To Confess

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by Mike Ratliff

9 ἐὰν ὁμολογῶμεν τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν, πιστός ἐστιν καὶ δίκαιος, ἵνα ἀφῇ ἡμῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας καὶ καθαρίσῃ ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης ἀδικίας. (1 John 1:9 NA28)

9 If we confess our sins , He is faithful and just, that he may forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9 translated from the NA28 Greek text)

When the focus of “Christianity” is moved from being God-focused to Man-focused confusion is the ultimate consequence. We see this with so-called Christian leaders like N.T. Wright who is nothing more than an intellectual “Christian” liberal who is attempting to redefine the Gospel or “Good News” along the lines of those who follow Jesus asserting Christ’s kingdom here on earth. On the other hand, there are multitudes of other aberrations of Christian doctrine in which so-called Christian leaders with no understanding of the Sovereignty of God and His Grace who attempt to dismantle Christian doctrine and redefine it along the lines of Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, and Arminianism. 

What are Christians to do when they sin? False teachers insist that they lose their salvation. However, that teaching is inconsistent with the Biblical principle of “eternal salvation” (Hebrews 5:9), which is taught throughout the New Testament.

Read the passage I placed at the top of this post. What did the Apostle John teach us in that verse? If we do sin, we are forgiven by confessing our sin. The words, “we confess” translates ὁμολογῶμεν or homologōmen. This is a compound word made up of λέγω or legō, which means “to say,” and the prefix ὁμο or homo, which means “same.” Combined, ὁμολογῶμεν gives us the meaning, “to say the same words.” Therefore, what does it mean here? To confess sin means “to say the same thing about sin that God says,” that is, “to call sin, sin.” The same word, ὁμολογῶμεν, is used in Romans 10:9-10.

9 ὅτι ἐὰν ὁμολογήσῃς ἐν τῷ στόματί σου κύριον Ἰησοῦν καὶ πιστεύσῃς ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ σου ὅτι ὁ θεὸς αὐτὸν ἤγειρεν ἐκ νεκρῶν, σωθήσῃ· 10 καρδίᾳ γὰρ πιστεύεται εἰς δικαιοσύνην, στόματι δὲ ὁμολογεῖται εἰς σωτηρίαν. (Romans 10:9-10 NA28)

9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. (Romans 10:9-10 NASB)

In other words, to be saved, we must say the same words about Christ as Scripture, that He is God and that He sis the only way to salvation.

So, to confess is to join the ranks of David who said, “I have sinned” (Psalms 51:4). To confess means that we do not make excuses, we do not blame others, but rather we “acknowledge” our sins (v3) with “a broken and contrite heart” (v17), When we do truly confess our known sin what does God do? He cleanses us from all sin. Now that is grace, Amazing Grace! We no longer require redemption, only cleansing. Confession shows a relationship, a relationship of a child to a Father, and we can rejoice in that wonderful relationship.

Soli Deo Gloria!

4 thoughts on “To Confess”

  4. Greetings!
    ( :
    When it comes to freewill and predestination, I acknowledge both. There are bible verses used for both and some that have both packed into one also. It makes sense to me. I don’t hold to any sort of ‘works’ salvation or anything else like that. There are just some things that I am content leaving as mysterious. I must say the same for eternal security. In one sense I feel that all who are truly His will always be so, yet there are bible verses that indicate there is a risk. I do not know where the mysterious line is drawn or if there is one. I do, however, feel that it is better to be safe than sorry. There are verses such as if we deny Him before men, He will deny us before the Father. If we want to get technical about it, we can say that if faced with death, we still would not deny Him because we are indeed His, while those who aren’t; would deny Him. The same with election. Since God is on the other side and knows all these things in advance, that somehow enters the picture that we are missing. All we need to worry about is being faithful and obedient to the Lord until the end. Whatever is at work behind the scenes will take care of itself. And then, when on the other side, we can still debate whether it was only predestination or not, and so on. ( ; I think we will see it all the more clearly from heaven’s side. Until then I am content to fellowship with people from either of these camps or any combination of them as I don’t see it as a fundamental. A fundamental is: we are saved by grace, through faith in the finished work of Christ alone, and there is only one path to God, through that work.
    ( :
    May the love and peace and fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you!

    P.S. I hope you are enjoying something from all those pages… ( ;

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