the Importance of Confession

My Republican readers will get their jollies off of this introduction: President Obama is apologizing and amending his highly–disputed healthcare law amidst the outrage and public dismay at the implications of the law. I have to say I am greatly pleased to see him do this, but I wonder what the response to the President might have been if he had just apologized and sought to correct the error from the get–go. You see, while I'm happy to receive the admission of fault, it seems a little forced, in that he had no other choice. It's like when the missus gets mad at me for doing something, and after trying everything else I finally apologize, and yet she rejects my apology because it doesn't seem genuine. I only apologized to make her happy.

The Bible makes repeated emphasis over our admission of fault and confession of sins. We cannot receive the grace of God until we have fully confessed our transgressions to Him. Simply put, confession is important. And what is required to make confession genuine is a genuine, heart–felt remorse and turning away from the previous action. I think some of the reason people can't accept politicians' apologies is that rarely do they feel genuine. Someone got caught in a mistake and now HAS to apologize. They feel non-genuine because there is little to no repentance. The President has apologized, he's given some more time, but he still wants to make people change their insurance. True confession means that we must actually feel remorseful for what we've done and we must resolve to turn away from that sin.

To whom then do we confess? The President is held accountable to the people, thus he confesses to them. We are accountable to God, thus we confess our sins to Him. But is He the only one? Most of us when we hear the word, "confession," likely think of Roman Catholicism. The theology there is that we, mere sinners, cannot earn a hearing with God, but a priest who has been consecrated may enter the throne room on our behalf and make our pleas to God. It is not the priest who absolves us, but he is the conduit of absolution. My opinion? The book of Hebrews makes it pretty clear we need such a priest, but it turns out that priest is none other than Christ Jesus! Nevertheless, I don't think confessing to another human being is wrong, only when we treat it confession in a way that reduces the priesthood of Jesus Christ.

James writes, "Confess your sins to one another." (James 5:16) His point is not the same as Jesus' in Matthew's Gospel (Matt. 17), though James is not saying anything contrary. Instead, James is elaborating in chapter 5 arguing that often we may be so overwhelmed by our sin, by our guilt or fault, that we struggle to really confess. Perhaps we struggle to be truly remorseful. We know intellectually what we have done is sin, and yet in our hearts we are not really sorry. Perhaps we struggle to be truly repentant. We don't want to do the sin again, but we feel too weak to fight it alone. In both cases, though confessing to another person is not necessary for forgiveness, confessing is incredibly helpful in us truly turning from sin.

And so, if you are struggling with a particular fault or sinful habit, have you tried humbling yourself and actually confessing it to another person? You might be surprised how helpful another believer is in your spiritual growth.