If something more is required for forgiveness and cleansing from all unrighteousness (a state required for heaven), then the believer is in a dilemma. What if he fails to confess some sins? What if he fails to confess one sin? Is he unforgiven and not cleansed from all unrighteousness?….God does intend, as the passage teaches, for the believer not to sin (1 John 2:1), therefore ongoing repentance of sin is a characteristic of our walk with God—our walk in the Light. Ongoing repentance is different than naming every sin.

Do you believe that you must confess every known sin to God?

For many years earlier in my ministry, I made statements such as the following:

“In order to be restored to fellowship with God and to be filled with the Spirit you must confess every known sin to God.”

What am I to think of such instructions now?

Sadly, this teaching adds a layer of requirement for our forgiveness not intended by God. And it may lead to confusion and sanctification troubles for the believer if taken seriously.

My Experience with Confessionism

The word confession in the original comes from the conjoining of two words, “to say” and “the same.” Confession means to agree with God on his assessment of our actions and thoughts, and to name our sin to God.

I did not find “confessionism” in the dictionary, but will coin the word (if someone else has not done this already) as a way to name the practice and the teaching that believers are under a necessity to confess every known sin to God as a vital ingredient of their sanctification.

I had considerable experience in this practice early on. And I put many others under the burden of it also. I won’t say that God did not use this method in some ways for good during this period (I was, after all, attempting to draw near to God), but I finally came to a very different and much more liberating view of sin and forgiveness. And I came to regret having put myself and others under a bondage that I believe God did not intend. A wrong view of confession can lead those who are perfectionistic or overly sensitive by nature into a spiritual quagmire.

Biblically my former views on sanctification always circled back to one verse, 1 John 1:9. This verse was a foundation for sanctification not only for me, but for those who were my teachers. Let me remind you of it here:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

I took this verse to mean that each time I sinned I had to confess that specific sin to God (and to the others I sinned against—which in itself is true) in order to be forgiven and cleansed. If I did not do this, I was living an unforgiven and polluted life, one in which the Spirit was not free to work. To have unconfessed sin was to remain “in the flesh.”

I did not believe that the verse meant that I was just to scratch the surface of my sinning, but that God demanded that I scour out each and every sin until it was brought before Him. It did not mean some sins but every sin. And it did not mean just the big ones, but the smallest of them also. It meant not only the specific sin itself, but each occasion of that sin. I could not summarize my sins and say, “Lord, the usual.”

All of this meant regular (daily, hourly, immediate) introspection of my life until every sin and every nuance of sin was laid before God in prayer. I made “sin lists” from time to time and could always write pages. I was determined to keep short accounts with God. In other words, confession of every sin was at the heart of my perception of sanctification. Without it, I was not filled with the Spirit. With it, and with a reliance on the Spirit called “reckoning myself dead to sin and alive to God,” (sometimes described as putting Christ back on the throne of my life) I was “setting the Spirit free” to work in and through me. My sanctification was either “on” or “off,” depending on my action in this area. If I confessed my sins and believed that Christ was on the throne, then He lived through me, but if I did not, He did not. It was a kind of semi-perfectionism. And it seemed to me to be the living out of 1 John 1:9.

John’s Way of Dealing with the Believer’s Sin

Now, let me spell out the fuller, more correct view of confession found in the 1 John passage surrounding the confessionist’s locus classicus (1:9). It will take a good reading of the context. I’ve emphasized some portions. Please carefully go over the following passage:

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. (1 John 1:5-2:2)

First, note that the passage spells out its purpose clearly—”I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.”

The purpose of the confessionists’ use of 1:9 is to get the Christian into a place of being forgiven and cleansed by God and therefore in fellowship with Him and filled with the Spirit, but the purpose of John was obedience. And this, in 1 John, is repeatedly given as the mark of the authentic Christian.

But note, secondly, that John demonstrates clearly that the believer’s sins are immediately and totally covered by the sacrificial work of Christ. For instance, in verse 7 he asserts that the believer (who is consistently described as the one who walks in the Light), enjoys this promise: “the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses [him] from all sin.”

This action word (cleanses) is continuous, meaning that the blood of Jesus unfailingly cleanses the believer from his sin at all times. There could be no sin that the blood does not cover, confessed or not confessed. Though our sins were taken care of in the cross of Christ, and by His blood being spilled for us, it is applied immediately in time to every sin we commit the nano-second we commit it.

In 2:1-2, John makes things even clearer. He says that when the believer sins he has the Advocate’s help who is the propitiation for our sins, and the sins of all kinds of people in the world. Propitiation means that a pleasing and satisfactory sacrifice was made by our Substitute already. Nothing more is required for forgiveness once we are in the family. If it were not clear enough from what we have already read, he removes all remaining confusion by adding: “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake” (2:12).

We are as forgiven as we can be.

The Implications of Confessionism

Now, consider the implications of adding the work of confession for ongoing forgiveness with the data we presently have. If something more is required for forgiveness and cleansing from all unrighteousness (a state required for heaven), then the believer is in a dilemma. What if he fails to confess some sins? What if he fails to confess one sin? Is he unforgiven and not cleansed from all unrighteousness? This is not what propitiation and the continual immediate cleansing from sin by the blood assert. Must we add to what God has been so completely accomplished? Isn’t Christ’s death and the application of His blood enough? Doesn’t this additional requirement diminish the cross by making my naming of a sin, each sin, a prerequisite to forgiveness?

So what about 1:9, the verse used by those who contend for confession of every sin?

Read More