Repent, Believe, Walk

Suppose a friend gives you a ticket to a concert you could never have afforded, one that costs more than you could earn in a lifetime. You did not work for it, and you could not have. It was simply given, and with it in your hand you walk through the gate and are inside.

Once you are in the hall, however, being there calls for a certain way of conducting yourself. No guest climbs onto the stage, smashes the lights, or starts a fire at the back. Nothing you do inside will turn the ticket into something you paid for, and yet the place you have entered has a way of life that goes with it.

That picture helps with something Scripture lays out plainly: the salvation the Bible speaks of has an order. When the steps are mixed up, almost every argument this book answers goes wrong. When they are kept in order, most of the confusion clears.

Step One: A Sinner

The first step is that a person is a sinner.

Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

There are no exceptions. And for that sinner the Messiah died first, before anything had been set right:

Romans 5:8 but God demonstrates His own agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay(love) toward us in that while we were still sinners, Messiah died for us.

God did not wait for us to improve. The Messiah died for us “while we were still sinners.”

Step Two: Repenting, Receiving, Justified

The second step is that a person repents, receives the Savior, and is declared righteous by faith. That was the first thing Yeshua proclaimed:

Mark 1:15 and saying: "The kairos καιρός kahee-ros'(appointed-time) is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn near — metanoeite μετανοεῖτε met-an-o-eh'-o(repent, spiritual domain) and believe in the good news."

Two verbs stand side by side: repent and believe. John adds the receiving:

John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the exousia ἐξουσία ex-oo-see'-ah(authority) to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,

And Paul tells what follows:

Romans 10:10; 5:1 For with the kardia καρδία kar-dee'-ah(heart, soul-domain) one believes resulting in dikaiosyne δικαιοσύνη dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay(righteousness), and with the mouth one confesses resulting in Salvation. … Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have eirene εἰρήνη i-ray'-nay(peace) with God through our Lord Yeshua Messiah,

Consider what this second step brings. Those who receive Him are given “the exousia(authority) to become children of God.” Those justified by faith “have eirene(peace) with God.” They gain a new family, and peace where there had been war, and none of it comes to them as wages.

This justification is received freely, apart from works:

Romans 3:28 For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from works of nomos νόμος nom'-os(law).

How, then, is a free gift received? By repenting and receiving. Scripture gives a picture of this in a dying man. One of the criminals crucified beside Yeshua feared God, admitted his own guilt, and called on Yeshua as Lord and King:

Luke 23:41-43 And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." And he was saying to Yeshua, "Lord, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!" And Yeshua said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise."

He had no time left to keep a single commandment. He repented and he received Him, and Yeshua told him, “today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” That is step two, and it is the free ticket.

Repentance Was the Torah’s Call First

Repentance and receiving did not begin in the New Testament. The Torah commanded both of them first.

Repentance is a command of the Torah:

Leviticus 26:40 And they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, in their treachery which they committed against Me, and also that they walked with Me contrary.

Deuteronomy 30:2 and you return to the LORD your God, and hearken to His voice, according to all that I am commanding you (tzivvah צָוָה tsaw-vaw') this day, you and your children, with all your heart, and with all your soul (nephesh נֶפֶשׁ neh'-fesh);

“You return to the LORD your God.” The Hebrew verb is shuv שׁוּב shoob, to turn back, and it runs all through the books of Moses, as in Deuteronomy 4:30. The prophets repeated it: “rend your heart and not your garments, and return to the LORD your God” (Joel 2:13), and “let him return to the LORD, and he will have compassion on him” (Isaiah 55:7). Hosea says it as well:

Hosea 14:2 Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God; for you have stumbled in your iniquity.

In most English Bibles this verse is numbered Hosea 14:1. As Book 1 showed, the Greek metanoia μετάνοια met-an'-oy-ah is the New Testament’s word for this same turning back. When Yeshua said “repent,” He was not inventing anything. He was calling Israel back with the Torah’s own word.

Receiving, too, is a command of the Torah. Moses said that a prophet would come, and he told Israel what to do:

Deuteronomy 18:15 A prophet from your midst, from your brothers, like me, the LORD your God will raise up for you; to him you shall hearken,

Deuteronomy 18:18-19 A prophet I will raise up for them from the midst of their brothers, like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command (tzivvah) him. And it shall be, the man (ish אִישׁ eesh) who does not hear to My words which he speaks in My name, I Myself will require it of him.

Peter, standing in Jerusalem, applied this very passage to Yeshua:

Acts 3:22-23 Moses said to the fathers: 'The Lord our God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers; you shall listen to Him in everything He says to you. And it shall be that every psyche ψυχή psoo-khay'(soul) that does not listen to that prophet will be utterly destroyed from the people.'

The Psalm says it in three words, “Kiss the son” (Psalm 2:12), and Yeshua Himself said it:

John 5:46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me.

To believe in Yeshua, then, is not to walk away from Moses. It is to do what Moses said. Through the repentance the Torah commands and the receiving the Torah commands, a person receives justification. From beginning to end, Scripture speaks one word.

Step Three: Walking It Out

The third step is that the person who has received salvation works it out with fear and trembling. Scripture calls this sanctification, hagiasmos ἁγιασμός hag-ee-as-mos', being made holy.

Philippians 2:12-13 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own Salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

The order inside the verse matters. Paul does not tell them to work for their salvation. He tells them to work out their own salvation, the one they already have. And the power behind the working is God’s: “it is God who is at work in you.”

1 Thessalonians 4:3 For this is the thelema θέλημα thel'-ay-mah(will) of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;

Romans 6:19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh); for just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to anomia ἀνομία an-om-ee'-ah(Torah-lessness) leading to anomia(Torah-lessness), so now present your members as slaves to dikaiosyne(righteousness) leading to sanctification.

Paul sets two kinds of slavery side by side, the old slavery to anomia(Torah-lessness) and the new slavery to dikaiosyne(righteousness) “leading to sanctification.” As Book 1 showed, anomia means living without God’s Torah. Hebrews 12:14 says plainly that without holiness “no one will see the Lord.”

What, then, does holiness look like? Peter answers by quoting Leviticus: “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). We will return to his words in Chapter 8.

Yeshua describes the way:

John 15:10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My agape(love); just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His agape(love).

This is where keeping the Torah belongs. It belongs neither in step one nor in step two, but in step three. No one keeps commandments in order to buy the ticket. The commandments are the way life inside is lived.

What Happens Inside

Does the person who breaks the rules inside lose his ticket? Scripture answers in terms of place rather than entry. Yeshua said that whoever breaks one of the least commandments and teaches others to do the same “will be called least in the kingdom of the heavens,” and that whoever keeps and teaches them “will be called great in the kingdom of the heavens” (Matthew 5:19). We will read that verse in full in Chapter 16. For now it is enough to see where both people end up: “in the kingdom of the heavens.” One is called least, and the other is called great. Paul says something similar about the testing of a believer’s work:

1 Corinthians 3:15 if anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved — yet so as through fire.

He is saved, yet as through fire. In the concert hall, the guest who causes trouble is not thrown out into the street, but neither does he end up near the front. He loses what he might have had. John urges believers to abide in Him so that we may “not shrink from Him in shame at His parousia παρουσία par-oo-see'-ah(coming-presence)” (1 John 2:28), and Yeshua says, “my reward is with me to repay each one as his work will be” (Revelation 22:12).

The Order at a Glance

Where the Arguments Go Wrong

Most claims that “the Torah is finished” follow the pattern this table makes plain. They take the true words of step two, grace, faith, and justification, and use them to erase step three. Because the ticket is free, they say, there must be nothing to do inside.

Step two is true, and step three is also true. The rest of this book returns each of those claims to the text, one at a time.

The first of them goes to the root of everything, the meaning of sin itself. Sin, it is said, is hamartia ἁμαρτία ham-ar-tee'-ah, “missing the mark.” That is true, but it leaves open which mark is meant.