The True Nature of Repentance in the Gospels

It is in the thief’s reaching out to Jesus and in Christ’s response to him that we are given a clue to perhaps the most vital ingredient of human salvation response. Namely, some level of sincere heart-based repentance.

In the gospels repentance is best described as a ‘turning away from selfishness’ and a ‘turning towards’ God and/or those things closest to God’s heart, as in the core heart-based attitudes expressed in the Beatitudes and the Great Commandment. It is important to see that Christ’s version of ‘turning’ is quite different from and more flexible than the classical evangelical version. Evangelicals totally limit the idea of ‘turning’ to turning away from moral sins toward the person of Christ. Perhaps, on a good day, turning to ‘God’ might just suffice, but this would need to be quickly followed by ‘believing in Jesus’ as well.

Yet for the synoptic Jesus, the subject to whom a person turned could be any one of, or any combination of: Father God, Jesus himself, or the ‘brothers /sisters’ of Jesus. When Christ said, in Matthew 25.40, "In as much as you have done this to the least of these my brothers, you have done it unto me," he made it clear that it was sufficient for a person to have turned away from the rule of ‘self-firstness’ and turned towards another needy human being (represented by Jesus’ ‘brothers’) in costly love and compassion. As Matthew 25.31-46 shows, in Jesus’ eyes these acts alone have the power to connect the doer in salvation relationship even where no specific conscious belief in or commitment to the Father and/or himself is involved.

Peter and Paul Discover the Generosity of God

The Roman Centurion Cornelius: Acts 10

A key question to ask from this passage is, "Was Cornelius in a ‘saving’ relationship with God before he met with Peter?” Let me put it more plainly. “If Cornelius had dropped dead prior to Peter’s sermon to him, would he have gone to heaven or hell?"

One would have to regard God and Christ as shockingly vindictive and pedantic to be able to declare with any conviction that Cornelius was a candidate for hell prior to Peter’s sermon. Yet this is precisely what most evangelicals think, believing as they do that this is what the story teaches. However, any careful reading of the full story will show that nothing could be further from the truth.

Luke’s account clearly teaches that Cornelius was in a saving relationship with God before Peter preached to him. Nowhere in Acts 10 is there anything which says that Cornelius was only, in effect, ‘close to the kingdom’ and therefore in need of a dose of sound doctrine from Peter to bring him into salvation.

I suggest the reader carefully reads Acts 10, as space does not permit the retelling of the whole story. A summary of the key points will have to suffice.

Note Luke’s great honesty. The fact that Luke, the writer of Acts, faithfully recorded this account just as it happened, despite its implications for Peter’s reputation, speaks volumes for his integrity as a factual historian. As we will see later, in Acts 11.13-14 he was even prepared to report Peter as saying something which was not only at variance with the facts but also showed up Peter’s slowness to understand what had been revealed to him.

In Acts 10.1-8 Cornelius and his household are described in glowing terms. Cornelius is said to be "devout and God fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly."

Next an angel appears to Cornelius and tells him "that his prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a remembrance before God." He is instructed to send to Joppa and have Peter brought back, though the angel gives no reason for this instruction. He certainly does not suggest to Cornelius that Peter is going to tell him ‘how to be saved.’

Acts 10.9-16 records Peter’s vision. In Joppa Peter has a vision designed to challenge to the core his Jewish mindset, with its deeply ingrained and exclusivist understandings of purity. Three times God tells him in the plainest of language, "Do not call anything impure that God has [already] made clean." Peter is still wondering what to make of all this when Cornelius’s servants knock on his door, and the Holy Spirit tells Peter he is not to hesitate to go with them to meet their master the Roman centurion Cornelius. Read the account of Peter’s visit in Acts 10.23-33.