Today a person enquired as to certain requirements of a denomination before they would receive a person into the "Membership" of their denomination. Amongst the five things required was that the person must be willing to publicly confess their sins in the presence of the Church. I must confess that this came as a shock to me, because I fear that amongst the brethren with whom I fellowship, sin is regarded altogether too lightly. Perhaps it would be good if our consciences were sharpened a little, and if we came to a deeper understanding of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. The regular clear and powerful preaching of the Gospel will have this effect, thus we need to emphasise the necessity of this as the days grow darker, and the coming of the Lord draws nearer.

The preaching of the Gospel is becoming increasingly unpopular, and because of this the moral state amongst the people of God, continues to rapidly deteriorate. As the scriptures say, "It is high time that we were awakened out of sleep. Because now is our salvation (the final salvation from the presence of sin), nearer than when we believed", (or when we believed it to be). (Romans 13:11-14)

Let me ask you, "How long is it since you heard a message that was preached in the power of the Holy Spirit; and that message really touched your conscience?" My dear brothers and sisters; is not something wrong? Let us come back to the real piercing power of the word of God! (Hebrews 4:12)

I must point out here that it is quite wrong for any believer who is genuinely saved to join or become part of, or to belong to any organization, sect, body, or denomination. We must acknowledge that we already belong to Christ, He has purchased us with His precious blood, and he added us to the Church, which is His body the very moment that we received Him as our Saviour and acknowledged Him as our Lord. We should be warned that He is jealous of His rights over us, especially as to His right to the first place in our affections, and to our obedience to His will in every situation, (an obedience that springs from our love to Him). (John 14:15)

In saying what I do, I do not wish to minimise the responsibility that any gathering of God’s redeemed children have in receiving those who truly belong to the Lord Jesus, into the fellowship of God’s Assembly. None can receive any into the Church, which is Christ’s Body, they already belong to that Church, (if truly born again), and they have been added to it by the Lord Jesus, (Acts 2:47). The words "should be", as in the A,V, should be read "were being saved"., in this verse. However though they are received into the fellowship of the local Church, it is to be accepted that they already belong to Christ, and that they will never belong to us.

The possessiveness that is to be found amongst those believers of "tight or exclusive" emphasis is quite wrong. We should never regard those with whom we walk in fellowship as belonging to us, or to our Church or Assembly, but though we may walk in the closest fellowship, yet each one in our fellowship belongs to Christ alone, and must finally answer to Him. (Romans 14:12). This does not minimise the responsibility of ourselves; or any who walk in fellowship with us, to live a life of holiness, and separation from sin; but by what we may do or say we involve every believer. We not only defile the name of Christ when we sin, but we defile the name and character of every other believer (whether they are in our fellowship or not). Neither does it minimise the responsibility of the local Church to exercise discipline on those that fail, or fall into sin and continue in it.

As we have dealt with this matter previously in another paper, we will not go into detail here; except to emphasise the necessity of a real conviction of sin, and a confession of the same in genuine repentance to God, before a person can receive the Lord Jesus as Saviour and Lord. However we would point out here that such a confession should be absolutely genuine, and should be made to God, against whom the penitent has sinned. Nor should such a confession go into every little detail of every failure or sin. The repentant sinner needs to acknowledge to God the fact that he or she has sinned against Him, and that thus they are a sinner. The confession of the prodigal to his Father on his return from the far country is an example that every repentant sinner might rightly follow. (Luke 15:21)

No mortal man has the right to "hear" the confession of another mortal, nor does he have the power on earth to forgive the sins of a fellow sinner, nor is he able to absolve another from their guilt. The Lord Jesus only has this power. (Luke 5:23-24).

Though priests, (who are themselves only sinners), may claim to have such a power, yet they have no such authority given to them in the scriptures, and their claims are quite false and should be rejected by all. The reason why the repentant sinner should not attempt to confess every detail of every sin that they can remember, is that no matter how sharp or keen the person’s memory may be, it is physically impossible to remember every sin that a person may have committed during their previous life’s experience. It would seem that our Loving Heavenly Father (who already knows, and has a record of every sinful thought and action that has resulted from those thoughts), is not interested in hearing the filthy details of every sin, but is interested only in the genuiness of our repentance. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son, cleanses, (goes on cleansing), from all, (every), sin. (1John 1:7).

It should be acknowledged that there can be no salvation without genuine repentance. Repentance is not salvation in itself, but is the first step to that experience. (Acts 20:21). As the believer in Christ grows spiritually it is to be expected that their judgment of sin, and their sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin should also grow.

The Public Confession Of Sin

We come now to consider the real subject of this paper. As we have pointed out previously, at conversion the repentant sinner should confess their sins to God. Thus a life of Christian testimony begins. It should be pointed out however, that where a penitent sinner has sinned deliberately (before being saved), against another person, (whether that person is a believer or an unbeliever), they should go to the person against whom they have sinned, and confess their failure, and where possible make restitution for their failure. The teaching connected with the trespass offering, emphasises this fact, in that we are told to add the fifth part thereto, so that we are to leave the person that much richer than they were previously. (Leviticus 5:1-6:7) Such a confession should be private, that is between the two people involved.

It is normal for the conscience of one who has been born again, to become ever more tender and active. When we are truly saved, it does not mean that we will not sin again, but it does mean that sin will become the exception rather than the rule. Each time we sin, we grieve the Holy Spirit who indwells us, and we will lose the joy that once we had. That joy will not be restored until the sin is confessed to the Lord, and we are given grace to overcome it. Though we cannot lose our salvation, because it depends entirely on the finished work of Christ, yet we may lose the ‘Joy of our salvation’, (Psalm 51:12) and this needs to be restored.

It is a sound practice for any believer to look back over their life at the end of each day, and if we are conscious of having sinned during the passage of the day, for us to confess the matter to the Lord and to thus have it cleansed away by Him, out of our lives, and for communion to be restored before we go to sleep for the night. The Holy Spirit will convict us through the Word of God, when we sin against Him. If we sin we grieve Him, but when we confess and forsake our sins we bring joy to His great heart of love. Let us remember the statement, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit". (Ephesians 4:30)

This daily confession of sin would be in the secret of our bedchamber and would be heard only by our Heavenly Father, and if we are married by our life partner.

We are told in the Proverbs that we should not only confess our sin, but forsake it also. (Proverbs 29:13). We will all admit that we often ask forgiveness for a sin, and then go and do the same thing again. This is quite wrong, as God has provided ample power for us to overcome the power of indwelling sin, and to enable us to live a life of personal holiness, honour and virtue. (2Peter 1:3) Let us also learn to distinguish between the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and the condemnation of Satan. Satan will always try to magnify our smallest faults, to such a degree that we may allow him to persuade us that our sin is so terrible that God could never forgive us for what we have done. He will try to rob us of the assurance of our salvation, and to persuade us that we were never truly saved in the first place, (or when we thought we were). The Holy Spirit will never do this, but will point us to the remedy, to Christ and give us the sense that He has suffered for all of our sins. He will tell us again and again the "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son, cleanses, (goes on cleansing), from all, (every) sin".

We must realise that sin is defiling, and the public confession of the lurid details of sin will defile those who listen to what is said. There are groups that lay great emphasis on the public confession of sin, but history has proved this to be counter productive. It has been known that in so called "Confession Meetings", where a person of either sex will stand and reveal the sordid details of moral failure that those who listen to the confession have gone away from the meeting, and committed the same sin themselves. The confession of one has inflamed the passions of another, and the defilement has thus been spread to others.

It has also been known that where a person publicly confesses to failure, that as they have spoken another present in the meeting who has been practicing the same sin has come under conviction and has been moved to confess their sin also. This has sometimes been used to justify the unscriptural practice of the public confession of sin. But it is merely autosuggestion, the conscience of the other person is already convicted, and that person feels both guilty and dirty, (defiled), and probably lives in the constant fear of being discovered. If it leads to true holiness of Life, then God be praised, but usually it is not so, but instead spreads the contagion. (Hebrews 12:15)

The verse quoted above is sometimes used to justify the sinful and unscriptural practice described in the previous paragraph. The verse needs to be understood in the light of the context, and it will be readily seen that it does not justify the public confession of sin.

The subject of the passage is sickness and healing. It will be readily admitted that much sickness, (not all sickness), is the result of sin, either in the life of the sick person before they were saved or even after that event. Such a sick person is then instructed to call to them the elders of the Assembly, (who number at least two, or maybe more, but will be comparatively few in number). It is to those few godly persons that the sick person is to confess their faults, not to the public gathering of the whole Church.

The instruction to pray for one another applies to the whole Church, and does not require each individual to know the intimate detail of the sick person’s life. We are responsible to pray for one another, even when we are well, but especially when one of our number is sick.

This Psalm cannot be used either in the justification of "confession meetings". In this Psalm we as individuals are given a peep into the heart of David, and we are allowed to listen as he pleads with God for forgiveness for his sin, which was so grievous. He was guilty of both adultery and murder, but he speaks only of his need of cleansing from blood guiltiness, (verse 14).. He does not speak of the details of his monstrous sin nor does he speak of its implications in the lives of others.

Nathan faithfully showed him what he had done, when they were alone, but he did not go into the sordid details of the king’s shameful activities. (2Samuel 12:1-14). His example in concealing the details is an example that we all might well follow. Let us keep sin in as smaller compass as we can. Let us rather be those who will cover in love, the transgressions of our brethren.

In dealing with others in love, let us never regard sin lightly, because it cost our blessed Lord Jesus all the horror, and the agony of Calvary. Let us act constantly in the light of, and in obedience to the lovely verse in (James 5:`4) But let us do so in the humility that (Galatians 6:1), would promote in us.