A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

lity and debauchery, "Are you in trouble? Jesus is the answer He can provide deliverance " The message presented Jesus as nothing more than yet another "product" to satisfy a personal consumer need.1* Roger Palms describes such a pragmatic appeal: For years, evangelism has too often been only a personal offer to "accept a plan, say "yes* to Christ/ Jesus is My Savior, with emphasis on "my/ Christ is "real" only if he is real to me, Christianity has no value except for what it gives to me . . . many books and magazine articles have catered to the me-centered belief. They are based on what Jesus can do for me." Dietrich Bonhoeffer described that as cheap grace: The "preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, bap- tism without church discipline, communion without confes- sion, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate,"11 Biblical conversion is more than a matter of finding the "right answer" or the "right formula/ It demands a total change of direction and a new moral orientation. Repentance is the entrance, and faith is the new direction. The same He- brew and Greek words may be translated as either repentance or conversion.15 In the Old Testament, conversion is a call to turn from wickedness and sin (Ez. 18:21,27; 33:9,11; Jen 26:3); from a life of disloyalty to God and his commandments, to a life of obedience Qer. 34:5; Isa. 10:20,21; 44:2; Hos. 14:4). John the Baptist began his ministry with a call to "repent and be baptized" (ML 3:2; Mk. 1:4; Lk 3:3). It was a call for people to radically change their minds and their lives, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Repentance is not just a call to 302 A CALL TO COMMITMENT change one's plans, intentions or beliefs, but rather a change of the whole personality, which the New Testament describes as the new birth 0ohn 3:5-8). Such a change arises out of the proclamation of God's redemptive grace to a sinner and the correlative work of the Holy Spirit who, in the words of Jesus, "will reprove (convict) the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment" (John 16:8). Such repentance accompanies saving faith in Christ (Acts 20:21). "It is inconsistent and unin- telligible to suppose that any one might exercise faith in Christ as the divine Savior from sin who is not aware and re- pentant of his own sin."14 Repentance and faith in Christ are in fact inseparable, though a convert may be aware of one as- pect more than another. The need for rep