I don’t believe there’s a Christian anywhere in the world who doesn’t struggle with sin from time to time. Yes, we’ve all sinned, Romans 3:23 / 1 John 1:8 / 1 John 1:10, but I don’t think that Christians deliberately go out of their way to sin; I would like to think that, Hebrews 10:26.
But what are we to do when we do sin, either knowingly or unknowingly? We know the Bible teaches us that the ‘first law of forgiveness’, that is to have all our past sins forgiven, we must be baptised, Acts 2:38, but what are we to do in order to have our sins forgiven after our baptism? John tells us in his letter that we must obey the ‘second law of forgiveness’ in order to have our current sins and any future sins forgiven.
John makes it very clear, ‘if we confess our sins’ to Jesus, then the blood of Christ will wash us clean, and Jesus Himself will speak to the Father on our behalf. So, confessing our sins to Christ is the ‘second law of forgiveness’. The sins we commit, whether intentionally or unintentionally, can only be forgiven ‘if’ we confess those sins to Christ.
Notice how many times John uses the word ‘if’ in 1 John 1; he uses it five times. The word ‘if’ implies a choice, but also lays down the terms and conditions for us to have fellowship with God, and the terms and conditions for the sinner to receive forgiveness.
Most people are aware of the tradition that the Catholic church practices in terms of confessing their sins to their priest. They tell us that they don’t confess their sins to a priest, but instead to God, but to God through a priest, appointed by our Lord as an official stand-in for Christ; this is called ‘alter Christus’.
However, all this does is elevate the position of the priest above others, the Scriptures teach that Jesus is our High Priest, Hebrews 5:7-10, and the Scriptures teach us that all Christians are priests, 1 Peter 2:9 / Revelation 5:10. The Scriptures also teach that we must confess our sins directly to God, through our High Priest, our advocate, Jesus. 1 John 1:9 / 1 John 2:1-2.
When we sin, the first stop should be to get down on our knees and confess our sins to Christ in order that we may be forgiven. If we believe that God will forgive us of our sins after confessing them to Him, do we still need to confess publicly?
There are some congregations where the ‘confessing call’ is announced, and anyone who feels guilty enough is encouraged to go to the front and publicly confess their sins.
I’ve personally seen this happen once, when a young Christian man walked forward, stood behind the pulpit, and publicly repented of committing adultery. At first, I thought this was very brave of him, and it was, but later, as the years went by, I began to wonder why he needed to do that in the first place!
When I think back on that young Christian, it must have been so difficult for him to admit he committed adultery against his wife; it must have been hard for him to tell his Christian in-laws about what he did, and it must have been even harder for him to ask God to forgive him. I can imagine all his friends and his children feeling embarrassed and ashamed of what he did.
I mean, wasn’t all the guilt and shame that he would have to carry around with him the rest of his life, enough for him to deal with! Did he really need to be publicly humiliated whilst he stood in front of the whole church and visitors who came in from the community?
I understand that, after confessing his sins to God, he would go on to confess his sin to the elders or the leadership of the church, Matthew 18:17, but surely the church doesn’t need to ‘hang out its dirty washing’ for the whole world to see. Surely a simple announcement that brother so and so has committed a sin, but thank God he’s repented of it! Luke 15:3-10.
Before answering this question, you may be aware of some religious groups who are very big on confessing their sins to each other, they meet up regularly with each other, usually one to one but sometimes more, and confess their weekly sins to each other and then one of them will report back to a ‘spiritual leader’ and inform them about what the other person has been up too.
There are other religious groups who like to get together in little groups, sit in a circle and organise themselves like some kind of A.A. or N.A. meeting. ‘Hi, my name is Mike, and I’m a recovering sinaholic.’ Please don’t misunderstand me here, I personally believe that A.A. and N.A. meetings are very useful, and they help thousands of people who are struggling with their addictions.
The religious groups I’m speaking about here aren’t some kind of ‘self-help’ group; they are set up intentionally to expose people’s sins so that the ‘leadership’ can remind them that people’s sins won’t be tolerated in the church.
These meetings are more about controlling and keeping people in line with their doctrine than they are about helping each other. All this kind of meeting does is promote a legalistic self-righteousness among the Christians, Philippians 2:3-9.
This is the text that most of the groups mentioned above use to justify their reason for publicly confessing their sins or to confess them in a group setting. Is that what James had in mind here, when he wrote these words?
Can you think of any occasions where a Christian would confess their sin to another Christian? I can think of at least three occasions in the Scriptures where this would apply.
In Matthew 18, Jesus speaks of the one who causes the sin, and so, the one who is sinned against must take the first step and go to the offending brother or sister. In Matthew 5, Jesus speaks about the innocent person who remembers that someone had a complaint against him. In both cases, we see Jesus encouraging both the offended and the offender to get together to sort their issues out.
Jesus uses the word ‘therefore’ because of the seriousness of the attitude sins He’s just spoken about. In Jesus’ mind, unity amongst believers is more important than worship because if unity doesn’t prevail, our worship is a waste of time, and God won’t accept our worship.
Reconciliation with our brother or sister who has something against us needs to be dealt with first, simply because anyone with hatred in their hearts can’t receive mercy from the One who gives it. Jesus says, ‘Go and be reconciled,’ then you can come to worship.
Christians need to settle matters quickly because the evil in our hearts will just grow into bitterness. It’s never easy settling disputes between Christians; usually, pride and self-righteousness get in the way, but here Jesus reminds us of the consequences of harbouring sinful attitudes towards each other.
There is much wisdom in Christ’s words here because when we do ‘go and settle matters quickly’, we soon discover that it becomes very therapeutic in terms of feeling at peace with one another again as the reconciliation begins, Ephesians 4:3. The unity of the church is paramount to Jesus and should be for Christians too.
The two occasions mentioned above seem to me to be the two times in which ‘confessing our sins to each other’ would apply in our Christian lives. It’s important not only to confess our sins to God, but when someone remembers they’ve sinned against another or if someone knows they’ve been sinned against, they need to go and confess those sins to the other person involved or point out their sins in an effort for them to confess their sins to them.
Another occasion where confessing sins to one another would be helpful is when we have such a good relationship with a brother or sister in Christ that we trust them enough to talk to them about our struggles with sin. I believe every member of any church should have at least one person they trust enough to openly talk about their sins to, whether that is an elder of the church or someone they are very close to.
Paul tells us that this person should ‘live by the Spirit’, which means they are to be spiritually mature, or they could end up being tempted themselves, and they are to be spiritually ‘gentle’, in the handling of the situation.
Notice that Paul also says it’s all about restoring the sinner, openly discussing and confessing sin, isn’t about beating someone up with a Bible, it’s about restoring them back to God and their church family. If I were to knock down a valuable vase in my house, I would take that vase, have it restored and put it back in the original place. Yes, you may be able to spot a crack or two, but it’s been restored.
There have been too many times when I’ve seen someone who has been caught in a sin, confessed that sin and repented of that sin, but they haven’t been restored gently, or they haven’t been completely restored.
What I mean by that is that there are times when a preacher or teacher has sinned, or a Sunday School teacher has sinned, but despite praying to God for forgiveness and despite confessing their sin to someone, they are never allowed to preach or teach, or teach the kids ever again. This isn’t fully restoring them.
This isn’t putting the vase back in its original place; the one or two cracks that sinners have to deal with throughout their lives are enough for them to pray about in order to bring some kind of healing to their souls!
Yes, church discipline may be required, Matthew 18:16-17 / 1 Corinthians 5, but spiritual restoration should be the goal, Matthew 18:15 / Galatians 6:1 / James 5:19-20 / Luke 9:51-56 / 2 Corinthians 2:7 / 2 Corinthians 2:7 / 2 Corinthians 2:8-11.
James says that confession leads to prayer, which then leads to healing. When we think about the first two examples of confessing sins, given above, we see that when Christians settle their issues quickly and confess their sins to each other, the result should be unity, Matthew 5:23-24 / Matthew 6:12-15.
The two parties involved come together, settle their issues and then they can pray together. This can only be done if they confess their sins to each other, because if they don’t, they’re hardly going to get together to pray together. Through praying together, they can strengthen and encourage each other.
Notice what James also tells us about where confessing our sins to each other will lead; he says that after praying, it leads to ‘healing’. He’s not speaking about physical healing but spiritual healing. There’s something which is spiritually therapeutic about admitting our faults to each other and forgiving the faults of others.
All those grudges, all those misjudged situations, all that anger you had against another, or the anger they had against you. All that goes and there’s peace, not only between you and God, Matthew 5:23-24, but between you and your brother and sister in Christ, whom you sinned against or they sinned against you, Romans 12:17-18. Forgiving and being forgiven bring great peace to the soul, Matthew 6:12 / Ephesians 4:32 / Colossians 3:13.
Should we confess our sins to each other? Yes, there is a proper place and proper context for doing so. Sadly for many Christians, confessing their sins to God seems to be easier than confessing their sins to each other, maybe there’s a sense of pride involved, maybe there’s a sense of letting people down involved, maybe it’s a trust issue or a fear of being judged, but maybe it’s simply a denial that we all struggle with sin, and we don’t want to openly talk about it.
If we learn anything from A.A. and N.A. meetings, we learn that people are honest with themselves about their addictions. Yes, there are people who just go through the motions, but there are many others who find ‘peace’ in knowing they are not alone with their struggles, and they get all the help and support they need.
I’m not suggesting we get together to form groups to confess our sins, but maybe it’s not a bad idea to be more honest with ourselves and speak about our sins more openly than we do sometimes. Maybe then, people will have more confidence to approach others with their sin struggles.
Ask yourself this simple question: how would you want someone to react to you if you openly confessed your sins to them? The way you answer that question is the way you will react to anyone who confesses their sin to you! Maybe the words of David will remind us of how we all struggle with sin and how we should react to each other.