WHAT IS THERE TO THE CONFESSION OF ALL KNOWN SINS?

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”, 1John 1:9.

There is more to a clean heart than the imputed righteousness of God – it is an abode to that righteousness which may not be imputed, but living from there Itself. A clean heart is a place where God can be as He is.

People easily state things concerning their faith in a living God so they may carry on in their pleasure of sinning while believing. From there to say they have not to be holy but hope upon holiness which is Christ’s alone in such a way as to avoid being holy themselves, is but a small step. They find that Christ is the minister of unrighteousness, rather than of light – somehow they do that! Some even have it as an offense to be holy as God is holy, and especially because He is holy. But because He is holy, the place He manages to touch will be turned holy before He comes in there to abide and not to come in and out at the command of the vessel, in times such wishes to have God (in trouble, for example) and at times he does not really feel the need to have him around seeing all of his selfish desires are being met then.

The confession of all sin grants forgiveness, yes, but there is something in the rules of forgiveness we should be aware of. The confession of sin does not expose what we have done alone, but who has done it. There is a root for all sinning in man and God demands confession, not because He wants to know what we have done, but that we acknowledge and bring out TO OURSELVES MERELY why and who has done it. Confession of sin is able to lead to the root of sin, to expose it to death.

If we follow the life of an ant, we will find it follows a trail it alone may follow up again, which it has been left behind once it walked that way. That ant follows its way back right through, being aware of whatever it has left behind. The sinner too finds his way into his own heart and soul in the same pattern, for that’s just how he is able to reach the nest of sin, where he finds there is still unrighteousness breeding sins which will also leave the heart and migrates to the outside, yet leaving a trail to follow back again, in the opposite direction.  

If you could hold a piece of darkness in your hand, the way to annihilate it, is to expose it to light and never to rub it to death with the help of the other hand. To do so, will only contribute to exalt and extol its smell which will, in its turn, activate all senses towards sinning all over again. These people, who rub sin to a death it does not reach that way, if they really aim to mean business with God, they usually come out crying in all despair: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Rom 7:24.

Now, it is this “body of sin” Christ intends to reach through confessions, for this body breeds sin, sin leads to death – hence the words “body of this death”, which is a specific death towards Life. There is a body inside which has to die first, if sinning is to stop, if people are to be alive unto God. We known that Christ said to leave all sinning, the Word of God even says that “the Redeemer shall unto them that turn from transgression, saith the LORD”, Is.59:20.  We may not leave sinning nominally, but rather genuinely, by gaining a new heart and soul from the root on, to the outskirts of living.

There is a story I recall from the time I have fancied worldly matters and things – it is obviously an imaginary story born in Ancient England from the castles of vampires. The vampires would go out at night alone, biting people and these bitten ones soon would turn themselves into biting ones as well, who would feel safe under the shadows of darkness alone from then on. I recall how, as a child, I saw one of those movies where the main Vampire at last was thrown into the sun-light and withered away into an awful death. It began to crumble and rotten away speedily, its body becoming as rotten as a body would after many days of decomposing exposure to the elements of nature. The body of sin would, in that way and in no time, find the decomposition it should have gone through, as the tale goes, during hundreds of years. It finds its total decomposition in a few minutes alone.

Although this is a devilish fairytale, yet there is something we may take from it for the purpose of dealing with this “body of sin” we are talking about. We read from Paul that “for whatsoever doth become manifest, is light”. It means that darkness, once exposed, may not be regarded as darkness but as light from then on.

We know Christ forgives once a person is able never again to be or to do what it confessed, from then on. It is not a liar any more who confesses to have lied, if he is truthful at heart. Confessing the lie exposes the liar to death. If a liar says “I have lied”, mind, he is talking the truth! A liar does not talk the truth concerning his lying, as he is found doing during confession. Mark that he is become a truthful man concerning his lying. Darkness has been turned into light, a liar into a truthful man, holding his old lies to the light. A killer is to be forgiven once he stops killing and never when he confesses he has killed! “He who covers his sins shall not be blessed (with a new nature, a new body of righteousness); but whoever confesses and leaves them shall have mercy”, Prov 28:13.

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