We are told in Scripture to “discipline [ourselves] for the purpose of Godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7). Among the many spiritual disciplines that Christians utilize in their pursuit of Godliness, things like prayer, meditation, Bible-reading, and fasting usually top the list. These are all worthwhile endeavors but I believe there is another very important discipline for the Christian life that tends to be neglected to the harm of the Christian. That is the discipline of confession.
1 John 1:5-10 is one of the classic texts on the discipline of confession of sins. This text teaches us the proper purpose of confessing sin and the glorious benefit of doing so.
God is Light
One of the phrases that the Apostle John uses to refer to confession of sin is “walking in the Light” (1 John 1:7). To walk in the Light is to walk with God because John says that “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (v. 5).
1 John 1:5 serves to introduce the rest of the passage and lays the foundation of God being Light and having no darkness in Himself. This indeed was a direct message from Jesus because John says that he “heard [it] from Him”.
What follows is a patterned passage that flows ABABA:
A: If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; (v. 6)
B: but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. (v. 7)
A: If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. (v. 8)
B: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (v. 9)
A: If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. (v. 10)
The A pattern represents walking in darkness and the B pattern represents walking in the Light. Each installment of each pattern is clearly synonymous and corresponding.
In vv. 6, 8, and 10, John says that if we claim to have no sin, to have not sinned, or to walk in fellowship with Christ and yet walk in darkness, that we are lying, self-deceptive, and accusatory towards God. We are walking in darkness by lying (v. 6). We are walking in the darkness of self-deception and the void of truth (v. 8). And we are walking in the darkness of hostile accusation towards God (v. 10).
In vv. 7 and 9, John gives us the positive side of this reality. He says that if we walk in the Light we have fellowship with God and one another (v. 7) and we will receive forgiveness and cleansing from our sin (v. 9).
Fellowship
The word John uses in vv. 6 and 7, translated “fellowship” in the NASB above, is the Greek word koinōnia. This word communicates the idea of partaking or sharing together. So if we claim that we partake with Christ but we refuse to walk in the Light (i.e. among other things, confess sin) that we are lying and we are not “doing the truth”. If we do confess sin, however, then we will indeed partake, not only with God, but also with other believers.
This is the essence of Christian community. We are a people who have been freed by the Gospel to walk in the Light with each other. Our confession of sin does not establish a barrier to deeper communion with one another, instead it establishes that deeper communion itself.
Confession of sin is essential to the Christian life in the sense that it is of the essence of the Gospel. Grace is given to the broken and the sinful. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ and so we are free to not hide anymore.
Unfortunately, many evangelical Protestant Christians today have neglected this essential discipline. The Roman Catholic church, for all its doctrinal problems in other areas, serves as a good example for Protestants in the prioritization of confession. Of course, Roman Catholic confession is to a human priest who intercedes for the confessor before God. And we, as Protestants, reject this structure but the priority that the Roman Catholic church places on the act of confessing sins should serve as an exhortation to us in the Protestant church.
Confession of sin doesn’t need to look like it does in the Roman Catholic tradition. It needn’t involve a confessional booth and a priest and a “forgive me, father”. But it must take place.
Cleansing
The confession of sin also brings forgiveness and cleansing.
This is not to say that God will turn us away from Heaven because we forgot to confess that one time we told a white lie or cussed at someone in traffic. Unconfessed sin is damaging to one’s spiritual life when it piles up habitually but it is not damning. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, John says.
Confession of sin is not a “work” that we must do to secure salvation. We are saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8). But the confession of sin and the walking in the Light does bring cleansing of sin in a very important way. It provides the thrill of grace for every mistake we make and with that thrill in our hearts, leads us deeper into fellowship with our God which necessarily leads us further away from partaking in sin.
The Apostle John continues into chapter 2: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” Extricating ourselves from the entanglements of sin is not a solitary duty, it is a community project. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, applying the gracious redemption bought by Christ’s blood to our daily doings, thinkings, and willings. It is also the stumbling, faltering, steps we take in the Light among our brothers and sisters who are stumbling right along with us.
Perhaps the reason that we don’t like the idea of confessing our sin is that we fear “that [our] deeds will be exposed” (John 3:20) and we are still growing in our heart-understanding of the Gospel.
Because of the Gospel, we do not need to fear the Light. We will all face the Light one day, one way or another. But because of the Gospel we know that whatever of ours is brought out into the Light will be covered by the blood of Jesus. Therefore, we can bring it into the Light ourselves and receive grace.