Repentance is a CONTINUAL ACT

True Christians will fully accept that repentance is an essential element of conversion – without it, forgiveness cannot be extended to the sinner, – that sinner cannot be saved. The believer will testify that God’s grace awakened him to his sinful state, and the Holy Spirit convicted and convinced him of the hopelessness of his case before God, and his need of a Saviour. That same Holy Spirit will direct the sinner to Christ, through the Word of God, and God will turn the sinner around, he will thus repent of his sin and trust the Saviour.

But what then? Is that act of repentance at conversion a final and once only act? For the ‘saved’ is no further repentance necessary? The Puritans believed that repentance is a continual act of turning from sin and turning to God:

Repentance is a continued act of turning, a repentance never to be repented of, a turning never to turn again to folly. A true penitent has ever something within him to turn from; he can never get near enough to God; no, not so near him as once he was; and therefore he is still turning and turning that he may get nearer and nearer to him, who is his chief good and his only happiness, optimum maximum, the best and the greatest. They are every day a-crying out, ‘O wretched men that we are, who shall deliver us from this body of death!’ (Rom. 7:24). They are still sensible of sin, and still conflicting with sin, and still sorrowing for sin, and still loathing of themselves for sin. Repentance is no transient act—but a continued act of the soul.

Thomas Brooks