Confession # 1

Confession # 1

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).

There are occasions when circumstances give a peculiar importance to particular doctrines in religion. The assaults of enemies sometimes make it needful to exhibit some special truth with special distinctness. The plausible assertion of some error sometimes requires to be met by more than ordinary carefulness in showing "the thing as it is" in the Word. A doctrine may perhaps be in the rear-rank today, and tomorrow may be thrust forward by the force of events into the very front of the battle. This is the case at the present time with the subject of "Confession." Many years have passed away since men thought and talked so much as they do now about "the confession of sins."

I desire in this paper to lay down a few plain scriptural principles about "confession of sin." The subject is one of primary importance. Let us beware, in the din of controversy and discussion, that we do not lose sight of the mind of Holy Scripture, and injure our own souls.

There is a confession which is needful to salvation - and there is a confession which is not needful at all. There is a confessional to which all men and women ought to go - and there is a confessional which ought to be denounced, avoided, and abhorred. Let us endeavor to separate the wheat from the chaff, and the precious from the vile.

1. In the first place - Who are those who ought to confess sin?

2. In the second place - To whom ought confession of sin to be made?

Once let a man have clear views on these two points, and he will never go wrong on the subject of confession.

1. In the first place - Who are those who ought to confess sins?

I answer this question in one plain sentence. All men and women in the world! All are born in sin and are children of wrath. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Before God all are guilty. There is not a just man upon earth who does good and sins not. There is not a child of Adam that ought not to confess sin (Eph. 2:3; Rom. 3:23, 19; Eccl. 8:20).

There is no exception to this rule. It does not apply only to murderers, and felons, and the inhabitants of prisons - it applies to all ranks, and classes, and orders of mankind. The highest are not too high to need confession - the lowest are not too low to be reached by God's requirement in this matter. Kings in their palaces and poor men in their cottages - preachers and hearers - teachers and scholars - landlords and tenants - masters and servants - all, all are alike summoned in the Bible to confession. None are so moral and respectable, that they need not confess that they have sinned. All are sinners in thought, word, and deed - and all are commanded to acknowledge their transgressions. Every knee ought to bow, and every tongue ought to confess to God. "Behold," says the Lord, "You say, 'I am innocent - He is not angry with me.' But I will pass judgment on you because you say, 'I have not sinned." (Jeremiah 2:35) "If we say that we have no sin - then we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8).

Without confession, there is NO salvation.

The love of God towards sinners is infinite.

The readiness of Christ to receive sinners is unbounded.

The blood of Christ can cleanse away all sin. 

But we must plead "guilty," before God can declare us innocent. We must acknowledge that we willingly surrender, before we can be pardoned and let go free. Sins that are known and not confessed, are sins that are not forgiven - they are yet upon us, and daily sinking us nearer to the bottomless pit. "He who covers his sins shall not prosper - but whoever confesses and forsakes them shall find mercy." (Prov. 28:13).

Without confession, there is no inward peace. Conscience will never be at rest, so long as it feels the burden of unacknowledged transgression. It is a load of which man must get rid of if he means to be really happy. It is a worm at the root of all comfort. It is a blight on joy and mirth.

The heart of a little child is not easy, when he stands in his parents' presence and knows that he has been doing something wrong. He is never easy until he has confessed. Just so, the heart of the grownup man is never really easy, until he has unburdened himself before God and obtained pardon and absolution.

"When I kept silence," says David, "my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD: - and you forgave the guilt of my sin" (Psalm 32:3-5).

There is no gainsaying these things. They stand out plainly on the face of Scripture as if they were written with a sunbeam! They are so clear that he who runs may read. Confession of sin is absolutely necessary to salvation - it is a habit which is an essential part of repentance unto life.

Without it, there is no entrance into Heaven. Without it, we have no part or lot in Christ. Without it, we shall certainly go to the bottomless pit.

All this is undoubtedly true. And yet in the face of all this, it is a melancholy and appalling fact that few people confess their sins!

Some people have no thought or feeling about their sins - the subject is one which hardly crosses their minds. They rise in the morning and go to bed at night; they eat, and drink, and sleep, and work, and get money, and spend money - as if they had no souls at all. They live on as if this world was the only thing worth thinking of. They leave religion to ministers, and old men and women. Their consciences seem asleep, if not dead. Of course they never confess!

Some people are too proud to acknowledge themselves sinners. Like the Pharisee of old, they flatter themselves they are "not as other men."

They do not get drunk like some, or swear like others, or live profligate, lives like others. They are moral and respectable! They perform the duties of their station! They attend church regularly! They are kind to the poor!

What more would you have? If they are not good people and going to heaven - then who can be saved? But a to habitual confession of sin,they do not see that they need it. It is all very well for wicked people - but not for them. Of course, when sin is not really felt - then sin will never be confessed!

Some people are too indolent and slothful to take any step in religion so decided as confession. Their Christianity consists in meaning, and hoping, and intending, and resolving. They do not positively object to anything that they hear upon spiritual subjects. They can even approve of the Gospel. They hope one day to repent, and believe, and be converted, and become thorough Christians, and go to Heaven after death. But they never get beyond "hoping." They never come to the point of making a business of true religion. Of course they never confess sin.

In one or other of these ways thousands of people on every side are ruining their souls. In one point they are all agreed. They may sometimes call themselves "sinners" in a vague, general way, and cry out, "I have sinned," like Pharaoh, and Balaam, and Achan, and Saul, and Judas Iscariot - but they have no real sense, or sight, or understanding of sin. Its guilt, and vileness, and wickedness, and consequences - are utterly hid from their eyes. And the result, in each case, is one and the same. They know nothing practically of confession of sins.

Shall I say what seems to me the clearest proof that man is a fallen and corrupt creature? It is not open vice or unblushing profligacy. It is the wide-spread "spirit of slumber" about their souls, in which most men lie chained and bound. When I see that multitudes of sensible men, and intelligent men, and decent-living men, can travel quietly towards the grave, and feel no concern about their sins, I need no more convincing evidence that man is "born to sin", and that his heart is alienated from God. There is no avoiding the conclusion.

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 2)