Acts 20:18

18-21. The interview with these elders may be regarded as a type of all the meetings and partings which took place on this journey, and was, probably, described with minuteness on this account. (18) "And when they had come to him, he said to them, You well know from the day in which I first came into Asia, after what manner I was with you all the time, (19) serving the Lord with all humility and many tears and trials which befell me by the plots of the Jews; (20) that I have kept back nothing that was profitable, but have declared it to you, and taught you both publicly and from house to house, (21) testifying to both Jews and Greeks repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." The order in which the terms repentance and faith occur in this last sentence, and in some other passages, has been urged as proof that repentance occurs before faith in the order of mental operations. But this is a most fallacious source of reasoning. From it we might argue that sanctification precedes faith, because Paul addresses the Thessalonians as having been chosen to salvation "through sanctification of spirit and the belief of the truth;" or that the confession precedes faith, because Paul says: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." The order of the words describing two actions proves nothing in reference to the order of their occurrence, except when it is mad evident that it was the writer's intention to indicate the order of occurrence. No such intention is manifest here.

The purpose of the sentence in question is to state the two leading topics on which he had testified among the Ephesians, and the order in which they are mentioned was suggested by the nature of the case. All the Jews in Ephesus and all the Gentiles who attended the synagogue worship already believed in God, before Paul preached to them concerning Jesus. It was also necessary that all the heathen should learn to believe in God, before hearing the gospel of the Son of God. Moreover, they might be induced to repent toward God, as they had all been taught that they must do, before they believed that Jesus was the Son of God. Repentance toward God, bringing men to an honest and candid state of mind, was a most excellent preparation for faith in Jesus Christ. This was the design of John's ministry. He prepared them for the reception of Jesus Christ, by calling them to repentance before God. Paul also attempted to make known the true God to the Athenians, and told them that God had "commanded all men everywhere to repent," before he introduced to them the name of Jesus. This, however, is far from being proof of repentance before faith in the ordinary sense of the expression, which requires not repentance toward God before faith in Christ, but repentance toward God before faith in God.

That a man can repent toward a God in whose existence he does not believe, is not assumed by any party; but all grant that some degree or species of faith must precede repentance, while the prevailing Protestant parties that saving faith, as it is styled, must follow repentance. The mistake which they commit arises from a misconception of the nature of both faith and repentance. Regarding repentance as simply sorrow for sin, and faith as a yielding up of the will to Christ, they very readily reach the conclusion that the former must precede the latter. But in this conception the sorrow for sin which produces repentance is mistaken for repentance itself; while the yielding up of the will to Christ, which is really repentance, is mistaken for faith. Repentance, therefore, really covers all the ground usually assigned to both repentance and saving faith, leaving no room for faith to arise after it.

A correct definition of faith is equally inconsistent with this conception. It is "confidence as to things hoped for, conviction as to things not seen." It can exist, in this its fullest sense, only when its object is both unseen and a subject of hope. When the object is not a subject of hope, as in the faith that the worlds were framed by the word of God, the faith is merely a conviction as to something not seen. But Jesus the Christ, the prime object of the Christian's faith, is both unseen, and the being upon whom all our hopes depend. Faith in him, therefore, is both "confidence as to things hoped for, and conviction as to things not seen." But it is impossible for me to repent of the sins which I have committed against Christ before I am convinced in reference to his Messiahship, and have confidence in reference to the things which he has promised. It is, therefore, impossible for repentance to precede faith, in reference to him. On the contrary, faith, or conviction that he is the Christ, and confidence in reference to what he has promised, is the chief means of leading men to repentance; although it is still true, that deists, such as modern Jews, and some others who believe in God but reject Christ, might be induced to repent toward God before they believe in Christ.

We may further remark, that, in the scriptural distribution of our conception of the divine nature, God is the proper object of repentance, and Jesus Christ of faith. To believe that Jesus is the Christ is the faith; but repentance is not thus limited; it has reference to God, independent of the distinction between Father and Son. It is this thought which suggested the connection of the term repentance with the name of God, and faith with that of Christ.