[cmnahrwold]

"The biblical teaching on repentance means that a person recognizes their guilt of sin (Romans 3:19); Lordship Salvationists teaches that a person must cease from living a sinful lifestyle to enter in or remain in God's favor. Eternal life is the gift of God (Romans 6:23). Salvation is a receiving, not giving. God gave us His only begotten Son, Jesus, to pay our debt of sin. What we do is come as we are, we must acknowledge our guilt of sin, coming to God on that basis; believing on Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, to forgive our sins (Acts 10:43).

In 2nd Peter 3:9 we read, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” The Greek word for “repentance” here is “metanoia” and literally means “a change of mind.” Not a change of lifestyle. However, the changed lifestyle should naturally follow afterwards as part of the sanctification process."

Really like these two paragraphs in your post that you provided in your prior message. Interesting to note the Greek definition for repentance. Also interesting to note that the word "Repent" in Greek here "metanoeo" 1) to change one’s mind, i.e. to repent
2) to change one’s mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins (Strongs)

Essentially to repent not only means to change one's mine but also turning from ones sin with extreme repugnance.

2Pe 2:22 Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."

As true converts in Christ, we will often fall into the trap of the flesh, but we will not willingly dive in and remain in our prior lifestyle.

[SERay]

Chris, in your reading of Strong's Concordance, you took their sample usage as an extended definition of the word. Most dictionaries do this, provide sample usage. The Concordance combines "repent" in the example of "repenting from sin."

"metanoeO" by itself is not making reference to sin. I can see how students could read something like this and be motivated to go down another path. Adding the expanded example not only changes the word, but also modifies the meaning of the scripture. This word misusage alone could be sufficient to create a case for departure from sound doctrine.

To add to this, Dr. A.T. Robertson says that the word Greek word metanoeO "has been hopelessly mistranslated," and further declares "that the tragedy of it is that we have no one English word that reproduces exactly the meaning and atmosphere of the Greek word." Anyone who has ever endeavored to turn Greek into English will know that Greek has many words for which there are no exact English equivalents.

The Greek verb metanoeO, which is always loosely translated "repent," is made up of a combination of two simple, easily understood words. These are meta, which means "after," and noia which means "mind." Since this word is a verb, it would mean to a Greek of the first century "have the after-mind;" and the noun of course would name the result of such an action, which would be "after-mindedness."

No one English term properly relays the meaning of metanoeO, but a scholar found that one could adopted three closely related and congruous words in order to express the truth in all contexts. These three words are submit, yield and ease.

[Johanna]

I agree with the comments. Only GRACE is sufficient, but we must ACT accordingly to the grace that abides in us. The Lord Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them". He even goes further to teach that sin is not only the superficial thing that everyone knew about - it's the heart and mind that we are taught to rule. RULE. He says, "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.'But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell."

Our body MUST be subjected to the Spirit in us. We can't say, 'well, it's the Spirit dwelling in me who will do all the work so I will not make any effort.' No, we must do an effort to actually stop commiting the sin that inhabits our body. The apostle Paul says "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness." (Romans 6) These are all verbs - a sign of action on OUR side.

And this should not have anything to do with who's taking the credit. The grace of the Lord is suficient at all times, and always must be given all glory. Our efforts are just a natural way for us to act - there's no merit in doing what we ought to do, right?

So... had to reply. This is fascinating, we may talk more about it later.