It will be well to obtain, at the outset, a true conception of what is meant by confession. The use of the word in Scripture, together with illustrations, must be our guides.
The Meaning of Confession
A variety of ideas unite in this, such as candidness, definiteness, openness, truthfulness, and submissiveness. In the Old Testament, the prevailing thought in confession is that of praise and thanksgiving, but the root idea, Gesenius tells us, is to show, or point out with the hand extended, hence to profess or confess.
When we turn to the New Testament, we find again that the root idea is somewhat remote from the meaning we commonly attach to confession; yet, on reflection, we see the connection. The Greek word homologeo means “to say the same,” from which come the ideas to agree, to admit, to grant, to recognize, to acknowledge, and to confess. It will readily be seen that the root idea of the word in each Testament is the same, and that the simplest conception of it is expressed by our word “acknowledge.”
Confession, therefore, in its widest aspect may mean to give thanks (Heb. 13:15), to admit (Jn. 1:20), to recognize (Acts 23:8), to publicly acknowledge (Jn. 9:22), or to confess sins (1 Jn. 1:9). The thing to grasp is that confession contains the idea of “an objective fact or standard, which acts as a subjective test.” It is, however, the last of those meanings that we have in view particularly–confession in relation to sin.
The Habit of Confession
Prayer is something to be practiced; it must be cultivated, or else the flesh will triumph. If this discipline begins at worship, at the contemplation and adoration of God, it will inevitably turn to confession of sin, for we can know ourselves only as we know God, whose holiness is a blazing background showing up the blackness of our sin. This was the experience of Isaiah, who “saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple…and the seraphim cried one unto another and said, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts.”‘ Then said he, “Woe is me, for I am undone: because I am a man of unclean lips…for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.”
It was the experience of Israel, who, after the delivery of the Decalogue, stood afar off. They said to Moses: “Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” This has been the experience of saints throughout the ages who, the nearer they get to God, have the more keenly been conscious of their sin and unworthiness.
The Need of Confession
There never will come a time in this life when there will be no need to confess sin. Inadequate views of what sin is lie at the bottom of much of the false teaching which is abroad, and also accounts for the prevailing lack of spirituality on the part of God’s people.
About positive sins there can be no doubt, sins characterized by the Psalmist as “presumptuous”: evil words and deeds without, and evil imaginations and desires within. Many are the terms employed in Scripture to set forth the manifoldness of sin: wrong, mischief, guilt, travail, transgression, evil, rebellion, iniquity, wickedness, vanity, fault, disobedience, ignorance, discord, and many more. It is only as we come to know what God has said about these things that we can form any true idea of the real nature of sin.
But the Psalmist speaks also of “secret” sins, not sins committed in secret, but sins which we have not consciously committed, sins of ignorance, sins hidden from us (Lev. 5:3-4). That such there are beyond all reckoning is implied in a striking passage in John’s first epistle: “If we walk in the light as He is in the light…the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Walking with God in the light presupposes the absence of all positive sin, and yet there is the unceasing need of the blood for cleansing.
Revelation and experience answer to one another here, revelation declaring the fact, and experience witnessing to it. Any soul that is growing in spiritual stature can testify that things which to him were right a few years ago, he now sees to be wrong. But it is he who has changed, and not the things. With a quickened sense of God has come a quickened consciousness of sin; the keener of scent we become in the fear of the Lord, the more sensitive we are to the approach of sin.
We need to pray daily for a truer sense of sin, or, for a truer sense of what holiness is, for it is in the presence of divine holiness that sin stands most fully revealed. Conviction, therefore, must precede and accompany confession. It was not until the prodigal “came to himself,” that he said, “I have sinned,” and it was not until “David’s heart smote him after that he had numbered the people,” that he said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly in that I have done.”
But there are many, we believe, who are conscious of the abiding need of confession, who feel they do not get satisfaction in the act. This may be because attention has not been given to what God requires of us. So let us think for a moment of the act of confession.
The Act of Confession
After setting forth the sins of the children of Israel and indicating what judgments were impending, Hosea says, “Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto Him, ‘Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously’.” Oh, how difficult it is to give expression in words to the sorrow of our hearts for sin, they are on our lips as burning coals; and the sound of them fills us with shame. Yet so it must be; and it is well that it should be so, until we are shamed out of our sinning.
Definite sin must be definitely confessed: a general confession is not enough. In that piercing cry of David’s after his terrible fall, the sin of which he had been guilty was definitely confessed. He says to the Lord, “My transgression, mine iniquity, my sin, this evil, blood guiltiness.” Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Equally specific were Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel in their great confessions.So it must be with us, until, as they, we can say: “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face unto Thee, my God: for our iniquities have increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.”
Confession must not only be definite, but full. Nothing must be kept back or concealed. Aaron of old had to lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, “and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins.” Perfect cleansing comes only upon full confession.
The Words of Confession
God knows the state of our minds, and our confession is acceptable to Him if it is the utterance of a broken and a contrite heart. Conviction, sorrow, repentance, confession, and conversion are vitally related to one another. There may be conviction without sorrow, or conviction and sorrow without repentance. It is this fact which led the apostle to thank God that the Corinthians “sorrowed unto repentance,” a repentance which issued in confession and conversion. David said, “I will be sorry for my sin”; and Solomon carried on the thought when he said, “Whoso confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have mercy.”
The great Penitential Psalms, which have been the language of the people of God over the centuries, will continue to be the vehicle of our confessions to the end of time. “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a right spirit within me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation; and uphold me with Thy free Spirit…If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities,O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning.”
As in the case of worship, so here, the Scriptures should be the medium of our thought and utterance. The out-pouring of the confession and longings of such men as Job, Moses, Samuel, David, Hezekiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, and Paul is not the least precious part of the Church’s heritage in those great souls; to these must be added the exalted because heartbroken utterances of the great saints of all the ages.
Perhaps someone will object that the language of confession and of prayer generally must be one’s own, and not another’s, and that in the use of litanies one is prone to become mechanical, and to lose the real sense of the presence of God. No one, of course, can prescribe forms of prayer for another, or say what is best suited to the need of others, but if we believe that the prayers which have been preserved through the ages were directed by the Spirit of God in those who first uttered them, surely, insofar as they truly express our experience, and attitude of soul, they may be used to give expression to our desires.
The Fruits of Confession
These are spiritual and ethical and not the one without the other. The spiritual fruits are forgiveness and cleansing, the former being related to the righteousness of God, and the latter to His holiness. We are apt to confuse these two things, and regard them as one, yet they are sharply distinguished in Scripture. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Confession, forgiveness, and cleansing–these should always be distinguished, yet never separated.
Perhaps a simple illustration will help. A young child is prettily dressed in a new white dress, in readiness for a party, and is told by mother not to go out to play lest she should get dirty. But the little girl sees some of her friends making mud castles by the roadside, and that is too great an attraction, so out she goes and joins them. In the course of play her new, clean dress becomes all spattered with mud. She suddenly awakes to the fact, and her conscience smites her. With tearful face, she runs to her mother, confesses her disobedience, and asks her forgiveness, which is freely bestowed. But what about the dress? Does the mother’s forgiveness make that clean? No, you say, that must be washed. True, and the remembrance of the wrong of disobedience is not put completely away until the clothing is washed. So it is with us all. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Through Christ our forgiveness satisfies the righteousness of God; our cleansing satisfies His holiness.
The Ethical Fruits of Confession
These also twofold: restitution and compensation, on one hand; and jealousy of further lapse on the other hand. Nothing could be plainer than the teaching of Scripture on the first point. We read that he who has sinned and is guilty “shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or all that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found, or all that about which he hath sworn falsely: he shall even restore it in principle, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and unto him to whom it appertaineth in the day of his trespass offering” (Lev. 6: 4-5; see also ch. 5:16; Num. 5:6-7; Mt. 5:23-24). Restitution is not enough; there must be compensation. An awakened conscience will at once respond to this, as in the case of Zacchaeus who said, “If I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” The publican rose to a much higher standard than the Old Testament law required.
Where confession has been made, forgiveness and cleansing received, and restitution made, there will be great jealousy of further lapse, as in the case of the Corinthians: “For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you…” (2 Cor. 7:11). This is one of the great values of true confession: it makes us jealous for the honor and glory of God.