So we don’t hear much talk about repentance, and, if the continued drift of our pop culture into the slime and sewers of immorality is any barometer of the tastes of the audience, I’d say there’s not much actual repenting going on out their in the hinterlands, either.

Yet repentance, as John the Baptist — and Jesus — showed, is central to the message of the Gospel. Without repentance, there can be no saving faith, no forgiveness of sins, no entrance into the kingdom of Heaven.

Repentance and the Kingdom of Heaven
The incarnation of Jesus Christ, which we have lately celebrated again, heralds the establishment in space and time of an eternal realm of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit of God — the kingdom of God, or, the kingdom of Heaven. John came preaching the kingdom of God, and so did Jesus and the apostles. The message of the Gospel is that a new order has broken into time, a new King is on the throne, new protocols are in effect, a new course has been charted for all of history, and everyone is involved, no exceptions. A new Spirit is now calling the shots, directing the flow of events, preparing the stage of history for the final act, and calling out a people to take their place in the divine economy.

The coming of the kingdom means simply that God is now actively prosecuting His plan to restore all things unto Himself in an irresistible manner, working through His Word and Spirit to bring His rule into existence on earth as it is in heaven. Wherever His scepter sways, lives are restored, cultures are renewed, societies flourish in good works, and the needy and oppressed know compassion and freedom.

But there’s a catch: no one can enter this happy domain without repentance. Entrance to the kingdom, Peter reminds us, comes by the ticket of faith and repentance (Acts 2:38). Faith alone — some word of confessing Jesus, or some public act of going forward in His name — is not sufficient. Indeed, this may not even be real faith.

Faith with repentance is true faith, because it involves turning away from that which is contrary to the new economy of God’s kingdom, in order to take up, embrace, and seek that which is characteristic of this new realm. Through repentance one solidifies the act of saving faith and opens the door to a life of good works. All this together — faith and repentance leading to good works — is what life in the kingdom is all about. Or, as John the Baptist put it, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8).

The kingdom — the rule of King Jesus over all the cosmos — is the ultimate reality. All are called to seek that kingdom and its righteousness. But none will enter that realm who have not learned to practice repentance as part of the cost of admission and proof of citizenship.