AN OBSESSION WITH CONFESSION
Signs Of Our Times
AN OBSESSION WITH CONFESSION
WHERE DOES THE BELIEF COME FROM THAT WE MUST CONTINUALLY REPENT OR ASK FOR FORGIVENESS?
I think what has happened, as time went on after the apostles’ death, that you got religious works creeping into the finality of the cross. Before going on, let us just briefly explore how we got to these religious works and why this false doctrine of belief. Before His death and resurrection, Jesus predicted that some would claim His name but denying Him by their actions. Jesus said, “They call me ‘Lord, ‘Lord, but not do the things which I say (Luke 6:46).” Christ and His apostles spoke of false prophets, false apostles, and false brethren. They revealed that two opposing excessively Christian branches would emerge. One, the church Jesus founded (body of called out believers), would be led by God’s spirit and remain faithful to His teachings. The other, guided and influenced by a different spirit (Satan) would accept the name of Christ but twisted His teachings to create a convincing counterfeit of the true Church of God.
Both would use Christ’s name and claim His authority. Both would claim to be following Christ’s teachings. But only one would faithfully represent its founder, Jesus Christ. The other would capture the minds and hearts of humanity by attaching the name of Christ to biblically unsupportable religious works, customs, sacraments, traditions, and doctrines that Jesus and His apostles had never practiced or approved. The apostles repeatedly warned Jesus’ followers to be aware of false teachers who would introduce counterfeit Christian beliefs (Matthew 24:4-5).
Because of the works of Satan counterfeit Christianity was beginning to take a firm hold. As the teachings of false ministers gained in popularity, their followers gradually grew to be the majority in some congregations. The apostle John records one such tragic example: “I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us. Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds which he does prating against us with malicious words. And not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren, and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church (3 John 9-10). Incredible as it sounds, those who are faithful to the teaching of the apostles were expelled from this congregation. Satan had succeeded in placing his minister over this congregation, expelling the faithful servants of Jesus Christ. Now we can understand why Paul explained to Christians in Rome the appropriate response to those who are stirring up division within the church. “Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them (Romans 16:17).”
There are many references and warnings in Scripture regarding this (counterfeit Christianity) but because of the restrictions of Facebook space I’ll have to leave that for another day. Verses in Scripture tell us, both from external sources and from within the Church of God itself, that a corrupted form of Christianity was developing through the influence of the devil and those he managed to deceive. Throughout Scripture we see that Satan is a master counterfeiter and deceiver. Naturally, he will spare no effort to infiltrate the church that Christ founded. In fact, his forte is in the realm of religion. Satan masterminded and manipulated an apostate religion that began to masquerade as Christianity as far back as in the days of the apostles. The message to the 7 Congregations in Asia Minor in the book of Revelation also seems to imply that this counterfeit Christianity would be one of Satan’s main instruments of deception across the centuries until the end time when Satan himself (the Antichrist) will demand to be worshipped in the newly constructed temple in Jerusalem just before Jesus comes back after the 7 year Tribulation Period as spoken of in Matthew 24:21-22. Satan is the root of all religions throughout the world.
By the end of the third century the true servants of God had become a distinct minority among those who called themselves Christians. The counterfeit Christians had become the majority. False teachers, influenced by Satan, had successfully gained a far larger following than the faithful ministers of God. This new brand of Christianity rapidly expanded its membership and became the visible Christian (apostate) church. Early in the fourth century things happened that abruptly altered the course of Christian history. Emperor Constantine came to power in Rome and he legalized this so-called Christianity (in name only) throughout the Roman Empire. A faithful union of religion with the state had begun. Now the apostate church had behind it the full power of the Roman Empire. Any dissent would be looked upon as criminal. From this point on, the sword of the Empire and not the sword of the Spirit would determine church doctrine and practice. Israel was cast aside, and the church officially became the “new Israel.” The victorious church of Constantine was now effectively cut off from its Jewish roots. It would receive its substance from the Greco-Roman and pagan culture around it. It could no longer be truly biblically based.
By the fourth century the word “church” came to have a new meaning, not found anywhere in Scripture. No longer were the people of God “the Church.” Instead the word came to mean the totality of bishops and buildings. Salvation now was viewed as coming through the Bishop as the rightful custodian of the sacraments. Indeed, with such a view, there came to be “no salvation” outside this so-called Roman state church. Satan’s counterfeiting of Christ’s church was now totally completed. What was the result? This Roman state dominated religion calling itself Christianity became a bizarre synthesis of beliefs, rituals, practices and customs derived from Babylonian and other pagan sources.
What we got from this counterfeit church was religion and plenty of it, soon you had confession booths and you had to go to a priest to get forgiven because that ties you into this body or Roman religious organization. Then the Reformation churches came along and said no, you don’t have to go to a priest, you can go directly and confess and get forgiven. All this nonsense I’m sure came in a bit at a time over generations, but it is a shame because it has destroyed people from understanding what it is to walk by faith.
Now, what part of Scripture did they use to support their beliefs? I’m not sure as I see nothing in Scripture to support this erroneous belief. The only verse that I could see, if they used it out of context, would be 1 John 1:9. Someone may ask, “Now, what about 1 John 1:9, don’t we have to confess our sins in order to be forgiven? No, as believers we abide in God’s forgiveness. I guess the priests and later on the pastors would use this verse regarding confession and not realizing that this verse was not written to believers but to Gnostics (unbelievers) in Ephesus. That was the only verse in Scripture that they could use which was false teaching, taking it out of context, but it supported their confession booths and the priest system of this apostate church and later on this belief was carried over by the Reformation churches after they broke away from Rome. How foolish, all they had to do was to read the second chapter of First John which was written to believers, starting off with, “My little children (believers), these things I write to you …”
The result of this false teaching was that many churchgoers over the centuries experienced fear and guilt wondering if they broke fellowship with God because of past or present sin. This erroneous teaching has kept many believers from ever maturing as Christians. The damage caused by this belief is extensive. There are many churchgoers who are in bondage to this erroneous church “law,” this false teaching that was created and perpetrated by Man. It has always been Satan’s agenda to push a false philosophy and make you ineffective in doing God’s work and to prevent you from having that intimate relationship with Him – called love.
AN OBSESSION WITH CONFESSION
When an individual believes in Christ as Savior, they are totally forgiven of all sins, past, present, and future sins. Colossians 2:13 says, “He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.” In light of this, we see that 1 John 1:9 is not a conditional promise. We do not have to keep on confessing our sins in order to be forgiven, as believers we abide in God’s forgiveness. When we believe in Christ we are forever forgiven, confession is provided for us through the graciousness of God
Teaching we must confess our sins in order to be forgiven doesn’t produce changed hearts. Why? Because we have placed ourselves under a “law” which demands that we confess every sin in order to be forgiven and stay in fellowship with God. However, there are no laws; Mosaic or man-made, that can free us from sin. The law was never meant to free us from sin because “the power of sin is the law (1 Cor. 15:56).” When Jesus hung on the cross and said, “It is finished,” He meant that it is finished! God has bridged the gap between Himself and man through His Son, Christ Jesus. (See 2 Corinthians 5:18, 19, 21).
The more we understand our identification with Christ, the more we understand that we have been freed from the power of sin. We are freed from sin because of the work of Christ Jesus on our behalf, not because of law keeping. Teaching the forgiveness we have in Christ is not a license to sin; we don’t need a license to sin. The only reason people often believe this is true is because of their church’s teachings on the subject and because of that they lack an understanding of God’s unconditional love, forgiveness and acceptance. They do not understand the motivating power of Christ’s love for them.
There are many people who struggle with this issue of forgiveness. They may have done something very wrong when they were younger or before coming to know Christ and have asked God repeatedly to forgive them but are not sure that He has. For years these people may have experienced fear and guilt, wondering if God has forgiven their past failures.
What a tragedy! Guilt over past sins has kept many believers from ever maturing as Christians. Because they have not resolved or settled the sin issue, many of them miss out on all that God has intended for them to experience through His indwelling life.
Throughout my writings I have shown you that we as believers have been made alive together with Christ, and that Christ lives in us. Christ laid down His life for us so that He could give His life to us. To experience the life of Christ in us, we must first learn to rest in Christ’s death for us. Until we rest in the finality of the cross, we will never experience the reality of the resurrection.
People who are struggling with past sins are not maturing and have become nearsighted and blind. They need glasses to see that the sin issue between God and man is over. We need to stop asking God for what He has already given us – forgiveness.
Let’s suppose that you are married and have a family and one of your kids doubted your forgiveness when they disobeyed you and keeps asking you day after day, “Daddy, are you sure that you forgave me?” Wouldn’t that break your heart? How do you think God must feel when we keep asking Him day after day to forgive our sins; when He has already done that for you! I can just imagine Jesus in heaven saying, “What in the world do you think I did for you nearly 2,000 years ago when I went to a cross and laid down my life for you.”
Through past postings, I’ve laid out a number of promises from Scripture that teach that God has forgiven all our sins, once and for all and put them behind the back of God never to be seen again. Those of you who still struggle with this issue need to put on your glasses to see these biblical truths presented from Scripture regarding the forgiveness issue and the finality of the cross. When this message finally sinks in; your PRAYER LINE may need to be revised to include something like this:
“Lord Jesus, today I’m going to stop begging You to forgive me and start trusting You for what you did for me on Calvary’s cross. Now, from this day on, teach me what it means to have You live in me.”
There are just a few verses that tell us what to do when we do sin. Not one verse says to confess our sins before we can go on with life. The motivation, instead, says we are to “Be kind and compassionate to one another forgiving each other, just as Christ God forgave you (Ephesians 4:32).” The only way we can ever love, forgive and accept others; is because Christ has first loved, forgiven and accepted us. It is true that we will treat others the way we feel God is treating us. If we feel we have to perform for God and ask His forgiveness each time we sin, we expect the same performance from everyone else. If we believe God loves us only when we do the right things, then we tend to also love others when they, too, do the right things.
The opposite is also true. Only when we understand the unconditional love, forgiveness and acceptance of God, will we ever be able to share that same love with those around us. It is impossible for us to love and forgive one another if we are constantly worrying about our own acceptance to God. The simple truth is that “we love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).” If we believe we must confess our sins in order to be loved and forgiven by God, we are actually mocking God and telling Him that Christ’s work on our behalf was not sufficient.
Confession cannot obtain forgiveness. The damage caused by this belief is extensive. There are many who are in bondage to this “law” that was created and perpetuated by MAN. That’s why it is so important to understand what the Bible says about Christ’s finished work on the cross and our identity in Him. As we understand these truths and keep our eyes on the Lord instead of ourselves, we will see our lives change.
BOTTOM LINE:
One of the most common misconceptions in Christianity today is that we have to continually confess our sins in order to be forgiven. This belief is contrary to the plain teachings of the Scriptures. Is this to say that confession is not important? Absolutely not! We do not oppose confession. We believe Christians should confess their sins. However, we do believe that the biblical doctrine of confession needs to be properly understood. The true meaning of the Greek word “homologeo,” translated “confess,” means to agree with God completely. It does not mean to ask for forgiveness as many churches and clergy teach. When we confess our sins to God, we are agreeing with Him that we have sinned, according to His Word. Therefore, confession is not coming to God and saying, “O God, I have sinned, I am a rotten, no good sinner, please forgive me just one more time.” No, true confession could go like this, “Father, I agree with You that I have sinned; thank You that I am forgiven and I ask You to remind me of the reality of the fellowship that I truly have in You.” It is important to understand that confession is primarily for us.
After having said this I will get someone asking the question, “If we are forgiven of our sins, past, present, and future sins at the time of salvation won’t that lead to a sinful lifestyle? This is really an old question that keeps popping up by legalists. In fact, this was the essence of the concern of those in Paul’s own day who asked, “Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase (Romans 6:1). Look, when we come to understand the totality of forgiveness it should never lead the believer into a sinful lifestyle. Grace doesn’t work that way. Grace enables us to walk in obedience. Grace overpowers sin. Teaching the forgiveness we have in Christ is not a license to sin; we don’t need a license to sin. I have said before, the only reason people often believe this is true is because of their church’s teachings on the subject and because of that they lack an understanding of God’s unconditional love, forgiveness, and acceptance. They do not understand the motivating power of Christ’s love for them.
Many churchgoers who go to these legalistic churches that promote this false doctrine try to follow rules, regulations, and regular self-discipline find themselves guilt ridden trying to live in a system in which a person tries to make spiritual progress or gain God’s acceptance based on what they do.
Legalism is focused on behavior and is therefore an achieving system. Legalism is the opposite of grace. Grace is a system of living in which God blesses us because we are in Christ Jesus and for no other reason at all. Grace is focused on our spiritual birth and is therefore a receiving system and not an achieving system. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age (Titus 2:11-12).”
Therefore, abide in Christ where we make the conscious choice to moment-by-moment rest in Christ and allow Him to express His life through our own. When you do this, our Christian life becomes something that is meaningful and dynamic. Amen.
Oscar Leske
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