How Are Repentance and Faith Related? — A.W. Pink

“Repentance is the hand releasing those filthy objects it had previously clung to so tenaciously; faith is extending an empty hand to God to receive His gift of grace. Repentance is a godly sorrow for sin; faith is receiving a sinner’s Saviour. Repentance is a revulsion of the filth and pollution of sin; faith is a seeking of cleansing therefrom. Repentance is the sinner covering his mouth and crying, ‘Unclean, unclean!’; faith is the leper coming to Christ and saying, ‘Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.’

So far from repentance and faith being meritorious graces, they are self-emptying ones. The one who truly repents takes his place as a lost sinner before God, confessing himself to be a guilty wretch deserving naught but unsparing judgment at the hands of Divine justice. Faith looks away from corrupt and ruined self, and views the amazing provision which God has made for such a Hell-deserving creature. Faith lays hold of the Son of God’s love, as a drowning man clutches at a passing spar. Faith surrenders to the Lordship of Christ, rests upon the merits and efficacy of His sacrifice, his sins are removed from God’s sight ‘as far as the east is from the west’: he is now eternally saved from the wrath to come.”

- A.W. Pink (1886-1952)
taken from: A Fourfold Salvation

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