Confession Series: Part 1 of 3
Confession: The Christian’s Lifeline to God
1 John 1:5-2:2
By Dave Redick

When we confess our sins to God we are verbalizing that we know what we have done and that we have broken His law and have gone against his wishes. God already knows that. He wants to know that we know.

"DailyConfession.com is the only place in the world that you can go to truly confess your sin (or sins), your transgressions, your humanity, in complete anonymity."

I’m reading text from a website I found after entering the words, "Confession is good for the soul" into a search engine. It continues...

"So, let it go! Tell the whole world what you did (or didn't do.) Confess your sin (or sins) now on the world's Largest OnLine Confessional!

So what do you think? Has the time come for a "Secular (Not specifically relating to religion or a religious body) forum" where you can let it all hang out anonymously in front of millions of voyeuristic Internet readers? Apparently a lot of people think so considering the number of hits this website claims to generate.

Of course, be sure to read the fine print, where it says, "Use of this website is for entertainment purposes only" and "DailyConfession.com is not responsible for any content exhibited in the confession area."

Ridiculous websites aside for the rest of my sermon (I promise!)… what is Biblical confession? Why is it important for the Christian? How often should we do it, and to whom? These are a few of the questions I want to address in this message, which I’m calling, "Confession: The Christian’s Lifeline to God."

The English word "confession" in its various forms occurs 50 times in the New American Standard Version of the Bible - 30 of these are in the New Testament. If you don't understand it then there is a lot of the God's Word you will miss.

The word "confession" is used two ways in the Bible. It is used as a profession of belief and as an admission of sin.

An example of the kind of confession that is a profession of belief is Romans 10:9: "…If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved…." Another example would be Jesus’ words in Matthew 10:32: "Everyone therefore who shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven." This kind of confession - the professing of our beliefs - while very important, and worthy of our attention, is not what this message is about.

The second kind of confession, the admission of sin, is what I want to focus on.

When King David was confronted by Nathan the Prophet about his affair with Bathsheba, he confessed, "I have sinned against the Lord."(2) When the returning Prodigal Son was met by his father he said, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight…."(3) This is the kind of confession I’ll be talking about.

Probably the most extensive statement in the New Testament about confession of sin for the Christian is 1 John 1:9. I want to take a look at that verse along with its immediate context. Join me please in 1 John chapter 1. We’ll be reading the verses from chapter 1, verse 5 through chapter 2, verse 2.

Several important things are taught and implied here about confession of sin. Let's look more closely...

There is a marvelous promise here in the words of John the Apostle of Jesus. If we confess our sins, God will forgive us. Who wouldn’t want forgiveness for what they know they have done wrong? Who wouldn’t want a clear conscience? Who wouldn’t want freedom from the guilt that is almost universal among humans, whether they acknowledge God or not?

Yet we must realize that the scope of John’s instruction here is limited. The promises of this passage are not universal. Not everyone who confesses his or her sins receives forgiveness. John's letter was written only to Christians. It was written to those who have professed their faith in Christ and responded obediently to His gospel.(4) It was not written to those outside of Christ and His church. According to verse 3 of the first chapter, John wrote to those whose "fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." His words are directed, according to verse 6, to those who "have fellowship with Him" and according to verse 7, those who profess to "walk in the light." His words apply only to those who, according to chapter 2, verse 1, depend upon Christ as their "Advocate" before a Holy God. Please hear me on this: If you have not obeyed the gospel of God,(5) my friends, you can confess until you are blue in the face and it will not bring forgiveness to you.

I have a Costco card in my wallet that allows me to shop at any Costco membership store in the United States. There are some good deals at Costco, but you have to be a member to take advantage of them. In the same way, you must be a member of the saved if you wish to have the benefits of John's words here.

I have at times seen those who quote 1 John 1:9 as the remedy for the sins of those who are still lost and have not yet come to Christ - or don't even know Him. The terms for remedy of the sins for such a lost person are different than for the saved person. A lost person must be willing to profess Christ as the Son of God, to consciously decide to turn away from sin (repentance), and to be baptized in water to have sin forgiven. Only after these things will confession of sin bring forgiveness.

The scope of this passage then is only Christians. If you are with us this morning and you are not a Christian or you don’t understand what being a Christian is all about, please let us help you with that. We can speak privately so that you will understand what it means to be saved.

And one more thing before we move beyond the scope of confession and its benefits. This passage was not just written to only Christians. It was written to all Christians.

There is not a true Christian alive today who isn’t included in the requirements and benefits of this passage. That’s because all of us have sinned. John makes that crystal clear – and he says it twice so that we don’t miss it. Verse 8 says, "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Verse 10 says, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us."

There is no wiggle room. Every Christian has sinned. Every Christian will sin. There isn’t a perfect one in the bunch. That’s what makes John’s words in this passage important enough to call them the Christian’s lifeline.

Let’s move on now to the sense of this passage.

What exactly does it mean to "confess" your sins?

The most common answer I hear as I conduct personal Bible studies with people is that it means "to ask forgiveness." Surely asking forgiveness is associated with confession, but that is not what it means to confess.

Confession is not a request. Confession is an acknowledgment. It’s an admission. In the context here it is an admission of sin.

The New Testament was originally written in Greek. The Greek word for "confess" is homologeo. Before you tune me out because what I am saying sounds like "Greek to you" let me break it down. It’s not that difficult to understand and the explanation will help it stick with you.

Notice the two parts of the word: homo and logeo. You already know what homo means. Homosexual means one who is attracted to the same sex. If you drink dairy products you probably drink homogenized milk. Homogenized milk is milk that was once separated into cream and non-cream. In the processing plant somewhere it was homogenized, that is, it was reduced to particles and mixed up so much that it is all the same from the top of the carton to the bottom. Homo means "same."

Logeo is the verb form of logos which means "word" or "speech." In the verb form it means "to speak a word." So homologeo means "to speak the same word."

How is this related to confession? When we confess our sin, we "speak the same word" as God speaks about it. If we’ve lied, what does God say about lying? Lying is wrong. It is sin. Colossians 3:9 says, "Do not lie to one another…." When we confess to lying, we acknowledge to God what He already knows but wants us to agree with. We have sinned. Lying isn’t just a slip or a mistake. It isn’t just a "fib" or a stretching of the truth. It is a sin. When we confess, we admit this.

Before my grandmother died late last year, I went to California to speak with her. As we talked I recalled an incident in my childhood when she caught me and a friend of mine on the back of her property in a brushy area playing with matches. Like many young boys of that era with vivid imaginations, my friend Brad and I had build a fort in the brush from which we would be able to fend off the Indians (if we were playing "Cowboys and Indians") or "enemy soldiers" if we were playing "Army." I don’t remember which we were playing on this particular day but we built a little twig fire with some discarded matches we found. Of course she saw the smoke and came out to investigate. As she walked up, we were caught red-handed. "Are you boys playing with matches?" she asked? It was obvious that we were because there was this pile of wood, the matches, the fire, and the smoke which had caught her attention. She could have just said, "Boys. Put that fire out and come home at once. I’m going to call your parents!" But instead she asked, "Are you boys playing with matches?" I didn’t want to answer her. Brad didn’t want to answer her. Couldn’t she just see that we were playing with matches and leave it at that? Why make us say it? But no, she persisted. Again she asked, "Are you boys playing with matches?" Finally, when we realized there was no escape from the question of this persistent little woman, we choked it out. "Yes, Ma’am, we are" we said in horrified unison. But she wasn’t finished yet.

"Do you boys know that you’re not supposed to play with matches?" (That one was even worse. We knew the answer to her question because we had just a half-hour or so before sneaked the contraband fire sticks into our fort.) "Yes, Ma’am, and we’re really sorry and we’ll never do it again. We promise!"

She helped us put the fire out, which included making us haul a couple of big buckets of water down from the house to douse the remains of our infraction.

Question… Why did my Grandmother persist in asking us if we were playing with matches? Wasn’t it obvious that we were? Yes, it was. But she made us say it anyway. She did it because it was important that our way of thinking and speaking be brought back into harmony with what was right. We had to "confess." We had to "speak the same thing" as we knew was right.

When we confess our sins to God we are verbalizing that we know what we have done and that we have broken His law and have gone against his wishes. God already knows that. He wants to know that we know.

Again, confession isn’t asking for forgiveness. Confessing is admitting verbally in the presence of God that what we have done is wrong. Then we can ask for forgiveness – when our way of thinking about the issue is brought back into harmony with His.

Confession is speaking the same thing as God says about our sin.

We’ve talked about the scope and the sense of this passage. Let’s move on now to:

Just how important is it that Christians confess their sins? The obvious answer is in our text. If we confess, we will be forgiven. And surely the opposite is also true… If we don’t confess, we won’t be forgiven. That little word "if" makes this a conditional promise with requirements.

In the Greek language there is a present infinitive tense for verbs that indicates something that is ongoing. John isn’t referring to confessing just once. His words could easily be translated, "If we keep on confessing…."(6) In other words, people who walk in the light, as John puts it, are people who live lives where, when they sin, they confess. It isn’t just an occasional thing. It’s a lifestyle.

Think about that. In order for us to sin when we know what we are doing is wrong, we have to either push God out of our immediate awareness or somehow rationalize that our action in this particular case is permissible when God actually says it is wrong. Said another way, we must veer off the straight path of walking with God and the thinking that accompanies it and onto a path that diverges from His way. We must momentarily fool ourselves to believe that even though we are on a crooked path, we’re really still not in much danger.In other words, we must deceive ourselves, and therein lies a danger. The longer we go on deceiving ourselves the more deluded we become. The more deluded we become, the harder it is to come back to God or even to realize that we have departed from Him. Do this long enough and you will join the ranks of those who are walking in the dark but don’t realize it.

Confession forces us to break off of the path that leads away from God and deceives us. "Speaking the same thing" to God about our sins brings our thinking back into line with His path. It gives us a chance to see our error and correct it. Those who never confess their sins or, who are not living lifestyles of confession, will eventually fall away from their profession of faith.

Christ died so that you and I can have our sin forgiven. In that sense there is no sin that can condemn us in and of itself.(7) But because we have to deny reality and truth when we sin, the danger is that we won’t see the error of our ways to the point that we are totally deceived and no longer see the need to live with and for God.

Listen to the words of the Hebrew writer on just this subject. This comes from Hebrews 3:12-14. It is a warning about falling away from our profession: Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.

Sin is deceitful according to these verses. We must, if we are to continue on our way to heaven, "hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end." Sin hardens us to this assurance. It causes us to no longer see our sinful condition and our need for God. When we no longer see our need for God, we will no longer come to Him and depend upon Him for our salvation. We will, in effect, "fall away from the living God.".

Confession of sins is critically important to every Christian! You and I must be about confessing our sins regularly, which brings me to my final point – the system of it all. By "system" I mean, how it all works.

Look again with me at our text, this time in chapter 2, verse 1-2:

And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation [means of forgiveness] for our sins…."

Our forgiveness depends upon God’s system as He has set it up. No system of human origin, no matter how impressive, no matter how many adherents, can do what only God can do.

According to John’s words, our sins are confessed to God, through Christ. You understand that, right? "…We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous…."

Our issue of sin is "with the Father." It is His law we have broken. Only God can pronounce forgiveness for sin done against Him.

"But how can a person who has sinned come into the presence of the Holy, Sinless God?"

The answer is simple: We can’t. That’s why we need an Advocate. And that is the role of Christ. He is our "Advocate with the Father." Only Christ can be our advocate before the Father.

But don’t we need a priest to mediate for us? Absolutely! But that isn't a human role. It is the role of Jesus. Paul put it this way in 1 Timothy 2:5: "For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."

If there is only one God and one mediator, how is it that some churches set up an earthly priesthood to stand between the confessor and God? I don’t know. You figure it out. There is absolutely no Biblical basis for an earthly priesthood system like you find in the Catholic Church and some Protestant churches today. A man dressed up in religious garb, calling himself "father" against the clear teaching of the Bible(8) cannot secure your forgiveness or mine. The only one that can absolve you from sin against God is God Himself. And the only One authorized by John here in this passage is Christ.

I’ve been doing follow-up teaching with my oldest Grandson who was baptized a few months ago. Last week I taught him the importance of practicing confession to God through Christ every day. I told him that he should confess his sins when he first awakes in the morning and as he goes to bed at night. I told him that he should also confess anything to God that he does wrong during the day, on the spot, as soon as he realizes it.

I suggest the same for you. I have already made the point that the verb "confess" in this passage is in the Greek continuous present tense. It means "to keep on confessing." In other words confessing sin must be a part of the Christian’s lifestyle.

If the Christian’s walk with God were described by two lines, one of them being God's way of thinking and the other being our way of thinking, ideally they should parallel one another. A sin would be a bend in our line that takes us in a divergent, non-parallel way of thinking. The longer we stay on that line or direction, the farther away we get from God. The sooner we confess our sin and wrong way of thinking and correct our path, the less the danger and the more we "walk in the light" as John says here.

I began this message by talking about an Internet Website for people who want to confess their sins, anonymously, before a worldwide audience. Can such confession, or any other that doesn’t match what the Bible teaches for that matter, be of any use for the Christian? The answer is "no" because:

It fails as to scope. The scope of confession in the New Testament is that its benefits are for Christians only. "Getting it off your chest" before a worldwide audience of people isn’t going to help one bit. Oh a person might feel better, but that is only because it takes him deeper into deceiving himself.

It fails as to sense. Biblical confession is speaking the same thing about our sin as God says about it. People who do not know God or His will or, for that matter, don’t care about God cannot possibly "speak the same thing" as God. Their confession is futile.

It fails as to significance for the unbeliever in that there is no one there to forgive the confessor. While the confession may be read by millions, not a single one of them has even one ounce of authority to forgive even the slightest infraction against the Holy God.

It fails as to system. God’s system is our confessing, through Christ, to the Father. The "Internet Confessional" fails on all these points, as does every other system that does not follow what God has laid down in His word.

Footnotes: Please use your back button to return to your place.

1.  http://dailyconfession.com
2.  2 Samuel 12:13
3.  Luke 15:18
4.  2 Thessalonians 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17
5.  1 Peter 4:17
6.  See Robertson's New Testament Word Pictures under 1 John 1:9 for a fuller explanation.
7.  Romans 8:1
8.  Matthew 23:8-9

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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