Deathbed Repentance

I'm not sure I believe in deathbed repentance. Repentance means change, and change takes time. Those who repent when they have no time left might not have enough time left to repent.

Yet, there is some evidence for the potential immediacy of repentance. Alma 34:31 says that repentance can happen immediately:

Yea, I would that ye would come forth and harden not your hearts any longer; for behold, now is the time and the day of your salvation; and therefore, if ye will repent and harden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you.

"Immediately" sounds pretty quick. And Elder Holland confirms it. In a speech given to BYU students, he said the following:

You can change anything you want to change, and you can do it very fast. That’s another satanic suckerpunch—that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, “I’ll change”—and mean it.

So, I'm not sure. Generally, I would say that repentance needs to be backed up by at least some amount of time living a morally good life to be genuine, but according to some, it may be enough to take the first step down that path, even if you don't have enough time to complete it, at least not in this lifetime.

And as of right now, I think I understand why. When I started to write this blog post, it was still "today." The clock hadn't struck midnight yet. The blog post wasn't yet late. It certainly wasn't "too late" for me to start blogging. And even now that the blog post is officially late, I think the fact that I started when I still had time and genuinely tried to make it still counts for something. Perhaps the same applies to repentance.

Naturally, it's best to repent as soon as possible, if only to take advantages available in this life, but only to the righteous. But if, near the end of your life, you found that you haven't been as righteous as you think you ought to have been, know that it's never too late to repent.

Deathbed repentance may be possible for those who are sincerely repentant. It's certainly better than post-death repentance. The best time to repent is always "as soon as possible," no matter how early or late that is.