Confession

" Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom
in the inmost place.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me."
Psalm 51:1-10

One of the great stories of the Reformation has to do with confession. Martin Luther, then a monastic and scholar would attend formal times of confession with a priest. This process of confession for the absolution of his sins became increasingly frustrating to Luther though. He discovered that as soon as he left confession and was walking out, he would sin again and need to return to confession to confess that sin for his absolution. This process of confession, only to immediately sin again became a huge burden to Luther. He imagined what might happen to him if he were to die not having confessed all of his sins.

It was in the midst of this burden, and during a time of devout study of Scripture that Luther was led to a freeing truth by the Spirit of God - that we are justified of our sins once and for all by the grace of God through faith. Forgiving our sins is God's work of grace, and not our work. When we receive the gift of Christ's forgiveness in faith, all of our sins are forgiven - the ones we did, the ones we're doing, and the ones we haven't even done yet. To be justified is to be declared forever righteous in the eyes of God. In a very real sense, when God looks at our lives, He blessedly sees the righteousness of Christ and not our filthy rags.

In other words, the only confession of sin that we will ever need in order to justify us before God is the one time confession that comes through faith at our initial conversion. From that point on we live in the freedom of righteousness bought for us by Christ. The astute reader amongst you might ask the very good theological question - if by grace through faith we have already been declared righteous before God, why do we still need to confess our sins? I mean we do this every week as a part of our Sunday worship liturgy.

The simple answer is that our prayers of confession are really not for God, but for us. We do not confess our sins in order for God to forgive us, but because God has already forgiven us in Christ. It is an exercise in honesty and humility where we claim the promises of God for our own life. It is an admission to ourselves, others and God, that although we have already been declared righteous in Christ, we are still sinners - and these sins often prevent us from doing that which God would have us do. Our confession is also a constant reminder that we are in need of a savior - we ought not take our freedom in Christ for granted, rather our humble confession ought to lead us to a life of thanksgiving and service.

Psalm 51 is a wonderful prayer of confession from David after he (a servant after God's own heart) had an adulterous tryst with Bathsheba and made arrangements to have her husband killed. This prayer evidences for us the raw honesty and penitence of a sinner. Oh that we would have the same raw honesty in our own life before God.

May our sins not be a burden to us as they were to Luther. May we claim the promises of our baptism, and live in the joyful freedom of forgiveness in Christ. May our confession lead us to rely even more deeply on our savior and propel us forward into thanksgiving and service.

Be God's, Scott