Dr. Couch, Zane Hodges and some others seem to have a strange view of repentance. On Acts 2:38 they say the audience was saved (cut to the heart) before they asked what to do. Then Hodges would say, Peter exhorted them to "repent" for the forgiveness of sins after they were already saved! What do you say?
ANSWER First of all, there is no question as to what the basic meaning of repentance is. The Greek word is "metanoeo" and is a compound. "Meta" means with, and "noeo" is mind. Balz & Schneider, editors of the best and the newest Greek Lexicon put the definition of the word this way: "to turn around, change one's mind, repent." The great Greek grammarians Dana & Mantey point out that the preposition meta has the force (with the word mind "to express the idea of change, or difference."
Balz & Schneider have a lengthy article on metanoeo and write: "Repentance is negatively a turning away from former ignorance on the basis of the confirming act of God toward Jesus; positively it is a turning toward God, which manifests itself concretely in belief in the Lord Jesus (Acts 20:21; 26:18, 20, cf. 19:4)."
The Classical Greek Lexicon, of Liddell & Scott, show that the word has always had in the Greek language the idea of "an about face." They define the word: "To change one's mind or purpose, to change one's opinion."
One cannot fully understand the issue of repentance and baptism in Acts 2:38 without thoroughly knowing biblical Greek. As with so many doctrines of Scripture, only the original languages give light as to what is going on in a passage. This is why most untrained pastors give error from the pulpit. They have not paid the price of the discipline to study the Word of God properly, i.e. from the original languages.
Acts 2:38 should be translated like this:
And Peter said to them,
All of you (plural) repent now, ...
For the forgiveness of (all) of your sins,
And (all) of you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,
And then let each one of you (individually) be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
All of you (plural) repent now, ...
For the forgiveness of (all) of your sins,
And (all) of you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,
And then let each one of you (individually) be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
The plural pronouns must be grammatically bunched together and separated from the singular imperative "to be baptized." Those who repented (turned from their sins to Christ) received forgiveness and then they received the Holy Spirit. Following the repentance and the fact of being saved, they were then to be baptized in water in the name of Christ!
On Acts 2:38 in my New Testament commentary series, author Ger rightly states in the Acts volume:
Biblical repentance calls for a vivid change, a complete reorientation of one's perspective. ... Baptism is the closely related physical sign of the spiritual reality of repentance, which results in forgiveness. … Repentance is linked with the forgiveness of sin based upon grammatical agreement in both gender and number (both are second person plural). The "eis" indicates that forgiveness of sin is the result of repentance. This makes the command to be baptized (third person singular) a parenthetical idea. … The verse could then be paraphrased as follows: "Repent for the forgiveness of your sins, and be baptized." … Peter only associates repentance or belief with the forgiveness of sin, making no mention of baptism as a condition of forgiveness (3:19; 5:31; 10:43). (Commentary on Acts, Mal Couch & Ed Hindson, gen. eds. AMG)
I hope this helps. Thanks for asking.
Dr. Mal Couch
