Confession, Repentance, & the Gospel

I used to think think that believers who talked a lot about confession of sin and repentance were legalistic. I perhaps some are. But I have come to see that I have suffered from not facing my sin and being cleansed by God's grace on a regular basis. Confession and repentance bring to me not a sin focus, but a gospel focus, and gratitude. I have become aware that some of the Christian leaders that I most respect strongly emphasize ongoing confession and repentance. Consider these quotes:

Francis Schaeffer said that the “present value of Christ’s blood for specific sin” was a critical factor in his spiritual renewal and ongoing effectiveness. This quote focuses on the nature of confession to God: “Let us say now that I have been living (in closeness with God) . . . And then sin reenters . . . The reality of (closeness with God) suddenly slips from me. I look up some morning, some afternoon, some night—and something is gone, something I have known; my quietness and peace are gone . . . Because God still holds me fast I do not have the separation of lostness, but I do have the separation from my Father in the parent-child relationship. And I remember what I had . . . There is a way back, and the basis of it is nothing new to us. The basis is again the blood of Christ . . . The first step in the restoration of the Christian after he has sinned is to admit that what he has done is sin. He must not excuse it; he must not call it by another name; he must not blame it upon somebody else; he must not call it less than sin. (And) he must be sorry for it . . . God the Father’s chastening hand is to cause us to acknowledge that a specific sin is sin; his hand can grow increasingly heavy until we come to acknowledge our sin and stop trying to get out from under it through some fancy terms, blaming it on other people or excusing it in some way. Do we want a restored relationship? We may have it . . . at any moment, but we are not ready until we are willing to call specific sin sin . . . Then I must bring the specific sin under the blood of Jesus Christ, by faith . . . Then my fellowship with God (will be) supernaturally restored. I am cleansed, ready to resume the spiritual life, ready again to be used by the Spirit for warfare . . . And I may come back for cleansing as many times as I need, on this basis.” (Complete Works, Vol. 3, True Spirituality, pp. 291-297).

Norman Grubb was a key missions leader in the middle of the 20th century. He wrote a little booklet called Continuous Revival in the early 1950’s to describe the relationship between ongoing confession/repentance and spiritual renewal. This quote focuses on the importance of confession to one another: “We can liken a man to a house. It has a roof and walls. So also man in his fallen state has a roof on top of his sins between him and God, and he also has walls up, between him and his neighbor. But at salvation, when broken at the Cross, not only does the roof come off through faith in Christ, but the walls fall down flat, and the man's true condition as a sinner saved by grace is confessed before (others). But the trouble soon begins again after conversion, and here lies the basic hindrance to continued revival. Con­tinued revival is continued brokenness, but brokenness is two-way, and that means walls kept down as well as roof off. But man's most deep rooted and subtle sin is the sin of pride: self-esteem and self-respect. Though hardly realizing it . . . we soon let those walls of respectability creep up again between ourselves and our brethren. We don't mind our brethren knowing about successes in our Christian living; they can know if we win a soul, if we lead a class, if we get a prayer answered, if we get good things from the Scriptures, because we too get a little reflected credit out of those things. But where we fail, in those many, many areas of our daily lives — that is a different question! If God has to deal with us over our impatience or temper in the home, over dishonesty in our business, over coldness or other sins, by no means do we easily bear testimony to our brethren of God's faithful and gracious dealings in such areas of failure. Why not? Just because of pride, self-esteem, although we would often more conveniently call it reserve! The fact is we love the praise of men as well as of God, and that is exactly what the Scriptures say stops the flow of con­fession before men.” (Continual Revival, pp. 15,16)

Jack Miller was a church planter and missions leader in the late 20th century. In his book Repentance, he points out the profound connection between ongoing repentance and evangelistic effectiveness: “Unless (you allow) His Spirit (to) continually search you out, you see your life almost immediately clogged with indifference, self-will, envy, pride, lust, and unbelief. You know that yesterday's love to God can be swiftly washed away by today's fear and worry . . . It can be a struggle even to name your sin before God. You flounder because the name you give your sin often expresses further evasion. You pray: ‘Lord, forgive me for not lov­ing Mrs. X.’ . . . Then . . . Jesus . . . begins to do His sovereign work. Suddenly you realize through the Holy Spirit that you have been trifling. Now you pray differently, with a stricken conscience: ‘Holy Father, I have not loved Mrs. X. But that's only part of my sin. In my heart I have despised her.’ So in your confession to God you fight to . . . give your sin its right name. Then you hand it over to Christ by faith and taste the happiness of guilt forgiven and find the deliverance from hypocrisy which comes through honest con­fession. What you now know is almost beyond words, but has the feel of clear shining after rain, sunshine after tears. Grace is for sinners, and you have felt grace make a clean sweep of your repentant heart. God loves you where you are, not where you have been pretending to be. There is a natural transition now to start loving other sinners where they are, not where they pretend to be—or where you think they should be . . . You find witnessing power only by going to the throne of grace and coming to Christ to get yourself clean and under the blessing of God. From there you go forth to share what you have received firsthand from the Father. This is the beating heart of Christian wit­ness . . . Confess your sins freely before God and you will have freedom to confess Christ before men.” (Repentance, pp. 116-125)