Repentance from Unbelief and the Gospel of Grace and Truth
Across much of the church world, repentance has often been treated as though it were the entire gospel. Yet the message of Jesus reaches beyond that. In the New Testament, repentance is most deeply a turning from unbelief — a change of heart that releases resistance to the good news and opens the way for faith. It is the point at which a person stops closing their heart to truth and begins to receive it. This kind of repentance is not centered on guilt over particular actions, for even those people without the Law are invited into the gospel’s reach. It is instead the awakening of faith, the first movement of the heart toward trusting in Jesus and embracing his teachings, where genuine freedom begins.
Still, when this understanding is brought forward, many pastors and evangelists hesitate. There is often quiet resistance — perhaps from fear of stepping outside accepted boundaries or questioning long-established emphases. Generations of teaching have made repentance appear as the core message itself, and to shift the focus toward belief in Christ as the true heart of the gospel can seem disruptive. Yet the truth invites courage. Jesus himself confronted inherited patterns that concealed the grace and reality of God. His gospel was never about protecting tradition but about drawing people into living faith — faith that welcomes him, receives his word, and finds in it the freedom of God’s kingdom.
This same overemphasis on repentance is often seen in the way baptism is taught and practiced, whether in the Christening of infants or in believer’s baptism. In many traditions, the call to repentance is rightly mentioned, but the greater meaning — belief in Jesus and participation in his life — is often left in the background. The act that was meant to express faith’s entrance into Christ’s death and resurrection can become reduced to a sign of moral cleansing or religious duty. Even in key creeds and statements of faith, repentance is highlighted while belief and discipleship are treated as assumed, rather than declared as the living heart of baptism’s meaning. The gospel’s fullness is easily obscured when repentance is isolated from faith in Christ, for baptism, at its core, proclaims not merely that we turn from sin, but that we are raised with him to newness of life.
Paul’s encounter with the disciples of John the Baptist in Acts 19 clarifies this further. These men had received John’s baptism, which called for repentance, but they had not yet been taught about Jesus or the fullness of his message. Paul explained that John’s baptism pointed toward belief in Christ and the embracing of his teachings. Once they understood this and believed, they were baptized into Jesus, entering fully into the life and freedom that comes from union with him. This shows that repentance, properly understood, is a turning from unbelief and a preparation for belief, not a standalone requirement.
Jesus’ words in John 8 reinforce this understanding. He called believers to continue in his teachings, to become disciples, and in doing so, to receive the liberating power of grace and the saving knowledge of the truth. Those who do not believe remain bound by sin, not because God withholds life, but because unbelief prevents them from receiving it. Freedom in Christ is not merely moral reform or avoidance of wrongdoing; it is the inward liberation of the heart, a transformation that aligns the believer with the reality of God’s kingdom.
I remember how the gospel message first touched my life. I had grown aware that lying and hypocrisy were habits I could not shake. I was bound by the need to be thought well of, to protect an image rather than live in truth. Then the gospel was preached to me — that Christ died for me. In that moment, the grace and truth that are in Jesus came into force: that he died, crucified for our sins, and was raised to eternal life by God. This message is the pinnacle of the grace and truth that comes through him.
When I believed that message, as I prayed with the preacher, something pure and powerful began to work in me. The Holy Spirit began to teach me by power the wrongfulness of lying — not as a mere moral correction, but as a revelation from heaven. Truth and righteousness were awakening within me. It was as though a light broke into a darkened room, exposing not only what was wrong but also what was possible. The hold of sin began to break, not because of my willpower, but because of the Spirit’s power revealing Christ’s reality within me.
Years later, others reminded me of that same grace and power — of the truth I had once experienced so vividly — and how it must continue to shape my life. I came to see that this freedom is not a single event to look back on, but a continual way of living. The grace and truth Jesus gives are not confined to the moment of conversion; they flow endlessly from him to those who believe. We must live in them daily, allowing faith to release that same liberating power again and again.
Jesus gives grace and truth together. Grace offers forgiveness; truth reveals reality. When we believe in him, these become a living force within us, breaking sin’s grip and restoring us to the life God intended. The gospel is not only the message that saves us once — it is the power that sustains us always. To live by faith in Jesus is to walk continually in the freedom his truth gives, never returning to the shadows of self-deception, but remaining in the light of his grace.
The fullness of the gospel, then, is a unified movement: repentance as the turning from unbelief, belief as the embracing of Jesus and his teachings, and discipleship as the living expression of that faith. Repentance opens the heart to receive Christ; belief makes that reception alive, leading to grace and freedom. As Paul demonstrated with the disciples of John, repentance prepares the way, and belief in Jesus brings the true baptism into life and truth. In this way, the gospel is not simply a call to stop sinning, but an invitation to enter the life, truth, and freedom that Jesus offers to all, including those who have never known the Law.
By Stephen D Green using AI for wording