NOTHING TO CONFESS

At a reception following a Catholic Mass wedding I attended this past weekend in Philadelphia, a friend who is a lifelong Catholic asked me if Protestants believed in confession of sins.

I told him I grew up believing that Jesus Christ died to pay for my sins, but that I should pray for forgiveness when I screwed up so that I wouldn’t be punished.

Since attending a Bible church (www.graceimpact.org) in Chicago during my late 20s, though, I learned that praying for forgiveness had no application since grace is applied each time I sin. Any "punishment" I endure is simply the natural consequences of my sin, not something God has anything to do with.

The reality both Protestant and Catholic churches fail to teach is that we, as Believers, do not follow the Law program given to the Jews. As a result of Jesus Christ’s death and the raising up of Paul as the Apostle for the Gentiles (following Israel’s spurning of God’s mercy to them), we live today in what is called the Dispensation of Grace (Ephesians 3:2).

In at least 50 different passages, Paul talks directly about living under grace, not under the law, which includes praying things like, "Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."

The message is we are already forgiven of our sins--past, present and future. As Paul says in Colossians 2: 13-16, "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses."

Paul also says, "We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace…where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."

The way my pastor in Chicago explains it, the saved Israelite under the Law was required to come before a priest and confess his sin and offer a sacrifice in order for God’s forgiveness. (Leviticus contains a passage that details this.)

But as a result of the forgiveness through Jesus Christ to anyone who accepts Him as their personal Savior, forgiveness of sin is total, complete and unconditional; given on the basis of a free gift in grace.

"You don’t have to work for it, you don’t have to confess to get it and you don’t have to beg for it," stresses Pastor Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church. "When Jesus Christ died for you, every one of your sins was future and he’s forgiven every one of them on the basis of his shed blood. You don’t have to live under a cloud where God’s going to drop a chandelier on you if you don’t do something or you do do something.

"You say, ‘Yeah, but that’s to good to be true.’ Yeah, it is—that’s grace! That’s what God’s done for you in Christ!"