Confessing for Forgiveness?

It never ceases to amaze me how "Christian" ministers can say or preach something without thinking about what they are actually saying. I know they usually just repeat what they have heard others say, but how come those people don't think about what they are saying? It doesn't make sense.

One of those things that doesn't make sense to me is the modern teaching that a Christian must "confess his sins to God and ask God to forgive him of those sins."

Many preachers are preaching this, even Independent Baptists. But do they actually stop to think about what they are saying?

To tell a man he must confess and ask for forgiveness implies that his sins are not forgiven until he asks.

This means the payment of Jesus Christ on Calvary did not pay for all sins past, present, and future, and that a man's forgiveness is dependent upon his repeated confession.

Does that sound right to you? It sounds rather Catholic to me!

You see, on Calvary, Jesus paid for all sins, past, present, and future. And when a man receives that payment by faith, he is forgiven of all sins, past, present, and future! Why then would he ask God to forgive him of sins he does later. Doesn't that sound a little odd? Doesn't that sound like he didn't believe God forgave him of all his sins?

You might say, "So, are you saying, Bro. Breaker, that a man doesn't have to confess his sins!" I'm not saying that at all. And, we'll get to that shortly. But what I am saying is that it is HERESY to tell a person that he must ask for the forgiveness of his sins after he is already saved. For either Jesus forgave him his sins or he didn't. Which is it?

The Bible tells us he did, and his payment on the cross was what did it. So to ask God to forgive your sins again would then be to reject God's payment on Calvary and to ask Jesus to die all over again on the cross, wouldn't it? Can you see how anti-biblical this is??? If you are born again, you are either forgiven or you aren't, period.

Now this takes us to "confession." Should a Christian confess his sins to God! Of course he should! This is Biblical. For in 1 John we read:

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Here we read of a "Christian" confessing his sins (vs 9) to God. And we find that God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. But in verse 7 we read that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from ALL SIN. That would be sins past, present, and future.

Further, the context of this verse is fellowship (vs 7) and we find we are to confess our sins to God for fellowship, not for forgiveness. For if we are truly saved, we already have forgiveness of ALL our sins.

When we sin we do not lose forgiveness and need to ask for it again. Instead, we lose fellowship with God. He is angry with us when we sin, and will chastize us in this life as sons (Heb. 12:6,7). Thus, we should confess to him our sin so he'll know we are sorry, just as we would confess our sins against our natural fathers in this life and tell them we are sorry for sinning against them.

But just confessing our sins to God is not enough. There is more to it than that. We read of what this "more" is in Proverbs 28:13

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

Here we read of not only confessing, but also "forsaking" our sins. As we've already seen, the reason we confess our sins to God is for fellowship. It is to tell him we are sorry. But we must also FORSAKE our sins if we desire God's mercy (for him to not chastize us).

Still, the modern day apostate message of "asking for forgiveness of all your sins" is very common today. One thing I can't stand (and I'm sure you've heard it before as well) is hearing a man stand up in church and pray, "Dear Lord Jesus, please forgive us all our sins." Why would he pray that if we are all saved? Wouldn't we already have forgiveness of our sins?

I can't help but wonder if such people who pray, "Lord please forgive me of this, or that..." are even saved to begin with. For wouldn't their praying that way show they have no understanding of the Gospel, redemption, and salvation. Why would they ask for forgiveness, when if they are born again, the Bible says they already have it?

Maybe they are saved, they just haven't thought about it. This could very well be the case. But then again, why haven't they thought about it? Either your sins are forgiven or they aren't. It's that simple.

What confession is for is your chance to tell God you are sorry for the sins you commit after you are saved. And while you confess them, you should forsake them as well, as you renew fellowship with God.

Probably the best way to illustrate this would be in the following way. Let's say I keyed my Dad's car. I mean I really scrapped the doors really bad and took off a lot of paint. Am I still my father's son? Of course. Nothing I can do can keep me from being his offspring. But how would my father react to such a thing. He would be angry, and probably wouldn't talk to me. But if I came to him and confessed my sin, then that would make things better. But he would still be angry and probably would take it out on my rear end, wouldn't he?

But now imagine if I came to my father in tears as I confessed with a humble, repentant heart, hating what I had done. Don't you think he would see this, and realize I was truly sorry. And what if I came and said, "Father, I deserve whatever punishment you wish to lay upon me, but I know I've done wrong and I want to pay for the repair to the car. I'll work off the money to pay for repairs and make it right!"

Would not my father see how torn up I was and how much I wanted to make it right? And would he not then restore fellowship with me? I believe he would.

It's not a matter of whether or not I was lost or saved, i.e. whether I was his son or not. It was a matter of whether or not I forsook my sin when I confessed it, and whether or not fellowship was restored between my father and I.

Thus, we do not confess our sins to God for FORGIVENESS. We confess them for FELLOWSHIP. But we don't confess just to confess and get it off our chest. We are supposed to really be torn up about it. We are supposed to hate our sin. We are supposed to confess and FORSAKE the evil we have done against a holy God.

One old preacher I knew told me one time, "Bro. Breaker, we ought to hate sin so much that we'd rather DIE than sin!"

That really got me thinking. How many of you love God enough that you'd rather die than sin against him? If you did love him that much, imagine how you would approach him when you did sin. You would confess with trembling and diligently forsake what you've done, wanting to never do it again and strive ever the more to please him!

God give us more Christians like that!