“When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.” Acts 11:18

Repentance is the gift of God that is granted to those He has, by His Eternal Grace, chosen in Christ. It is a change of heart and mind that the Spirit of Grace produces in elect sinners when it pleases God to do so. It is evidenced by a change of heart and mind toward God, and faith in the LORD Jesus Christ, Acts 20:21. Repentance and faith are one and the same gift. Where repentance is granted, faith is evident. Where faith is in evidence, repentance has been granted by the Spirit of God. It is through the preaching of Christ and Him crucified in accord with the truth of Christ, as revealed in the Scriptures, that God is pleased to humble sinners at the feet of His Son, having drawn them to Him in Effectual Grace, James 1:18.

It was just such Grace toward Cornelius that caused Him to direct Peter to go preach to his family and him the Glorious Gospel of the LORD Jesus, Acts 10:34-43.Initially, the Jews contested the fact that Peter would go into the house of a Gentile and preach Christ to him. Such was the cultural blindness in which he was raised that there was not to be any fellowship with any outside of the Jewish community. It was just such a blindness that the LORD removed from Peter, causing the scales to fall from his eyes, and providentially go and preach the Gospel for Cornelius. The Spirit poured out on his family and him, as on the day of Pentecost, was the evidence that this work was of God, Acts 11:17.

It was in hearing this testimony that the Jews who were contesting with Peter were then brought to see the will of God in granting repentance to even the Gentiles. “They held their peace, and glorified God.”—The difference of tenses in the two Greek verbs implies that they first held their peace, and then began a continuous utterance of praise. This Scripture indicates just how vital the work of the Spirit is in bringing the LORD’S people to full agreement of mind and heart as to not only what sinners He saves, but how He saves them. Such is the unity of the Faith of which the apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:1-4. Repentance is not a one-time gift. Because we are sinners by nature, and prone to wander, and contest the Will and Way of God, He continues to grant repentance to humble us, teach us of His grace, and grant a love for others that He has chosen in Christ, paid their sin debt, and drawn together in His love in the same fellowship of the Gospel.