Is God's Forgiveness Conditional?

A teacher in one of the churches I used to serve emailed me asking: 

Can you give me a simple explanation of the role of repentance in our salvation? 
I know we are saved because we believe in Christ, but what about if we have some unrepented sins?  I think the answer is we will all have some, and we are saved anyhow, but I need to understand this better.  I know repentance requires change, and sometimes we do not succeed at changing.  I think we are forgiven for everything, regardless.  If we don't repent, we don't lose our salvation, but it keeps us from being closer to God, and from having the life he wants for us on this earth.  Am I correct in all of this?

I responded by saying: 
You know how to make a young pastor happy!  Asking theology questions!

Here are a few thoughts:
Repentance is not mere confession.  Repentance, proper, follows confession (I did what is wrong) and recommitment (I want to do differently) but its definition is reorientation (living differently). We have to admit we’ve done poorly, aspire to do differently and act differently.  The call to repent, means “re-examine your life and take a new course”. 

An example:  I am competing in a paper-airplane distance throwing contest.  I try make the farthest-flying paper airplane using folding pattern A.  Lindsay makes one using folding pattern B and hers consistently flies farther, regardless of who throws it.  I confess, that my folding pattern is inferior.  I commit to using folding pattern B and finally, I repent and henceforth fold and throw pattern B planes whenever I compete.  

True repentance is not present if a person’s life does not change, at least enough to indicate that they are trying to change their sinful thoughts or behaviors, regardless how much regret they express.  

Your question about the role of repentance in salvation is a tricky one, and often people will try to simplifying it by only discussing one aspect of salvation, namely that salvation is being saved from hell after we die.  But the New Testament has a lot more to say about salvation during our living years, than about its value for the afterlife. 

Dallas Willard captures this by saying that “salvation is a life.”  I am uncertain if you are right when you suggest that if we merely confess our sins (and not repent of them), we will still be forgiven and we won’t go to hell for them.   Of course, if we were required to verbally confess every sin or else pay its price, we’d be immobilized, needing to confess constantly. But an even better question would be “Does failure to repent (failure to live differently) cut one off from salvation in the present ?  To this, the biblical answer is a resounding “Yes!”  The saved life is a life lived in intimate connection to God’s presence, love and power.  This is the Kingdom of God that was Jesus dominant message.  

In the synoptic gospels Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus uses the word “life” in a similar manner.  Consider John 17:3 which is an equally fitting definition of salvation, the Kingdom of God and eternal life: Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Do you notice that “eternal life” seems to belong as well in the land of the living as it does as the possession of those who have died? Knowing God and Jesus, closely, intimately, daily, personally – this is salvation.  And this salvation is inaccessible to the unrepentant.  Not so much because God won’t tolerate being around us if we continue to sin, but because our sinful patterns of thought and action actually shut us off from that intimate, personal, close relationship with God.  

The hard question has to be asked: if we are not willing (wanting and trying) to repent, not actively seeking to change the thoughts and behaviors that cut us off from the presence of God, are we really desirous of being totally immersed in his presence in the afterlife (aka heaven)?  If we don’t want salvation in this life, what makes us think that we really want it at all?  

Then, after I received a distressed reply, I added: 

Let me assure you that, as you know, forgiveness of sins is the free gift of grace by the atoning work of Jesus.  Forgiveness flows freely and lavishly.

What I wrote before was mainly to highlight that salvation is much bigger than mere forgiveness for the penalty of sin.  Salvation is also freedom from the present enslaving power of sin – freedom from the things that cut us off from vibrant interactive relationship with God in this life.  Not just freedom from sin, but freedom for the salvation life, the eternal life, life in the Kingdom of God.

Thoughts?  Agree?  Disagree?


  1. Since you ask, I agree! The idea of salvation that we used to talk about in the '70s, mainly that of "fire insurance," really is anemic... And so to the question, "Does failure to repent cut me off from salvation in the present?" I'm absolutely with you.

    I'm afraid "our people" might not want either of us :(

  2. Thanks for the solidarity, Collin. This idea of cutting ourselves off from salvation daily, isn't too far from saying that many of us regularly (and all of us on occasion) willfully choose the hell of separation from God over the humility of repentance. If we make a soul-habit of neglecting true repentance, we're making a habit of choosing hell over heaven, and I'm afraid this is where the doctrine of freewill means has eternal stakes.

  3. Chris, I love how lucidly you explain things. I agree with all you said, but I'm concerned that it's not enough for some.

    Many times people have compulsive behaviors and addictions that they sincerely want to change and can't. One issue is that they don't understand the roots of their continued misbehavior. They have unacknowledged goals - so they repent of the behavior but not what lies underneath, such as the idolatry or the refusal to face grief, pain and anger and enter into real engagement with God and His people that are behind their continued sins.

    For me, could I stop being anxious because I repented? I could stop for a short time, yet again it's kept resurfacing. The deep tap root needed to be dug around and gently pulled up.

  4. Chris, I like your thoughts. How about this, in regard to the question: God's offer of forgiveness is unconditional (it has already been offered and is always available). However, good relations (which requires reconciliation - the embrace of forgiveness) is by definition conditional. Many people have no interest in "receiving" forgiveness from God because forgiveness involves an accusation that there has been a wrong committed, which is an affront to pride. Repentance is merely the recognition / owning up to this right accusation and the embrace of God's willingness to absorb the injustice on our behalf. This requires humility - which is what the Gospel always calls us to. (What I'm saying is not original since it is merely a summary of what Volf says in "Free of Charge") :)

    Its God's kindness that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4).

    Without repentance on the human end there is no such thing as reconciliation with God (which in my opinion is a synonym for salvation... or at least its doorway).

  5. Thanks for commenting on a related post on my blog.

    You have done a good job here. I'm not sure that I agree with one idea, though, and that is the idea that God didn't create darkness. Was the world evil before God created light? I doubt it.

    I'm not conversant with ancient non-Hebrew creation myths, so can't comment intelligently on them.

  6. I don't believe that God didn't create darkness, but that this is how Genesis narrates the creation story in order to illustrate a truth about God, God's nature and the nature of creation.