of Nineveh and in that video I pointed out Jonah chapter 3 verse 10 where it says and God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil that he said that he would do unto them and he did it not and as I pointed out then the Bible does not say God saw their faith or God saw how they believed him or God saw how they trusted him or God saw the fruits of their repentance or God saw the works that their faith produced the Bible does say God saw their works so if you tell someone that they have to turn from their evil ways or turn from sins and believe in Jesus you're essentially teaching that they have to have faith and have works to be justified on to righteousness people then explain this away with various ways for example James White once tried refuting Stephen Anderson over this issue and I'm not quoting him verbatim because it wouldn't make sense without the full context but essentially he said that applying Jonah 3 10 in this way is a contextual all Jonah 3 10 means is that God saw what they did but you can't transfer that on some of the word works in Paul's arguments when he says that we are justified without works so a bit like when I tell people that you can't couple confess and forsake your sins with repent and believe the gospel that you can't couple those two things he's kind of saying the same thing with Jonah 3 10 and the things that Paul says about faith without works you can't couple those two things just because it happens happens to use the word works but this is what legalists do they're always trying to blur the separation between grace and works let's get some context from Jonah 3 to see how God seeing their works and doings was made manifest did the Ninevites turn from their evil way by just refraining from doing any further evil as Todd Friel's interpretation of repentance suggests did the Ninevites pour down their alcohol and tear down their idols and punish wrongdoers what did their turning from wickedness look like now you may remember in video 11 that I kind of said that we don't know what their wickedness was well we kind of know actually so a small correction on that we do sort of knowing that it's kind of violence that we get from this passage but we don't really have a lot of detail so the violence that was in their hands from chapter 3 verse 8 is really the closest thing that we get to any kind of description of what sort of wickedness they were actually guilty of it so unimportant that Jonah doesn't even give us any detail about it so going back to chapter 3 then in verse 4 Jonah warns that the city will be overthrown and verse 5 starts by saying that the people believed God's message through Jonah so they believe the message how did they respond what did they do well the first thing they did in verse 5 was proclaim a fast now except for the sin of gluttony which is not evident that this city was full of gluttons fasting does not just stop you from sinning and by the way the bible doesn't document fasting until second Samuel there is no strict commandment in the law to actually fast there's no prescriptive instructions to fast according to Moses law but there was an action here they actually did something something that is not easy something that actually takes effort to do the second thing they did was put on sackcloth now again much like fasting there is no mosaic prescription for this practice but it is a practice that was known in the bible particularly when people were mourning and it's also tied with fasting in other parts of the bible as well so the very first verse that documents how their repentance of sins was made manifest isn't even evident that they actually stopped sinning we don't know if they put on sackcloth the nashers because they were actually sorry for their sins and would never do them again only that they were appealing to god to repent of destroying their city this was not refraining from doing evil they were actually doing something positive and so in verse 6 then we see the king carrying out this action of putting on sackcloth and he sat in ashes to which again if you're familiar with the bible you'll know that that often accompanied sackcloth and then in verses 7 and 8 the king even decreed that the animals should fast even though this has absolutely no spiritual value whatsoever but as god would later explain to jonah they can't even discern their right from their left but in any case they actually did something so then the last thing that's to be decreed is the discontinuing from sin and the closest concrete example we actually have here is so vague and specific we don't know what violence they were guilty of they couldn't all be violent otherwise the city would have already collapsed by now and it only says let every man turn from his evil way notice that it says way singular but do you think that everyone in Nineveh was only guilty of one or two sins of course not so in a key passage about turning from wickedness it doesn't even go into very much detail about how they turned from sins and the most detail we have is about other works that they did besides turning from sin that they put on sackcloth and fasted this actually involved doing good works not just refraining from continuing in evil works but what about the other interpretations is repentance from sin a work according to the new testament paradigm as it is applied to the gospel of salvation given that james white says we can't apply jonah three to such doctrine and how chafing and abiding the word openly profess work salvation is repentance a work according to the new testament well obviously we don't want to put all of our eggs in one basket so to speak you know we can't just depend on one little passage we ought to have more than that and get some cross biblical support for this particularly from the new testament in order to answer this question well there's many passages I could cover I've just handpicked a few for the sake of this video so let's start with acts 26 20 because as I mentioned earlier this is a verse that abide in the word used to prove that repentance does mean turn from sin this is his proof text here where it says do works meet for repentance well the first thing I notice here is that sin is not actually mentioned in this verse we don't know what works paul was talking about here so he can't even know when he quotes this verse that paul was talking about sin in that verse ask yourself this question though why would somebody quote passages about doing works that do not mention sin to justify the doctrine that we have to repent of our sins to be saved the answer is simple because they know that turning from their sins is works so they are proclaiming a works based salvation and in doing so they are rejecting grace even if they use their double talking politician speak to say that they believe in salvation by grace and it's not just acts 26 20 of course people even quote james too faith without works is dead as if that's some kind of a proof text that you have to turn from your sins but if you look at the people that james commended for their works Abraham and Rahab he doesn't even mention their sins yes he mentioned some works that they did by mighty faith doesn't mention their turning from sins though but people will use that passage to justify that we have to repent of our sins when it talks about faith and works and it's not just sinless perfectionists that do this lordshipers who pretend to believe in grace do this as well but you know it comes as no surprise that james too faith without works is dead or even the demons believe and tremble would be used to promote this false repent of your sins gospel even when james wasn't talking about sin in that excerpt because james himself goes on to say later in the same epistle in 4 17 he says therefore to him that knows to do good and does it not to him it is sin now if that right there doesn't do it for you i don't know what does turning from sin is not just refraining from evil i decline to do evil works it must also involve doing good works because if you know to do these good works and don't do them then to you it is sin so this disproves tod freel's proclamation that turning from sin is just refraining from evil that's completely false if you repent of sins you have to do good you don't have a choice and what james says is perfectly consistent with what paul says also as paul outlined salvation in the book of romans in romans chapter two after describing the evil doings of those given over to a reprobate mind paul then explains that you are inexcusable oh man whosoever you are that judges for wearing you judge another you condemn yourself for you that judges does the same things he then goes on to say that to be justified by the law you actually have to do it and he already explained that you are guilty for doing all of those wicked works from chapter one and in verse 21 to 22 arguably he's tackling a jewish mindset here based on verse 17 so he's basically saying that the jews who judge the gentiles for doing these evil sins are equally as guilty themselves and so today you could just apply that to christians who like to accuse the unbelievers and then he tops this off by saying that by breaking the law or sinning in other words the name of god is blasphemed among the gentiles and look at what they are fulfilling after paul goes on to say it is written he talks about circumcision now again circumcision is not in of itself a sin issue just because you got circumcised doesn't mean that you sin less than people who have haven't been it's purely a covenantal matter so in james and jonah and paul we see that turning from sin or stop doing evil must be or at least is documented as being accompanied with doing good they are two sides of the same coin you can't isolate these from each other so there it is you can't just say that turning from sins is refraining from evil works in your life or that's your repentance in faith you have to do good works in order to repent of your sins it must involve doing works and finally that passage in one jon chapter three that makes all these repent of your sins legalist draw with excitement literally defines sin as transgressing the law so if you're trying to say repent of your sins to be saved you're trying to get salvation by the law and you're not going to make it because you've already transgressed the law it's too late for you not to mention the fact that all these hypocrites transgress the law after they've repented of their sins apparently but this is all works of the law this is deeds of the law this is doing the law for salvation if you have to repent of your sins if you have to stop committing adultery you have to stop doing this and you have to turn from this sin well then you also have to get circumcised you can't just say that oh well paul was just talking about circumcision when he said without works we still have to do good and false you do both or you do neither for salvation it's that simple now for the sake of time we can't really dwell on this point but lordshipers particularly of the calvinist variety will say that we are not saved by repenting of our sins we are saved by grace through faith but repenting of sins is the result and evidence of salvation well again it's more of this double talking politician speak speaking out of both sides of their mouth because if you really believed that you wouldn't be going around saying you must turn from your sins and trust in christ because that would be a backwards gospel it would be you believe on christ and then he will turn you from your sins but that's not what they all go around saying is it and ray comfort who is one of the flagship lordshipers of our generation he says first you have to repent of your sins second you have to believe you don't believe first then repent you have to repent of sins first that's what he says so using it as a result when it's the first thing that you have to do doesn't make any sense because of course false doctrine never makes sense and so logically speaking if you have to first repent of your sins and second believe well then first you have to stop doing evil and you have to do good works even before you've even been regenerated and then you can believe and be regenerated even though it's supposed to be the result of those who have been generated it's completely backwards it makes absolutely no sense it's complete nonsense of course but this is the kind of thing that comes out of the mouth of a complete fool like radius comfort and all these other lordshipers and Calvinist ilk so in conclusion we see that yes repenting of your sins is works salvation if you insist on proclaiming this then repent of your own sins stop being a liar and start being honest and admit that you trust in your works and stop pretending to believe in grace because grace and works cannot be mixed for righteousness it is either by one or it is the other it's that simple this is no nonsense Christianity reminding you that nowhere in the bible does it say repent of your sins to be saved