Many People who become Christians may discover that they seem to not have changed much and wonder if they were in fact actually saved at all. yet they still have this sense that Someone is with them now who wasn’t before. They start feeling progressively that some behaviors are no longer ok whilst some things they think might not be ok, somehow doesn’t make then feel guilty when doing them. Yet. However when we look at the word we see that it is still possible to live a sinful life even after we have made a confession of faith. Why is that? Didn’t they really repent? John the Baptist declared that the Pharisees should bear fruit worthy of repentance. yet Jesus said that apart from him we could not bear good fruit.
So what’s happening here? When john the Baptist is talking to people coming to be baptized it was a baptism unto repentance however when people were baptized in the name of Jesus it was a baptism into the repentance already obtained for them in Christ. So those who were baptized under john still had to produce moral and behavioral fruit in accordance with the law. Whilst those who are baptized into Christ are no longer bound by law because they are baptized into his death and resurrected into his life and the behavioral and moral change comes by the indwelling of His Spirit rather than by observing written commandments. Jesus begins to write he commandments on hearts of flesh instead of tablets of stone for us to follow. The best way i have ever heard to describe the new believers position is this analogy. Two natures beat beneath my breast. One i love and one i hate but the one of feed will dominate. We have to see ourselves as dead to sin and alive to Christ and then have to abide in him to start seeing Spiritual fruit. Apart from him we can do nothing. So their is no longer an argument as to weather a person has properly repented but a decision to constantly abide so that Christs nature begins to be seen in the branches of our lives. the apostle Paul is quoted as saying “you who began a good work in the spirit, are you now trying to be perfected again in the flesh. Or are you again going back to rules and laws to live by as though this is what’s going to create in you the reflection of Gods image?
So what exactly is true Repentance then? The easiest way to describe it would be to change ones mind, ones position and to agree with the truth. The decision or change is in what shows in the form of fruit. The change of behavior or action in the direction of God rather than away from it. We begin to walk differently than what we were at first.