My question is, in the fruit of repentance before baptism, how does one know how much he has repented of when his sins are so many? …But, I keep wondering now if I had repented enough before my baptism. Now knowing more about repentance, and that it’s also a change of “conduct” (not just a change of mind), I try to think back and see if my conduct had changed before my baptism. Today, I try to tell myself that the Lord saved me, knowing that I still needed a fuller knowledge of “repentance,” but for some reason, I still keep having doubts about whether I’m saved… Anthony Grigsby
The child of God can know that he knows that he is saved; there is no reason for the Christian to harbor doubts about his or her salvation. “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3). The fact that a child of God may sometimes have doubts about salvation does not necessarily mean that he is not saved, only that he needs to know about scriptural assurances of salvation.
John the Baptist called upon the religious leaders who appeared at the site of his preaching and baptisms to “bring forth therefore fruits of repentance” (Matthew 3:8) because there was neither any profession nor demonstration by them of their willingness to amend their sinful ways. The Saducees and the Pharisees were unaffected by John’s divine message, and they were discernibly impenitent. They neither exhibited sorrow for sin nor repentance that leads to salvation.
The repentance that people express when implementing the plan of salvation in their lives differs from merely sorrow and leads to the salvation of the soul. “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). Repentance carries with it the idea of purposing to turn from one’s sinful ways (though the follow through is often more difficult). Though one may enumerate his various sins from which he repents, Scripture does not require that. Repentance is a disposition of mind to submit one’s will to the will of God in all things¾a sort of blanket submission that includes all one’s sins, known and unknown.
The Christian life is a work in progress! We do better as we learn better. What we may affectionately refer to as God’s second law of pardon provides the ongoing forgiveness of sins for Christians when they sin (Acts 8:22; 1 John 1:9). We can know that we know that we are saved as long as we obey the author of eternal salvation (1 John 2:3; Hebrews 5:9).
