n his Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem occasionally offers a personal comment relating to the current evangelical state in America. In his chapter on conversion, after showing from Scripture and logic that faith and repentance are inseparable, Grudem gives this analysis:
“When we realize that genuine saving faith must be accompanied by genuine repentance of sin, it helps us to understand why some preaching of the gospel has such inadequate results today. If there is no mention of the need of repentance, sometimes the gospel message becomes only, “Believe in Jesus Christ and be saved” without any mention of repentance at all. But this watered-down version of the gospel does not ask for a wholehearted commitment to Christ—commitment to Christ, if genuine, must include a commitment to turn from sin. Preaching the need for faith without repentance is preaching only half of the gospel. It will result in many people being deceived, thinking that they have heard the Christian gospel and tried it, but nothing has happened. They might even say something like, “I accepted Christ as Savior over and over again and it never worked.” Yet they never really did receive Christ as Their Savior, for he comes to us in his majesty and invites us to receive him as he is—the one who deserves to be, and demands to be, absolute Lord of our lives as well.”
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994), pp. 716-717.
This also may help explain why only 8 million of our 16 million Southern Baptists can be found in church on any given Sunday, or why so many of our young people abandon church forever between their freshman and sophomore years in college.
