Last post, I promised I would talk about "confessing your sins." The question is, "Do we need to confess our sins in order to be forgiven?" Confession of sins is not just the priority of one branch of Christianity. I am pretty sure that every major denomination, just about every church I have belonged to, and most ministers I have listened to have emphasized the need to confess your sins. Some believe that unconfessed sins will disqualify you from heaven. Others believe that unconfessed sin will hinder your fellowship with God here on earth. When I was a teenager, I was taught "spiritual breathing." Breathe out confession of sins. Breathe in forgiveness. Simple as that. I John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." So there it is. The Bible says it. All of Christendom is for it. End of story. Or, maybe not.
I can tell you that I always felt uneasy about the "spiritual breathing" practice. After naming all the sins I could think of, I asked God to forgive me, but I never felt "cleansed." I usually felt like I had left something out. And of course, I had. If I really got to thinking about it, I could come up with a discouraging amount of wrong thoughts and actions, things I should have done, even things I had forgotten about from years ago. I couldn't always remember if I had already confessed some of the things. What was really discouraging was when I would confess some wrong thought or action, with great sorrow of heart, and then almost immediately go out and do the same thing again. Recently, I found out that Martin Luther had a similar problem. When he went to confession, he was so thorough, that his priest told him to get out and not come back until he had committed some proper sins. I will try to break down I John 1:9 for you in a little bit, but first I want to talk about what I think is wrong with confessing your sins in order to be forgiven.
"The law is only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the realities themselves. It can never, by the same sacrifices offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would not the offerings have ceased? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all and would no longer feel the guilt of their sins. Instead, those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins." (Hebrews 10:1-3)
This passage may seem complicated to you, and the writer is talking about the sacrificing of animals. You might say, "The law does not apply to me. I am not sacrificing animals for my forgiveness." But I want you to pay attention to a couple phrases. It says that the sacrifices, "can never make perfect those who draw near to worship." That is because they are only shadows and not the reality. What is the reality? The cross of Jesus Christ. So the passage is saying that, unlike the animal sacrifices, the cross of Jesus makes us perfect (when we believe). But how can we be perfect if we still sin? Read on. If the animal sacrifices could have made us perfect, the offerings (sacrifices) would have ceased. But the Bible very clearly states that Christ died once. "But, He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God" (v.12). It means that, in Christ, we are perfect, cleansed once for all. Once again, how is that possible? It is because, when Christ Jesus was hanging on the cross, God took every sin ever committed, and every sin that ever would be committed, and put them all on Jesus. And now, based solely on your belief in Jesus, God has forever taken the righteousness of Christ and put it on you. Did you have a wrong thought just a minute ago? God says, "I've already punished Jesus for it." Do you struggle with an addiction that has you ashamed? "Already punished Jesus." So God says I am perfect! But, you might say, "I don't feel perfect. I feel guilty." Look once more at the passage. It says that if the animal sacrifices had worked, the worshipers "would no longer feel the guilt of their sins." But, the effect of Christ's sacrifice is that we would no longer feel the guilt of our sins. So God does not want us to feel guilty. Guilty people keep on sinning. I know that must sound crazy to some people, but that is exactly what the Bible says! You may think I am the one that is crazy, right now, but I want you to stay with me until I am finished, and then I think you will see it. Once again, if that is the case, why do Christians still feel guilty? It is because the enemy has convinced us that conviction of sins comes from the Holy Spirit. But that is not true. The Holy Spirit convicts unbelievers of the sin of unbelief. He convicts believers of their righteousness. And we help the enemy's case every time we beg forgiveness for sins that He has already placed on Christ. Look at the last phrase of the passage. It says, "Those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins." Did you know that every new sin, according to Old Testament law, required another sacrifice? Even so, there was still a yearly sacrifice for all the people, made by the High Priest. When you ask God to forgive you for sins that Christ has already died for, it is like you are putting Him on the cross all over again, and saying that His one sacrifice wasn't enough.
I know that it doesn't sound right to the human ear. It sounds like I am saying you can sin and not feel guilty about it, or else I am denying sin. No. What I am saying is that you should not be occupied with yourself at all, either to grovel in a guilty conscience, or to strut in arrogant denial. God's solution is to lift up Jesus, so that you can fix your eyes on Him. Do not see God as constantly demanding sacrifice from you. See Him as the God who has already provided the sacrifice for you, and is constantly supplying you with wave after wave of grace. It says, "Sin shall not have power over you, for you are not under law but under grace" (Romans 6:14). Hallelujah! When you truly accept His gift of righteousness, sin loses its grip. Does sin still have power over you? It is because you are still trying to punish yourself. Does this really work? How many people do you know who have been totally freed from addictions? I didn't used to know of anyone. Now, I can point you to dozens and dozens of testimonies of people who have been set free from all kinds of bad habits, substance abuse, pornography addictions, depression, mental illness, and every other kind of bondage to destructive thoughts and behavior, not by confessing their sins over and over again, but by confessing their righteousness. One man was told to confess that he was "the righteousness of God in Christ" every time he lit up a cigarette. Within a couple weeks, he realized he didn't need cigarettes any more and never smoked again. Another did the same thing every time he put a needle in his arm; another, every time he looked at pornography. Same result! This is what the gospel is supposed to do. It is supposed to set people free. This is the gospel that Paul preached. If it sounds foreign to you, it could be that you've been weighed down with a mountain of guilt that someone has called Christianity. Where does the statement, "I am the righteousness of God in Christ," come from? It comes from 2 Corinthians 5:21.
"He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
Theologians will tell you that Christ became our substitute. But it was more than a substitution. It was an exchange. Did God put sin on Jesus, because He was sinful? No. Did God put righteousness on us because we were sinless? No. If we could lose our righteousness by sinning, that must mean that we achieved it by not sinning. So, confessing that you are the righteousness of God in Christ is not a statement of pride or denial of sin. It is a proclamation of faith. We received His grace by faith. The Bible says we have received "grace upon grace." Keep on receiving!
Now, on to I John 1:9. In chapter one of the first letter of John, the apostle is preaching to a group of people who were claiming to have no sin. The person who claims to be without sin always ends up blaming someone else for their guilt. Have you ever been in that situation? You know you are in the wrong, so your arguments and denials just get louder. You do it because you sense the weight of judgment (or condemnation). No matter how much you try to convince yourself, the guilt is still there. "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves" (v.8). Without going deep into confusing verb tenses, verse nine is stated as a hypothetical to a non-believer. It does not imply the need for continuous confession. In fact, the forgiveness and cleansing is presented as being in the past. So, our confession is not in order to be forgiven, it is because we are forgiven. And that makes sense. If I know I am not condemned, I can freely admit that I am a sinner, without guilt. If I deny my sin, it is because I feel condemned. Later, in chapter 2, verse 12, the apostle tells us that our sins "have been forgiven," in the perfect tense. This means that the forgiveness doesn't have to be repeated.
Maybe it would be helpful to explain the word confession. Our understanding of confession is filtered through our religious experience (and maybe some crime dramas). We think of confession as admitting that we did something wrong. We see it in a negative light. But the word confession just means to agree with or say the same thing. It is a proclamation of faith. In this case, if we confess, we are agreeing with God. And what does God say about our sins? He says that He put them all on Jesus, and He doesn't remember them anymore. God doesn't want you to be sin-conscious. He wants you to be righteousness conscious. He wants you to be Jesus-conscious.