Repentance in the Bible means turning back from the wrong faith to the true faith, and for the righteous, it means acknowledging one’s wrong doing and coming back into the light of the gospel.
If you are a sinner now, you should make a confession like this. “Dear God, I have sinned and I deserve to be sent to hell. But I long to be saved from my sins. Please save me from all my sins. I am not yet born again, and I know am bound for hell.” This is a correct confession.
Then what kind of confession should a born again make? “Dear God, I have committed the sin of following my flesh. I believe that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and saved me from all my sins, even the sins I have just committed, whereas I should have had to die for my sins. I thank the Lord that He has saved me with the water and the blood.” The confessions of the born again and those not born again are different.
We should all have the same faith as the apostle John. If you try to hide your sins behind the confession that is for the righteous, then you will never be saved from death, which is the wages of sin.
All sinners who are not born again should stop hiding behind prayers of confession and start believing in the true gospel of the water and the blood and the Spirit. They should learn the faith of the apostle John and thereby earn salvation.
Sinners do not realize how terrible the judgment for their sins will be. The most terrible sin before God is not to believe in the gospel of being born again of water and the Spirit.
All those who believe in Jesus but are not yet born again should confess before God, “Lord, I am a sinner to be thrown into the burning fires of hell,” while refraining from saying, “Lord, please wash away my sins.” When a sinner takes into his heart the gospel that Jesus saved him through His baptism at the Jordan and His blood at the Cross, he can be freed from all his sins. This is a the kind of confession a sinner should make in order to be saved from all his sins before God.
A sinner has only to confess that he has not yet been born again and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Then he will be saved at once. By the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the salvation of all sinners was completed. “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). God saved all sinners from their sins by having His Son, Jesus, baptized by John the Baptist and die at the Cross.
The Lord washed away all the sins that men commit with their flesh and their hearts from their birth to their death. We have to believe in the true gospel to be saved. It is the only way we can be freed from all our sins and become truly sanctified. We can become righteous once and for all when we believe in the true gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Jesus was baptized, took away the sins of the world, paid for them at the Cross with His life, was resurrected after three days and now sits at the right hand of God. This is the ultimate truth.
We should all make this confession. “Lord, I cannot help but sin till the day I die. I was born a sinner from the womb of my mother, and owing to all the sins I have committed, I should be thrown into the burning fires of hell. For this reason, I want to believe in Jesus, who came by water, blood, and the Spirit and became my Savior.”
Just as it is written in Matthew chapter 3, Jesus took away the sins of the world, including all the sins we commit until the day we die, when He was baptized at the Jordan River. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).
If Jesus saved us only from original sin and told us to solve the problem of our own sins by ourselves, we would be in constant agony. But Jesus freed us from all our sins with His baptism and blood. What do we have to be worried about? When we believe in the baptism of Jesus and His blood at the Cross, and thank the Lord, the Spirit dwells in our hearts.
Do you believe in Jesus? Do you believe the Spirit dwells in you? All your sins were passed on to Jesus when He took away the sin of the world with His baptism. He was later judged for our sins at the Cross, freeing us from eternal damnation. This is the true gospel.