Then Paul said, “John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.” Acts 19:4

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In the previous verse, Paul had asked the disciples that he had met, “Into what then were you baptized?” Their answer was that they were baptized into John’s baptism. With that, it next says, “Then Paul said, ‘John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance.’”

This was the point and purpose of John’s baptism. He spoke to Israel, under the law, about their state before the law. John was calling the people back to obedience to the law because the law anticipated the coming of Christ. Three times in Matthew 3:1-12 he spoke of repentance. The word repentance comes from the Greek word metanoia. It means “a change of mind.” One is thinking one way and he is to change his mind and think another way.

In Matthew 3, when asked who he was, John cited the prophet Isaiah. A fuller portion of what Isaiah said was –

“’Comfort, yes, comfort My people!’
Says your God.
2 ‘Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her,
That her warfare is ended,
That her iniquity is pardoned;
For she has received from the Lord’s hand
Double for all her sins.’
3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places smooth;
5 The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’” Isaiah 40:1-5

John claimed that he was the voice calling the people to repent, to change their minds about how they were living, and to turn to God in preparation for the coming of the Lord – the Messiah. This is not at all what Paul and the other apostles proclaimed. In Acts 2, Peter did tell the people of Israel to repent, but it wasn’t in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. Rather, it was that the Messiah had come and they had crucified Him. They needed to repent of this, to change their mind about what they had done.

In the case of these disciples in Ephesus, they had been baptized into John. They had been told that the Messiah was coming and they needed to prepare themselves for that event. Paul then explains exactly what that meant with the words, “saying to the people that they should believe.”

There is no hint of repentance in the directive. The repentance John called for was directed to those of Israel under the law in anticipation of the coming Messiah. When He came, they were to believe. They would need no change of mind because their minds had been prepared for His coming. In the case of those in Acts 2, they had to change their minds because they had failed to be prepared for His coming. Now that the Messiah had come, they simply needed to believe “on Him who would come after him.”

John said He was coming. When He came, it would be evident. He would fulfill the ancient prophecies, He would be spotless before God in relation to the law, and He would fulfill the law in that capacity, etc. Their repentance, their changing of their minds, was to prepare their minds under the law to accept His fulfillment of the law. With that understood, Paul then explains who John was speaking about, saying, “that is, on Christ Jesus.”

The word Christ is Greek for the Hebrew word Messiah. Paul proclaims that Jesus is the Messiah and these disciples were to believe on Him. There is nothing affixed to that, just believe. With this verse, John the Baptist is never mentioned again in Scripture. The time of the law has given way to the time of grace. Salvation is something that is appropriated by belief in God’s provision of grace in the giving of His Son. Nothing can be added to that. The work is complete.

Life application: As noted above, the word “repent” means “to change one’s mind.” It means nothing more. The word does not mean, “turn from your sin before you can be saved.” When a person is presented with the gospel, he is told that he is a sinner – “Christ died for your sins.” If Christ died for sins, it means that there are sins in his life that Jesus needed to die for. In believing this, it is an acknowledgment by the person that he is a sinner in need of a Savior.

No list of sins is necessary to be presented to the person, identifying what it means to sin before God. The statement “Christ died for your sins” is all-encompassing. When the person believes this by faith, his sins are forgiven – all of them. Only after this occurs does a person then find out what is pleasing to God and what is displeasing to Him.

In other words, someone may be a notorious liar, a homosexual, a brawler, a thief, and a murderer. When he is given the gospel, “Do you know that you are a sinner and that Jesus died for your sins?”, the person giving the gospel may not know a single thing about that person. The person being spoken to may say, “I know I am a sinner and I know I have offended God. I am so relieved that God sent His Son to die for me. I believe!”

It is at this moment, and no other, that he is saved. He has not yet given up on any of the wicked things he has been doing. He may not even know which things he is doing are offensive to God. Only now, after his salvation, does he start to learn what he does that is in need of change. By saying, “You must give up XX, XX, and XX before you can be saved,” you have presented a false gospel of works. This person may do what he is told and he now believes he merits God’s forgiveness. This is not the gospel at all. It is an affront to God who sent His Son to die for this person’s sins. His turning from those things may not equate to belief in Jesus’ work at all.

Be sure to get the gospel down properly. If you misrepresent the gospel, you are not presenting the gospel.

O God, we just can’t seem to get grace. We say we believe it, we tell people about it, and yet we then add to what Jesus has done when telling others about what they need to do in order to be pleasing to You. We remove grace from the equation and bring back deeds of self. Forgive us of this. Help us to properly present the gospel of grace. Jesus has done it all. What we need to be saved is faith in Jesus, plus nothing. Amen.