Faith and repentance: Two sides of the same coin?

Which comes first, faith or repentance? Here is John Calvin” “Now, both repentance and forgiveness of sins – that is, newness of life and free reconciliation – are conferred on us by Christ, and both are attained by us through faith. As a consequence, reason and the order of teaching demand that I begin to…

bography

April 8, 2014

2 minutes

Which comes first, faith or repentance? Here is John Calvin”

“Now, both repentance and forgiveness of sins – that is, newness of life and free reconciliation – are conferred on us by Christ, and both are attained by us through faith. As a consequence, reason and the order of teaching demand that I begin to discuss both at this point. However, our immediate transition will be from faith to repentance. For when this topic is rightly understood it will better appear how man is justified by faith alone, and simple pardon; nevertheless actual holiness of life, so to speak, is not separated from free imputation of righteousness. Now it ought to be a fact beyond controversy that repentance not only constantly follows faith, but is also born of faith. For since pardon and forgiveness are offered through the preaching of the gospel in order that the sinner, freed from the tyranny of Satan, the yoke of sin, and the miserable bondage of vices, may cross over into the Kingdom of God, surely no one can embrace the grace of the gospel without betaking himself from the errors of his past life into the right way, and applying his whole effort to the practice of repentance” (Calvin, Inst. III.iii.1).

Calvin says above “Now it ought to be a fact beyond controversy that repentance not only constantly follows faith, but is also born of faith.” I wonder, though, whether the Bible states that repentance follows faith. On this matter, here is Sinclair Ferguson

“Any confusion is surely resolved by the fact that wen Jesus preached “the gospel of God” in Galilee, He urged His hearers, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:14–15). Here repentance and faith belong together. They denote two aspects in conversion that are equally essential to it. Thus, either term implies the presence of the other because each reality (repentance or faith) is the sine qua non of the other” (Sinclair Ferguson, “Faith and Repentance”).

That seems more like it: faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin? Actually not exactly: faith must logically, if not chronology, precede repentance.

2 responses to “Faith and repentance: Two sides of the same coin?”

luckylarrysilverstein

April 8, 2014 at 7:14 pm

BABY AISHA & THE JEWISH PEDOPHILE

MOHAMMED’S MOTHER WAS JEWISH! THIS MAKES HIM A JEW
HIS TRIBE WAS JEWISH ARAB. MOHAMMED BASED HIS QURAN ON THE JEWISH TORAH/TALMUD. ISLAM IS A SECT OF TALMUDIC JUDAISM?

The Mother of Mohammed, Amina was of Jewish birth. Von Hammer.

“Mohammed, who was the only son of Abdallah, a Pagan, and Amina, a Jewess, and was descended from the noble but impoverished family of Hashim, of the priestly tribe of Koreish, who were the chiefs and keepers of the national sanctuary of the Kaaba, and pretended to trace their origin to Ismael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, was
born at Mecca, August 20, A.D. 570 …’

At that period, there were many “Jews’ in that area. Again from The History Of
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, volume 5, page 202:

“Seven hundred years before the death of Mahomet the Jews were settled in
Arabia; and a far greater multitude was expelled from the Holy
Land in the wars of Titus and Hadrian. The industrious exiles
aspired to liberty and power: they erected synagogues in the cities, and
castles in the wilderness; and their Gentile converts were confounded with the
children of Israel [Jews] …”

Waves of Israelites to Arabia bringing Judaism in various stages of development

The traditional view of Arabian history centers on Yemen. It is assumed that a fairly developed civilization grew in the south of the Arabian Peninsula. For several hundred years it grew rich by exporting gold, frankincense and myrrh to the Roman Empire; as well as controlling the overland routes to India and the East. The first
collapse of the Marib dam around 450 CE; the decline of the use of frankincense
due to the Christianization of Rome; and the Rome success bypassing the desert by using a sea route led to the collapse of southern Arabian society. This in turn led to
waves of immigration from the South to North, from the city to the desert.

Dr. Günter Lüling proposes an alternative paradigm.[1] He proposes a “more historical picture of Central Arabia, inundated throughout a millennium by heretical Israelites”. He envisions waves of Israelite refugees headed, North to South, to Arabia bringing with them Judaism in various stages of development. Linguistic and literary-historical research in the Qur’an tends to support the notion of a more northerly origin for linguistic development of Arabic.[2] Here is a brief summary of three of these waves of Judaic immigration: Herodian, Sadducean and Zealot (explained in more detail elsewhere).[3]

During the time of Ptolemy, the native population of Cush originally inhabited both sides of the Red Sea: on the east, southern and eastern Arabia; and on the west, Abyssinia (Ethiopia-Eritrea). During the reign of Ptolemy VI Philometor (r 181–145 BCE), the Jewish High Priest Onias IV built a Jewish Temple in Heliopolis, Egypt and also one in Mecca, Arabia. He did this to fulfill his understanding of the prophecy of Isaiah 19:19, “In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord (Heliopolis)
in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border (Mecca) thereof to the
Lord.” The border of Ptolemy’s empire was in Arabia.

The first wave of immigrants came with the success of the Maccabean, later Herodian, Judeo-Arab kingdom. Romanized Arabs (and Jews) from the trans-Jordan began migrating southward. The Tobiads which briefly had controlled Jerusalem extended their power southward from Petra and established the “Tubba” dynasty of kings of Himyar. Yathrib was settled during this period.

The second wave of immigrants came before the destruction of the Temple, when refugees fleeing the war, as well as the Sadducean leadership, fled to Arabia. Khaibar was established as a city of Sadducean Cohen-Priests at this time.

The third wave of immigrants were mostly refugees and soldiers from Bar Kochba’s revolt – fighters trained in the art of war and zealously nationalistic – sought refugee in Arabia.

This last wave of immigrants included people who are known in Islamic literature as the Aus and the Khazraj. Around 300 CE, they were forced out of Syria by the rising strength of Christian Rome, and the adoption of the Ghassan leader, Harith I, of Christianity. At first the Aus and Khazraj lived on the outskirts of Yathrib. According to Islamic sources, the Khazraj, headed by Malik ibn Ajlan, sought and obtained military assistance from the Bani Ghasaan; and having enticed the principal chiefs of Yathrib into an enclosed tent, massacred them.[4] Then the citizens of Yathrib, beguiled into security by a treacherous peace, attended a feast given by their unprincipled foes; and there a second butchery took place, in which they lost the whole of their
leaders.[5]

References

1.”A new Paradigm for the Rise of Islam and its
Consequences for a New Paradigm of the History of Israel” by Dr.
Günter Lüling; Originally appeared in The Journal of Higher Criticism Nr.
7/1, Spring 2000, pp. 23-53.

2.Hagarism, Crone and Cook

3.See the authors essays “The Prophet Muhammed as a
descendant of Onias III” and “From Bar Kochba to the Prophet
Muhammed”

4.See Katib at Wackidi, p. 287.
5. “Life of Mohamet I”, by Sir Walter Muir, Chapter III, Section 6

Reply
1. bography
  
  April 9, 2014 at 7:24 am
  
  Interesting Lucky, but what has this to do with the price of pork – and repentance?
  
  Reply

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bography

I am a Jew. I live in South Africa. My parents immigrated to South Africa from the Russian Empire when they were children in the early 1900s. I converted to Roman Catholicism at university. I’m now of the Reformed Christian faith. (You’re, you’re, you’re not a Calvinist are you? No I’m a monergist, that is, I had zlich to do with my regeneration). I studied philosophy, French and linguistics, and taught at schools and universities. My main interests are the Jews (of course) and Reformed theology and how the latter relates to Judaism and Roman Catholicism. My favourite writer is Martyn Lloyd Jones. I also learned a great deal from Art Katz, Lewis Johnson and Paris Reidhead. My theology has been mostly influenced by Martyn Lloyd Jones, S Lewis Johnson and John Macarthur.