Some people to this day say that in the Gospel of John, John never mentions repentance, he only mentions believing. The language of repentance is there, but the word is not used. The other three Gospels are full of repentance but John hardly ever mentions it. There is quite a section of Bible-believing Christianity thinking that way, because their school of thought is that when you come to Christ, all you do is believe. You do also repent, they say, but only in the sense that you change your mind about Christ – where you were against him, now you are for him; where you thought he was irrelevant, now you think he is important. But you do not actually need to repent of your sin, and have any shame and regret, and to go on your knees before God, and lament your sin and cry out for forgiveness. Repentance from sin they consider to be a false imposition and addition to the conditions of salvation. That is why a lot of evangelism that you hear on the television and quite a lot of mass evangelism has no emphasis on repentance. But if you do not have an emphasis on repentance people will not really be converted.
We need to understand that John the apostle is ministering to the people who responded to John’s baptism, but who repented without really understanding, without really believing. That is why he emphasises believing. But in fact John does use the language of repentance (John 3:20; 5:14; 8:11). [The Book of Revelation also written by John has the word ‘repent’ twelve times.] It is fatal to believe without repenting: we must believe that Christ is the only hope, his suffering and dying on Calvary to bear away my punishment, but we must repent too. It is equally fatal to repent without believing. That is what those nominal converts did. They repented but they did not believe that Christ alone can wash away sin, that he had to personally, feelingfully suffer the punishment of my sin on my behalf.