When Luther posted his infamous 95 Thesis, the first read “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite (generally translated “repentâ€), willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.†And indeed is must be. Yes, the people of God have a habit of confessing sins because they also have a habit of sinning.
There is in fact no more telling evidence of the Holy Spirit in one’s life than the presence of repentance. Because where the Spirit is not present, sin continues its course unfettered. It runs in and out of the heart leaving it more and more hardened. Only where the Spirit of God is present is the cycle of sin brought to a sudden end. The Spirit through the Law brings knowledge of sin. And then he brings before the Christian’s eyes the promise of God’s goodness. And from that offer of kindness flows true confession.
Christians not only confess sins sporadically as they occur, they also make a habit of confessing sins. They do this generally in two ways. They do in corporately with the body of Christ when they gather. They join the chorus of “I, a poor miserable sinner.†And when Satan seeks to rob them of the comfort given in the words of absolution there, they come individually to their pastor and confess the sins which Satan torments them with. They come and hear the powerful word of God aimed directly at them by their pastor in Christ’s stead.
In fact, there is nothing more dangerous to a person’s relationship with God than refraining from the habit of confessing sins. If sins are not confessed, the sins and their guilt remain present and deadly in every sense of the word.
Everyone sins. The question is whether their sins are confessed and forgiven. Those whose sins are not confessed and forgiven remain outside the kingdom of God now and forever. Those whose sins are confessed and forgiven remain by God’s grace forever inside that kingdom.
Confessing sins is just what the people of God do. They feel the burden of their sin and know where to find relief. It is a habit of those made holy by Jesus.
This post is part of a series called Seven Excellent Habits.
Phil,
If the LCMS wants to return to the unaltered Augsburg Confession, then you should have put something more forceful in here about individual confession. Confessing sons amidst everyone else saying the same words is not confession. Confessing sins “only to God” is no confession at all since God already knows that. Why do you put just a little blurb in here about personal confession and absolution? Are you afraid that you would be labeled “too Catholic” and then endure the ire of other Lutherans even though the Augsburg Confession explicitly says that the practice of individual confession and absolution was absolutely retained and encouraged. Confession of sins in your own room to nobody but God again is no confession at all.
Frankly, Phil, if you want to know one of the reasons I swam the Bosphorus was because I grew tired of Lutherans being so ashamed of anything, whether doctrinally, liturgically or in practice that may be perceived as Roman Catholic. I didn’t want to be part of a church body that was too busy trying not be someone else that it forgot to be who it is.
The Small Catechism, a profoundly Lutheran document (I am sure you would agree), says, “What sins should we confess? Before God we should plead guilty of all sins, even those we are not aware of, as we do in the Lord’s Prayer; but before the pastor we should confess only those sins which we know and feel in our hearts.” I think my wording is quite consistent. I did not refrain from saying anything out of fear of other or seeming too RC. The RC did and continue to have some abhorrent teaching about confession, absolution, and penance, but the idea of private confession itself is not one of them. I offer it always and make note of it regularly during the penitential season.
All you do is “make note of it?” What does that mean? Do you just say to your congregation, “Oh, by the way, please come for private confession?” And why only during the penitential seasons? Is not confession valuable all year round? Do you not see that marginalizing as good a thing as confession to once or twice a year makes it less of a good thing, in the eyes of your congregation, into something that they “have to do” once or twice a year? Then that dissipates further into saying, “That’s not required and if it’s not required we will not do it.” Then that dissipates even further into saying, “That’s too Catholic and we shouldn’t do it.” When a good thing, a good thing established in the tradition of all Christianity is marginalized, then it eventually becomes somthing to be argued over as to whether it should be done or shouldn’t. And, to show you that I’m not just giving you a hard time, I frequently and vociferously object to Orthodox priests who only hear confessions during Lent and Holy Week. What about the other 43 weeks of the year? It’s frustrting. You should talk it up, not just make a note about it.
Also check out this post: http://ihoppe.com/blog/?p=2229 which I also preached.
You still don’t solve the problem. You think that given the choice between general confession and personal absolution, people are going to choose both. When you give a choice, especially this kind of choice (and, let’s be honest) most are going to go for the general. Why? Because there is no need for penitence or contrition. You just say the words whether you mean them or not. I think that with a one on one basis, you could discern whether one was being deceitful or not. If only saying certain words guarantees forgiveness, then Christianity is no longer about orthodoxy (small-o; believing the right things with faith) but merely orthropraxy (doing and saying the right things with an absence of any faith). And strict orthopraxy is the mark of pagan religions. Juppiter and Juno didn’t care whether you believed in them or not, but merely cared about whether you said the right prayers, made the right sacrifices, etc..
Now, I’m not suggesting you bind anyone’s conscience by requiring them to go to private confession, but when you present private confession as merely an alternative (even a good alternative) and stress the collective confession before the Divine Liturgy (that’s not actually part of the Liturgy; the Liturgy begins with the Introit), then your flock is simply going to see the private confession as something they don’t have to do and therefore, shouldn’t do.
You’re still stuck in the same bind.
And you cannot claim to be a church of the unaltered Augsburg Confession when you have allowed clear deviations which do not enhance the good order of the church but only further encourage the disintegration of a quia subscription to the Lutheran confessions to a mere quatenus.
I truly appreciate your post about the habit we have of confessing sins. If you are interested, http://www.confessonline.info/ is a website where people are free to post their confessions anonymously.