Repentance and Faith

The Campbellite reverses the order in which these two come. He puts faith before repentance. And with his views of faith as an intellectual assent, and of repentance as a mere outward reformation, this is natural. But to the Baptist, to whom repentance and faith strike far deeper, to whom they are inward and spiritual, not outward and mechanical, to whom they are intense exercises of the soul, not mere acts-to the Baptist it is an utter absurdity and an absolute impossibility that faith should come before repentance. I am talking, of course, about saving faith and saving repentance; repentance and faith in the plan of salvation. Without repentance, until the person has experienced a sorrow for his sins which has led to a change of mind, he will not want a Savior, he will feel no need of him. No one will send for a physician until he is sick, and realizes his sickness. But a stronger reason than this why repentance precedes faith is found in the fact that whenever in the New Testament the two are mentioned together the order is invariably repentance first, and faith second. This surely was no accident.

Edgar E. Folk, 1900

[Folk: “The word Campbellite is not intended to be used in this article in any offensive sense, but to designate the followers of Alexander Campbell, sometimes called Christians, or Disciples, or Reformers, or by various other names. The name Campbellite, however, is the only name by which they are universally recognized, and the only one without ambiguity.”]