Does Salvation Require Repentance?

Salvation does not require repentance, but it produces repentance.

According to Wayne Grudem, in his book Systematic Theology, An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, on page 699 we find him explaining that regeneration happens before conversion happens (conversion defined by faith and repentance). Regeneration is a work done completely by God, and initiated by God. Faith and repentance come usually hand in hand, and repentance and faith are enabled to happen by God and somehow allowing our participation, causing us to be willing to use our faith and willing to repent, and prompting us toward these actions.

We could ask, “How simple can salvation be and it still counts as salvation?” A person’s salvation could be as simple as was the salvation of the thief on the cross, who lived just minutes or hours in a state of salvation.

Romans 10:13 reads, “for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

This is quite simple. But is it simply repeating something out of your mouth? Is it that all God is requiring is that we should repeat a phrase amounting to “Save me Lord Jesus” like a robot and that’s all that would be needed to save someone? Surely Romans 10:13 means more than mouthing a prayer like a robot to appease God.

The Bible makes reference to the idea that what goes on in the heart is paramount to what matters to God in the process of prayer or in the process of saving someone. I am not saying that we need to make the act of calling on God more difficult than it needs to be, but I am saying calling on the name of the Lord in the Biblical sense should mean at least to be sincere in your calling on the name of the Lord.

We could imagine a child who cries crocodile tears to avoid punishment after getting caught doing something wrong. We can imagine a person who simply says words to a beautiful woman with a hope to “say what she wants to hear” simply in order to manipulate her. Or we could imagine a person who pretends to like a food coked a certain way in a meal not because he genuinely liked it but simply to humor the chef to stay on his good side.

How does the Bible mention the need for sincerity in praying for salvation?

Psalm 145:18 The Lord is near to all who call on Him,
To all who call on Him in truth.
¹⁹ He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He will also hear their cry for help and save them.

It says if you call on Him in truth, the Lord is near you. If we look up Romans 10:13 in the Greek, on Biblehub.com, it says the phrase “shall call upon” has some interesting traits. About halfway down the page of https://biblehub.com/greek/1941.htm in the lexicon section we get this explanation:

“5. Hebraistically (like יְהוָה בְּשֵׁם קָרָא to call upon by pronouncing the name of Jehovah, Genesis 4:26; Genesis 12:8; 2 Kings 5:11, etc.; cf. Gesenius, Thesaurus, p. 1231{b} (or his Hebrew Lexicon, under the word קָרָא); an expression finding its explanation in the fact that prayers addressed to God ordinarily began with an invocation of the divine name: Psalm 3:2; Psalm 6:2; Psalm 7:2, etc.) ἐπικαλοῦμαι τό ὄνομα τοῦ κυρίου, I call upon (on my behalf) the name of the Lord, i. e. to invoke, adore, worship, the Lord, i. e. Christ: Acts 2:21 (from Joel 2:32 ()); ; Romans 10:13; 1 Corinthians 1:2…”

Near the end of the quote we get the words, “I call upon (on my behalf) the name of the Lord, i. e. to invoke, adore, worship, the Lord…Romans 10:13.” This is saying the way calling on the Lord happens in Romans 10:13 involves invocation, adoration, or worship of the Lord. So when this calling on the name of the Lord happens, intrinsic within the calling, is a directional repentance that is distinguishable from a prior direction of sin, because in order to invoke, adore or worship the Lord, one must have turned or at least be in the process of turning from sin in order for that calling on the name of the Lord to be sincere, which is the root meaning of Romans 10:13.

Now if you are sincerely calling on the Name of the Lord, you must have some understanding that the Lord is higher and more powerful than you are, to save you, and the result is, if you are sincere, you shall be saved.

It may be hard to distinguish from the Bible what millisecond a repentance happens after faith is operating. But I think it is right to understand that calling on the Lord in truth as Psalm 145:18 also seems to intrinsically to involve a turning from sin or evil, which is repentance in its initial stage. We realize that in ourselves we have no power to save ourselves, and in turning to God, if we are going to seek him in a truthful way, we can believe he is in the opposite direction from our sin, or from the evil we find ourselves stuck in at times, and by calling on him the very act of turning to the Lord is in fact a turning from sin and evil, (repentance) although a beginning repentance, but the Bible says that is in fact sufficient to save someone. (Romans 10:13) After justification happens for the believer, the Lord continues the work of salvation through refining us with more repentance and the sanctification process. LG