This is a warning to all “teachers” who have fallen away from the truth; to repent away from falsehood and teach the gospel correctly.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse! — Galatians 1:8-9 NIV

There are some out there who do not preach the full council of God because they misinterpret scripture. Woe to them. They may be attacking Christ himself.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” — Jesus in Mark 1:14-15 ESV preaching and proclaiming that repentance is part of the gospel.

Jesus taught that repentance is a turning from sin to God (Acts 3:26,19), the Apostle Paul revealed that repentance is produced from godly sorrow (2Cor 7:10), and Jude reveals that we should hate sin but remain merciful to the sinner (Jude 23).

When God raised up his servant, Jesus, he sent him first to you people of Israel, to bless you by turning each of you back from your sinful ways. — Acts 3:26 NLT

26: First to you, Jews will be followed by Gentiles in God’s plan for salvation. Wicked ways, from which Jews must repent (v. 19) — The Jewish Annotated New Testament (TJANT)

Justification is by faith alone (Rom 3:28), but a faith that does not grow the fruit of obedience by the power and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, is not true faith; it is a dead faith, and James rejects salvation by a dead and superficial faith (James 2:14-26). Genuine faith always “results” in the fruits of the faith (Ga 5:22-23 NLT; Jn 15:4-5; 1Cor 3:6-7), denying this, denies His transformative power.



The term metanoéō (μετανοέω) means “feel remorse, repent, be converted in a (religio-)ethical sense,” while metánoia (μετάνοια) means “repentance, turning about, conversion” (Bauer et al. 567–568). These definitions are drawn from the world’s most authoritative Greek lexicon available.