The Nature Of True Repentance - Part 3

Today we come to part 3 in our study of repentance where we will be looking at the next ingredient of genuine repentance: Confession of sin. And as with the previous posts I will again be quoting from Thomas Watson and his book The Doctrine of Repentance.

In the last post we saw that true and genuine repentance is characterized by a realization that one is a sinner and then sorrowing over that sin. Once those have occurred, the next step to genuine repentance is the confession of sin. Thomas Watson writes:

Sorrow is such a vehement passion that it will have vent. It vents itself at the eyes by weeping and at the tongue by confession...

So let's look at what it means to confess and what this confession will look like in the life of the believer. In his first epistle the apostle John wrote:

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:8-9

What an awesome promise; if we confess our sin He will forgive us. But what does it mean to confess? The Greek word translated confess in this passage is homologéō, which is a compound of two Greek words:homoú (together with), and légō (to say), so this word literally means, to say together with. Of this word's use here Kenneth Wuest writes:

Confession of sin on the part of the saint means... to say the same thing that God does about that sin, to agree with God as to all the implication of that sin as it relates to the Christian who commits it and to a holy God against whom it is committed. That includes the saint’s hatred of that sin, his sense of guilt because of it, his contrition because of it, the determination to put it out of his life and never to do that thing again. This is what confession of sin means here. The English word “confess” means “to admit the truth of an accusation, to own up to the fact that one is guilty of having committed the sin.

But the Greek word means far more than that, as was shown above.This is quite different than what we usually hear in regard to confession, but this is what God means when He says we are to confess our sin. And this is one of the ingredients of Genuine repentance. In writing on this subject Thomas Watson reminds us that both Judas and King Saul confessed their sin, "but, theirs was not a true confession."

He then goes on to give us eight qualifications for true confession:

1. Confession must be voluntary

By this Watson means that our confession must not be given out of a fear of punishment; it must flow freely from our hearts because it is the right thing to do to confess our sin to our Heavenly Father. Here Watson writes:

[T]rue confession drops from the lips like myrrh from the tree or honey from the comb, freely. "I have sinned against heaven, and before thee" (Luke 15:18): the prodigal charged himself with sin before his father charged him with it.

2. Confession must be with compunction

Here Watson is talking about the feelings that accompany true confession of sin; he writes:

The heart must deeply resent it. A natural man's confession runs through him like water through a pipe. They do not at all affect him. But true confession leaves heart-wounding impression on a man... It is one thing to confess sin and another thing to feel sin.

3. Confession must be sincere

This deals with our attitude toward sin; true confession of sin is accompanied by a broken heart over that sin. We cannot sincerely confess our sin and yet love our sin. Watson writes:

Our hearts must go along with our confessions. The hypocrite confesses sin but loves it, like a thief who confesses to stolen goods, yet loves stealing. How many confess pride and covetousness with their lips but roll them as honey under their tongue... [A good Christian] is convinced of the sin he confesses, and abhors the sin he is convinced of.

4. In true confession a man particularizes sin

In order to confess a sin we must know what that sin is; we cannot say to God "I have sinned" and call it confession. If you ask a person if they are a sinner most will say yes, but if you ask them to be specific about the sins that they have committed they are at a loss. Here Thomas Watson is saying that in order for confession to be genuine it must be specific. He writes:

[A] wicked man says, "Lord, I have sinned" but does not know what the sin is; at least he does not remember, whereas a true convert acknowledges particular sins... By a diligent inspection into our hearts we may find some particular sin indulged; point to that sin with a tear.

5. A true penitent confesses sin in the fountain

By this Watson means that we must confess that our sin is inherent in who we are - that we are born a sinner. There are many today who deny that we have a sin nature, but Watson points out here that in order to truly confess our sin we must acknowledge that we are a sinner and that we were conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5) and that our very nature is polluted. Watson writes:

The sin of our nature is not only a privation of good but an infusion of evil. It is like canker to iron or stain to scarlet... We are ready to charge man of our firsts sins to Satan's temptations, but this sin of our nature is wholly from ourselves; we cannot shift it off to Satan. We have a root within that bears gall and wormwood (Deuteronomy 29:18). Our nature is an abyss and seminary of evil, from whence come those scandals that infest the world.

6. Sin is to be confessed with all its circumstances and aggravations

We are to confess that we have sinned against knowledge; when we know something is a sin and do it anyway we have not only committed the act itself but we have also sinned in that we knew what we were doing was sinful. True confession will not only include the confession of the sin, but also of the ignoring of God's decree. Watson here writes:

Confess sins against knowledge, against grace, against vows, against experiences, against judgments... These are killing aggravations which do accent and enhance our sins.

7. In confession we must so charge ourselves as to clear God

In our confession we must be sure that that we place the blame for our sin fully upon ourselves. James tells us that God cannot be tempted and does not temp anyone to do evil, but that we are tempted and carried away by our own lusts (James 1:13-14). Therefore the responsibility lies fully with us when we sin. Thomas Watson writes:

Should the Lord be severe in his providences and unsheath his bloody sword, yet we must acquit him and acknowledge that he has done us no wrong.

8. We must confess our sins with a resolution not to act them over again.

True confession will involve a turning away from that sin; we cannot truly confess a sin and still continue in it. Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery "go and sin no more" (John 8:11) and that is the response to true confession - we will sin no more. Here Watson writes:

Some run from confessing of sin to committing of sin, like the Persians who have one day a year when the kill serpents and after that day they suffer them to swarm again. Likewise, many seem to kill their sins in their confessions and afterwards let them grow as fast as ever. "Cease to do evil" (Isaiah 1:16). It is vain to confess, "We have done those things we ought not to have done", and continue still in doing so... now when we have vomited up sin by confession we must not return to this vomit. What king will pardon that man, who after he has confessed his treason, practices new treason?

If this is what true confession is we must ask ourselves if this is what our confession looks like, because as was quoted above:

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

1 John 1:9

Next time we will look at the next three ingredients of true repentance: Shame for sin, Hatred of sin, and Turning from sin. Until then it is my hope that you will prayerfully consider what it means to confess our sins.

If We Confess Our Sins

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just 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.

1 John 1:9-10

In the last post we saw the importance of recognizing our own sinfulness, and that without that recognition we will not be able to come to the Savior.This time we are going to look at the last 2 verses in chapter 1 and see what we are to do once we have acknowledged our sinfulness, repented of our sins and come to God, and we then find that we are still living in a body of flesh that struggles with sin.

Let me say here right up front that I in no way am indicating that someone can say they are a Christian and then continue in a pattern of unrepentant sin. That is contradictory to the teaching of the Bible in general and to the message of 1 John in particular. (There will be a much more in depth discussion of this topic when we get to chapter 3.)

Before we get into these verses from First John we have to ask a question, do Christians sin? There are many who would say no, but that is not what we see in the Scriptures. What I want to do here is show that as a follower of Jesus Christ who still lives in a fallen world we still have to deal on a daily (hourly?) basis with the presence of sin. After that I want to look at what John said that we are to do about it.

1. Do Christians Sin?

To answer this question we need to look at what the Bible teaches about the believer and sin. I want to start today with a clear passage from Paul's letter to the Galatians. In Galatians chapter 6 the apostle Paul wrote:

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

Galatians 6:1

There are 2 important things to point out in this verse: first, in the context of this verse Paul is writing to those who are walking by the Spirit (Galatians 5:24-25). It is to this audience that Paul then writes, "if anyone is caught in any transgression" indicating that it is possible for a Christian to fall into sin. The second thing we see here is Paul warning the Christians that he is writing to that they are to proceed with caution when it comes to restoring a brother or sister who has fallen. Why? Because they too can be tempted to fall into the same sin. If it were not possible for a Christian to sin Paul, writing through the power of the Holy Spirit, would not have given us this warning.

This verse in Galatians is not the only place where we find the Christians' struggle with sin (it is always dangerous to try and build a theology on only one passage or verse) we can also see this all throughout the Bible. Here are just a few more passages that teach this:

In Romans 7, in the context of wanting to do good and not doing it, the apostle Paul writes:

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Romans 7:21-23

And one last passage. This one is Jesus, on His last night with His disciples before He was betrayed. In John chapter 13, as Jesus and the disciples are preparing to celebrate the Passover, Jesus laid aside his garments, put a towel around His waist, and took a basin of water and began to wash the disciples feet. When He came to Peter, Peter protested, and Jesus replied: “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” (John 13:8). Then Peter said, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” (verse 9). Jesus then answered Peter with these words:

The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean..."

John 13:10

Why did Jesus say this? In addition to showing us that we are to all serve one another with humility He was also making the point that once a person comes to faith in Him and repents of their sin their salvation is secure, but we get dirty feet from walking around in this world so we need to wash our feet. There is no need to be re-saved every time you commit a sin, you simply need to confess it to your Heavenly Father, repent of it, and move on.

We could spend a lot more time on this topic, but for the sake of time let's move on to the second question and 1 John 1:9-10.

2. How does John say the believer is to respond to sin?

We now arrive a 1 John 1:9, which says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and then cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This verse brings up at least 3 more questions that we must deal with:

1. What does it mean to confess our sins?
2. Why does John say that God is "faithful and just" when He forgives us?
3. What does it mean that He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness?

Let's take these one at a time:

First, what does John mean when he says we are to confess our sins? Is confession just saying, "I sinned, I'm sorry." or is there something more involved? The Greek word used here is the word homologéō, which means to say the same thing as another. So what John is telling us here is that confession is not merely saying that you are sorry, it is acknowledging openly to God what we have done and agreeing with Him (saying the same thing) that what we have done was sinful. For example, according to the definition of the word homologéō if you have just realized that you have been gossiping about someone and that you need to confess it to God you would say something like, "I have sinned Father. I have been gossiping about ... and Your word makes it clear that gossiping is a sin and that it is wrong. I agree with what you say and I confess that what I have done is a sin. I repent of this and will not do it again." Confession is not simply saying that you are sorry; that is obviously involved, but confession is much more than that.

The verse then goes on to say that if we do confess our sins that God is faithful and just to forgive our sins, which brings us to our next question: Why does John say that God is "faithful and just" when he forgives us? To answer this question we only have to go to the book of Isaiah and read what was prophetically written about the death of the Messiah; Isaiah wrote:

But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5

According to this verse when Jesus died on the cross He paid the penalty for our sin, so it is just for God to forgive us not because we deserve to be forgiven, but because the penalty for our sin has already been paid. Our faithful God is justified in forgiving us simply because the debt of our sin has already been paid, and to require another payment for our sin beyond what His Son has already paid would be unjust because it would be like a judge requiring a criminal to pay a fine that has already been paid in full.

Finally then we read in verse 9 that "He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness." John has already told us (verse 8) that we are not to deceive ourselves by thinking that we are sinless, and he has just told us that we are to confess our sins to God. Now he is giving us a wonderful truth that as we confess to God every sin that we are aware of that because God is faithful and just, and because Jesus has paid the penalty for our sin with His blood, that God will forgive not only the sins that we know of and confess to Him, but He will forgive ALL of our sins - even the ones we are unaware of!

John then wraps up this chapter in verse 10 where he once again reminds us that we are all sinners and when we deny that fact we show that we do not believe God's word about us; we make Him a liar and we prove that His word is not in us.