Confession: The Doctor’s Prescription
EXPEL THE VICE
We all struggle with sin. The enemy of our souls, who pulls at our corrupt desires with his tempting voice, is like a roaring lion, prowling around, waiting to devour an unsuspecting victim (1 Peter 5:8). The Apostle Paul explains that our growth as Christians is a process of progressive transformation into Christ’s image, moving from one degree of glory to the next (2 Cor. 3:18). So, as we await our exaltation at the return of our Savior, we recognize that the battle with the fallen flesh continues even as we put on the renewed man, daily, moment by moment, seeking Christ who is above instead of the corruption that is below (Col. 3:1-11).
How should we deal with the sin in our lives? What do we do with the sins that so easily entangle us? How do we cooperate with the Spirit of God, who is sanctifying and moving us from the image of fallen mankind into the image of Jesus Christ? How do we bring the darkness to the light so that it will flee? Sin is present, but it does not need to be dominant (Rom. 6:14). Christ paid sin’s punishment on the cross through his one-time sacrifice (Heb. 10:1-18), so sin no longer has to reign over us (Rom. 6:12).
Jesus is the Great Physician of the Soul, the healer of our sin-sickness. Charles Spurgeon once said of Jesus Christ, “He is the only universal doctor; and the medicine He gives is the only true [remedy], healing in every instance. Whatever our spiritual malady may be, we should apply at once to this Divine Physician. There is no brokenness of heart that Jesus cannot bind up.” [1] The universal doctor, the Divine Physician, has given all of His friends walking in this earthly realm heading toward His eternal world a balm for the sin that continually fights for our attention.
That healing remedy? Confession.
St. Augustine called confession the “expeller of vice” and the discipline that “shuts the mouth of hell and opens the gate of paradise.” If we want to confront sin, be freed by the gospel’s power, and walk in the light—as John says—we must be men and women who confess. Confession is what the Didache, written around AD 70, refers to as “the way of life.”
TURN ON THE LIGHTS
“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).
If you backed up into the opening 4 verses of this epistle, you’d see that John just established that his authority comes straight from Jesus. John saw, touched, heard, knew, and walked with Jesus. So what John is sharing bears the authority of Jesus because John is relaying what he had learned in Jesus’s school.
What is the message given to him by Jesus? God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
What does John mean to tell us about God with the descriptive word “light”?
First, it’s important to remember that light and dark do not mix. I’ve always loved Edward Hopper’s painting entitled Nighthawks; it’s at the Chicago Art Institute. You might know it. In the painting you see a diner at night on a quiet city street with a giant window. Inside the diner, several guests have gathered around the counter in very bright light. Outside the diner, though, it is dark; and the contrast between light and dark in the painting is profound. Hopper’s goal in the painting was to capture man-made light piercing through an otherwise dark night. The painting displays the vivid reality that where there is light, there is no darkness. God, who is light, does not mix with darkness.
Second, in the present context, John is saying something of God’s moral preeminence and superiority. [2] God is totally good. God is without wrong. God is ethically pure and morally perfect. Not only is He totally righteous - without wrong; He is also the standard, measure, and establisher of right and wrong. In a world that constantly insists that moral good and moral evil are determined individualistically or culturally, we who follow Christ know the truth. God defines both good and evil. He determines what is right to do, and right to think, and right to say, and right to want.
John also says something about the way we live, referring to the way we act and think. He says we can either walk in light (the way of righteousness) or in the darkness (the way of wickedness and sin). We can either live according to God’s will or contrary to God’s will. One is the right way, and one is the wrong way.
To fill out our understanding of what it means that God is light, it is helpful to consider what else John says about light. John loves to talk about light. In 1 John he will mention light 6 times and in his gospel he uses the word light 23 times. We learn a lot about what John means broadly about light when we open to the first chapter of his gospel. John says, beginning in verse 4,
“In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”(John 1:4-5).
Light, for John, is not just an attribute of God. Light is a person; Jesus is that light that shoves back that which is not God. Like the light pushing back the darkness in Nighthawks, keeping the night outside the diner, Jesus conquers all that is against God. He is the light that pushes out darkness.
So, the foundational message John is communicating is the truth that God is light and to be with God, you must also be in the light because, in God, there is no darkness.
IF, IF, IF
Then John writes, now in verse 6,
“If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”
John wants the church to know how to have fellowship with God and, as we will see, with one another. Fellowship is the Greek word for “participation”, for “communion”, and for deep, connected, common, close relationship. God created every human being for this fellowship. From the very beginning, mankind has been crafted perfectly and intentionally to be in a relationship with God; to take part in the God-given kingly and priestly work of cultivating the world to magnify the glory of God (Gen. 2). King David says that knowing this fellowship is to know the fullness of joy (Psalm 16). Paul reminds us at the close of 2 Corinthians that we, through the gospel, have access to fellowship with the Triune God (2 Cor. 13:14). At the beginning of 1 Corinthians, we’re told that God has called us into fellowship with His beloved Son, Jesus. Jesus tells us to know Him is to have eternal life and to know the Father (John 14:7).
John says, “if we say” or “if we claim to have fellowship with God” but we “walk in darkness, we lie.” You cannot be in fellowship with God while you are defined by darkness, under the power of sin, and trapped in that which Jesus came to overthrow. If you are of the darkness, then you cannot be of God. Put another way, “The claim to have fellowship with God is a lie when it is combined with a wandering in darkness.”[3] Why? Because, in God, there is no darkness at all. He will not fellowship with those stained by sin.
Are you tracking with John? This is important. God is light. If sin (or darkness) defines us, then we cannot have God and thus we cannot have eternal life, joy, or peace. Sin prevents us from knowing what we were created to know.
Look, then, at verse 7.
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
We’ve seen one “if” already (v. 6). If we are in sin, we cannot be in God. Now, John gives us another “if.” Why the “if” statements?
Most likely, John was writing to combat a schism in the church community. [4] It is likely that some in the church body claimed that they could bank on the blood of Jesus and then continue to carry on in sin without remorse or without seeking to break free from sin’s grip knowing that Jesus’s blood “had their back.” John says, “No.” Apparently, that’s not how the gospel works. Instead, John wants the church to know this, “If we walk in the light, as he is the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Are you with me? If we act like God, if we are light as God is light, if we are reckoned sinless and live the way God lives, then we really belong to the Bride of Christ. The lights are on and we not only have fellowship with God, but we also have fellowship with God’s people. And, if we are in the light, if we are pure morally, then the substitutionary death of Jesus (His righteous death in our sinful place), the blood of the lamb, covers us, washes us, and cleanses us from sin. [5]
Live a morally pure life. The blood of Jesus saves you. You belong to God. This seems to be what John is saying, right?
But how can it be? How is this the gospel? How is this salvation by the merits of Christ alone? How is this salvation by faith and not by works?
STOP HIDING! START TELLING THE TRUTH!
Sorry to say, but the entire issue gets a bit more perplexing as we look to the next verse.
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)
If we are presently walking in the light, without sin, then the blood of the sacrificed Savior cleanses us from sin. But now John tells us “we all have sin.” Sin is a present reality. Sin, as John will say in 1 John 5, is “all wrongdoing.” John says, “We’re all guilty of wrongdoing.”
What gives? We need to be in the light. We need the darkness in our lives to be overcome. We need to step into the diner, out of the night, to keep the Nighthawk analogy going. The sin that so easily entangles us must be cast aside in order to be known by God, to know God, and to truly know one another.
Apparently, some were denying the reality of sin in their lives in the church that John addressed. They were pretending to have moved beyond failure (they were first century Pelagius-es) and into perfection.
Do we ever deny the sin in our lives? Do we ever justify our sin by giving reasons why we sinned, why it’s okay? Do we ever try to justify our sin by comparing it to other sins? Do we ever bank on the grace of God while continuing to practice sin so that grace may abound? Do we ever pretend that we can hide our secret sins from the God who knows all secrets?
Of course we do. We all practice sin-denial. We hide sin from our kids, from our wives, from our husbands, from our friends, from our church.
John wants us to cut it straight, to tell the truth! “We have sin in our lives,” said every person alive right now. This is the truth. Do not deny it.
What’s the solution? How do we directly address sin in our lives, step into the light, and receive the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus?
John wants to help us.
Looking at verses 9 and 10 now:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Verse 10 emphasizes the same point, more forcefully.
We are sinners.
Verse 9 says, “Instead of denying it, confess it.”
UNDERSTANDING THE MEDICINE
Dane Ortlund calls confession just being honest. [6] The word “confess” means to agree with. Instead of denying sin in our lives, we need to agree with the truth that it is there and say, “I am a sinner.”
What I want to show you now, friends, is that confession is the means by which we totally trust on the grace of God in Jesus Christ, the way we take steps in handling our sin, and the way we step out of darkness into the light so that the blood of Christ can cleanse us from all unrighteousness and shape our lives for His glory. I want to do this by unpacking the prescription for confession together. We will cover the concept of confession, who should confess and why, who our confessions should be directed to, and address fears that may prevent us from confessing.
WHAT IS IT?
First, what is confession? In his book The Doctrine of True Repentance, Puritan Thomas Watson called confession the third step in the practice of true repentance. Repentance is turning from sin into the loving embrace of God. Confession of sin is necessary for repentance and salvation. Watson says that repentance requires, first, “sight of sin,” that is, we must know that we are sinful. [7] Second, we must then feel genuine grief for our sin; we must be so moved by the holiness of God that our sinfulness overwhelms us with sorrow. Finally, we must confess our sin. We must admit that we are guilty of wrongdoing. So Watson says, “Sorrow is such a vehement passion that it will have vent. It vents itself at the eyes by weeping and at the tongue by confession.” [8]
Confession is saying, “God, You’re holy and light; God, I’m sinful and in the dark.” Watson continues and explains that true confession is not just lip service. It’s not coming to church on Sunday and joining the general confession by simply reciting the words of the liturgy. True confession is a voluntary, sincere, and a particular declaration of wrongdoing. Not just, “I have sinned,” but, “I have sinned in this way and I am sorry.” Now, we cannot keep a list of all our wrongdoings. The list would be too long. But true confession means a willingness to name actual sins. “God, I sinned by opening this website; God, I sinned by screaming at my children in anger; God, I sinned by lying to my wife when I said…”
Confession is saying, “God, You’re holy and light; God, I’m sinful and in the dark.”
This is what true confession looks like: voluntary, sincere, and, often, particul. Everyone must confess; it’s that simple. Thomas Becon, Archbishop Cranmer’s chaplain in the 1500s, said: “This kind of confession ought every Christian man daily and hourly to make unto God, so oft as he is brought unto the knowledge of his sin.” [9]
WHO NEEDS IT?
Now, who needs to confess and why? Simply put, everyone. God is light and all men and all women have fallen short of His glorious light. We, each one of us, have gone astray. We, each one of us, have inherited a sin nature that plagues our lives with broken desires and an impulse to worship idols instead of God. All must therefore confess, even as our Prayer Book puts it:
We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices, and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against thy holy laws, We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done, And there is no health in us, But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders…
OKAY. BUT WHY?
Why, though, are we called to accuse ourselves before God? Why must I say, “God, I am sinful”? John tells us here that confession is the way to move from darkness into the light. To move from lost in sin to redeemed by the blood. To move from guilty to forgiven. Meditating on 1 John, John Stott said plainly, “confession of sin is a necessary condition for receiving the forgiveness of God.” [10] So the exhortation in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer says that we “should acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness, and that we should not dissemble, nor cloke them…to the end that we may obtain forgiveness of the same.” Confession breeds forgiveness; confession takes the sinner’s hand and walks him or her gently to the Savior’s cross and says, “Look, here is your redemption.”
But we not only confess our sins to receive the gracious benefits of the cross, the healing power that can restore bones broken by the weight of sin - which David expressed in Psalm 51. We also confess our sins so that we might forsake our sins. True confession says, “God, this was wrong. Help me walk in what is right.” Confession helps us avoid becoming accustomed to, making light of, ignoring, or denying our sin. Confession helps our hearts refrain from becoming calloused by besetting sin. We confess to overcome.
Finally, as we answer the why question, confession opens the door to fellowship in the church. When we are honest about our sin, we need not hide in shame, mask ourselves, or conceal our identity. We are all sinful. That is the truth. Yet, to deny that truth is to deny yourself fellowship with your brothers in Christ. It is to live a life of loneliness - a lie. Honesty about the sin currently afflicting us frees us for fellowship with each other, as John stated.
Quick recap here: Confession is the acknowledgment of guilt. Confession is for all people. Confession opens us to God’s gracious gift of forgiveness, paves a path out of the traps of sin, and gives us fellowship with one another. Another question remains: To whom do we need to make confession?
WHO NEEDS TO HEAR OUR DIRT?
First and foremost, your confession must be to God and between you and Him. David sings, “Against you, you only, have I sinned,” more than likely referring to his sin against Bathsheba and Uriah. David understands that sin, even against an individual, is ultimately a sin against God, who is the Light. You must confess to God.
Yet, do not think that your confession is a work of your flesh so that you earn God’s forgiveness. Confession is a gift of the Spirit of God who supplies you with the sight to see your sin and the courage to confess your sin before God. This is why John Stott writes, “It is inconceivable that the Christian should ever think of sin without also thinking of his Savior. Humble confession of the one leads to thankful confession of the other. The confession of sin is not, therefore, an additional condition of salvation; it is itself an integral part of true, saving faith in Christ.” [11]
Confess to God, yes, but the Scriptures also teach us to confess our sins privately to the individuals whom we have offended with our wrongdoing. Jesus teaches us this in Matthew 5:23-24. [12] James 5 tells us to confess our sins against one another to one another. Paul says to do this before you take the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:27-29). This type of confession allows us to restore broken fellowship. It makes a way for forgiveness to be practiced in the church and gives the offender an opportunity to make things right. It is like Zacchaeus, who confessed his sin and then immediately determined how to bless those whom he had sinned against.
Finally, we are called in Scripture to make our confession publicly to the church. This type of confession is not so much the general confession that we say as we begin Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer or during Holy Communion; instead, it is a confession made publicly to the church when our sins are notorious or are damaging the church body. We also make this public confession when we have refused to repent in the past, as in Matthew 18, when a sinner is brought before the church. We see an example of this type of confession in Acts 19, when the Apostle Paul is in Ephesus. Beginning in verse 18, we read, “Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all” (Acts 19:18-19). The new believers’ sin caused a stir and hurt the reputation of the church; so they publicly confessed and took steps to make sure that the sin would not occur again.
So, we confess to God privately, to individuals we have harmed with wrongdoing privately, and when necessary and as a part of church discipline, publically to the church.
But what about confession to a priest? Is your forgiveness ever dependent on your going to a priest to make a confession to him, as the Catholic Church teaches that “all must, at least once a year”? The Roman church commands such necessity because they teach that the priest does not “merely initiate forgiveness of sins, but also effects it.” [13]
Alongside the Reformers and the Scriptures, we reject this idea. Your forgiveness never depends on the work of a priest, but instead, it depends solely on the work of the One Priest, Jesus Christ.
J. C. Ryle, writing in the 1800s, reminds us: Jesus Christ is our High Priest—the one, and only, mediator between God and humanity. Our High Priest has all the power to forgive, willingness to receive confession, perfect knowledge of all wrongdoing we have committed, but who is tender toward those who confess their sin.
So Ryle commends this to us:
When His ear is deaf, and His heart is cold - when His hand is feeble, and His power to heal is exhausted - when the treasure-house of His sympathy is empty, and His love and goodwill have become cold - then and not till then, it will be time to turn to earthly priests and earthly confessionals. Thank God, that time has not yet come. [14]
While we are not required to confess privately to a priest in order to receive the benefits of the Great High Priest, confession to a priest proves beneficial when you are struggling with a constant, besetting sin and looking for pastoral wisdom to overcome the difficulty. Confession with a priest is also helpful when you and a brother or sister in Christ are needing someone to help resolve a wrong done. The priest is not granting forgiveness; he is assuring forgiveness in Christ. The priest does not absolve you of your sins; he proclaims the absolution that Jesus won for you on the cross. So turn to your priest for guidance, help and assurance in the gospel, but turn to Christ for forgiveness. [15]
OVERCOMING CONFESSION ANXIETY
Confession is for all men and women. It is the acknowledgment of guilt that opens us to God’s gracious gift of forgiveness, paves a path out of the traps of sin, and gives us fellowship with one another. Confession needs to be made to God privately, to individuals offended, and, when necessary, to the church body.
John tells us that confession is the way to walk in the light even when sin remains a present struggle in our lives. He tells us that, through confession, we find God is faithful to His promise to forgive sin.
Why, then, do we live lives of weak or infrequent confession? Why fear the discipline of confession when it leads us out of darkness and into the light?
Many of us are living out our lives in Christ like we’re trying to take steps in mud six feet deep. It’s a struggle to move more and more into the light. Perhaps the struggle is because we are afraid to confess our sins.
So, why are we afraid to be honest and particular?
Often, we fear what others might think of us. We fear shocking our friends by revealing our past actions or present struggles.
If this applies to you, it’s important to note that genuine fellowship with your brothers and sisters in Christ hinges on being truthful about your sins. I would also remind you that confessing your sin is itself a proclamation of the gospel. When you wrong your child in anger, confess to him so that he knows you are sinful, but God is mighty to save you. When you lie to your wife or hurt her feelings with harsh words, go to your wife and confess your sin; it shows your wife that you are a sinner dependent on God who is mighty to save you. When you are guilty of sin that hurts the reputation of the church, cling to Jesus, confess your sin and make it known to everyone listening that only God can save you.
We also fear confession and honesty with God because sometimes we are afraid that our sins are too great for the cleansing power of the cross - too far beyond the faithfulness of God.
If this is a fear, I would encourage you to view your great sin in light of the sufficiency of Christ. In his book, Christ Set Forth, the Puritan Thomas Goodwin, encourages you the same way. He asks, “Are there many sins charged to your account?” Then, remind yourself of the greatness of the charges laid on Christ to redeem you - he was called a blasphemer, a fake king, a devil, and an imposter to win your salvation. Goodwin then asks, “Is your heart more sinful than what your actions bear evidence of? Are you more sinful inside than people actually know?” Then “look thou unto the heart of Jesus Christ dying, and behold him struggling with his Father’s wrath, thou wilt find the sufferings of his soul more than those of his body” such that your inward soul can be redeemed. [16] Goodwin asks again, “Are you stuck in a rut of intentional sin?” Then “consider that Christ offered himself more willingly than ever though dist sin.” Do you sin deliberately? Goodwin encourages you to remember how deliberately Jesus gave up His life for you. Are you the greatest sinner? Then know Christ’s righteousness is greater still; He is co-equal with the Father; He is great enough to pay for your sins. [17]
My friends, there is no sin that Christ cannot cleanse. There is no confession too shocking, no sin too incurable, no wrongdoing that the blood of Christ cannot wash away. God is faithful to apply the blood when you, by the Spirit, open your mouth and say, “I am a guilty sinner in need of forgiveness.” This is how we walk in the light and know fellowship with God and with one another: We unite ourselves to Jesus by faith. We then become defined by His cross and become children of the light. We confess our sins as we walk with Jesus, what John calls “walking in the light.”
FAITH IN THE SAVIOR WHO NEED NOT CONFESS
Let this be a balm to you who fear confession but desire spiritual growth: Jesus need not confess sin, for He never walked in the darkness; however, He took on our darkness, allowing His light to be consumed by the night, and shed His blood to forgive you and raise you from death to life.
[2] Jobes writes, ““The primary implication of John’s introductory statement about God is that, if God is light, then God himself by virtue of his being and character defines the moral standard of human life” (65). Karen H. Jobes, 1, 2, & 3 John: Exegetical Commentary on the New (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014).
[3] Rudolf Karl Bultmann, The Johannine Epistles a Commentary on the Johannine Epistles, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1973), 18.
[4] So Kysar writes, “There is universal agreement that this writing was produced to address a situation brought on by a schism within a Christian community” (905). Robert Kysar, “John, Epistles of,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 905.
[5] Henderson explains what is called “substitutionary atonement” in this way: “A theological term for the belief that Christ’s death is in our place—derived from the interpretation of New Testament teaching on Christ’s death and human sin, and applied in a variety of atonement theories. Important for views of atonement in which Christ’s death is a substitution that atones for human sin. When the substitutionary death of Christ diverts a punishment thought to be otherwise deserved by human sinners, it is more specifically referred to as “penal substitution,” locating the concept “within the world of moral law, guilty conscience, and retributive justice” (Packer, “What Did the Cross Achieve?”). J. Jordan Henderson, “Substitution,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016) Logos.
[6] “You are restricting your growth if you do not move through life doing the painful, humiliating, liberating work of cheerfully bringing your failures out from the darkness of secrecy into the light of acknowledgement before a Christian brother or sister. In the darkness, your sins fester and grow in strength. In the light, they wither and die. Walking in the light, in other words, is honesty with God and others” (114). Dane C. Ortlund, Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners (Wheaton: Crossway, 2021).
[7] Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance (Edinburgh, England: Banner of Truth, 2022) 15.
[8] Ibid., 26.
[9] Quoted in John Stott, Confess Your Sins: The Way of Reconciliation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017) 16.
[10] Ibid., 4.
[11] Ibid., 15.
[12] Jesus says, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny” (Matthew 5:23-26). What we see here is the emphasis Jesus places on seeking reconciliation with someone that we have offended. We cannot approach God with a pure heart without seeking to fix relationships that we have broken by our sinfulness. “It is important that the worshiper get his priorities right, and the first thing to do is to effect reconciliation. He must take whatever steps are needed to restore harmony, and only when this is done may he come back and resume his offering.” Leon Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1992), 116.
[13] Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (St. Louis: Mercier, 1957) 419.
[14] Quoted in Stott, Confession, 64.
[15] For a helpful explanation of absolution in the Reformational Anglican tradition see Benjamin Fischer, “What Is Absolution,” (Logos). https://www.logos.com/grow/min-what-is-absolution/.
[16] Thomas Goodwin, Christ Set Forth (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2021) 48.
[17] See Goodwin, Christ Set Forth.
