What About Unconfessed Sin?
by Paul Hazelden
Contents
Introduction
The question of unconfessed sin reveals a massive gap in
traditional evangelical theology. More importantly,
it causes untold grief - suffering which God never intended.
| Standard evangelical theology says that we
need to repent and confess our sins before we can be
forgiven. This means that any sins we forget about
or do not realise we have committed cannot be forgiven.
|
Please remember that we are looking at the problem of
unconfessed sin in this article - the problem of what happens
about the sin you cannot do something
about. If you know about a sin and choose not to
deal with it, that will leave you with a problem - but it's not
the problem we are looking at here!
Two failed answers
Universalism
Universalism says that we do not need to repent and confess our
sins. Our sins have been forgiven already, and we
are all going to Heaven whether we realise it or not.
This is clearly not compatible with mainstream Christian theology,
which teaches that some people will go to Heaven, while others will
go to Hell (see Mat. 7:14 for one example). However,
there is considerable Scriptural support for it.
Quite simply, if Christ died 'for the sins of the world' (1
John 2:2), and if He is the 'Saviour of all men' (1 Tim. 4:10),
then the sins of the world have been forgiven and everyone goes
to Heaven.
What does it mean to say that Jesus died for the sins of the
world? The Reformed answer is that Jesus' death only
gave the potential for all men to be saved, but in practice
Jesus only died for the sins of the Elect. If we
believe this, we cannot tell people 'Jesus died for you' in our
evangelism, because we just do not know. He may have
done, but we cannot tell until they are either saved or
dead.
It's not much of a message to give people. It
maintains a logical and consistent position, but does so at the
expense of a clear and simple gospel message. I
could accept that, if this was the only way to remain faithful
to Scripture, but it also requires us to interpret these
passages in a way that directly opposes their apparent and
straighforward meaning.
The standard evangelical answer is that Jesus died to give
everyone the possibility of eternal life - not salvation, but
the offer of salvation. But we are still left with
the Universalist's challenge: if Jesus died for everyone's sins,
why aren't everyone's sins forgiven? Granted,
not everyone believes and accepts this forgiveness, but even so,
if Jesus has died for the sins of those who do not believe in
Him, why do they not go to Heaven as well?
So - Universalism denies part of the Bible's clear teaching in
order to remain faithful to another part. The
traditional responses counter Universalism only by denying
other parts of the Bible. Neither the Universalists
nor their critics seem to have the answer we are looking
for.
Traditional Evangelicalism
Back to the problem of unconfessed sin.
The answer given in most evangelical sermons on this subject is
that we need to pray. If we ask God, he will reveal
our sins, and we can then deal with them through repentance and
confession.
I have to be careful to moderate my language here.
Of all the unhelpful, trite and destructive things I have heard
repeated in evangelical sermons over the years, this aspect of
our teaching
has possibly caused more harm than any other. Many
faithful Christians have carried a burden of guilt and shame
through their lives, and much of their suffering comes directly
from this false teaching.
I am passionate about this subject because I know something of
the way it has blighted peoples' lives. The longer I
live, the greater the damage I see being done in this area by
well intentioned evangelicals.
The basic problem with this answer is: it just does not
work. I have met many people who believed this
teaching, but not one who can testify that it has worked in
their lives.
The strange thing is that we boldly proclaim you can have
full assurance of salvation, while effectively denying that you
can have full assurance of forgiveness. It is
impossible to be sure that you have confessed every
sin. You can pray, and God will generally reveal
something wrong in your life. But this has the
opposite effect to that promised.
Instead of leaving the believer with a clean conscience, it
re-inforces the belief that there are many more unconfessed sins
remaining to be dealt with. Every now and then, the
sensitive soul will 're-commit' themselves to the Lord; they
will offer up a blanket confession, and feel much better for a
few days or weeks. But slowly they come the the
realisation that nothing has fundamentally changed, and life
returns to normal. Knowing you have unconfessed, and
therefore unforgiven sins, is just something you have to learn
to live with. Even if the preachers don't explicitly
tell you so.
This is bad enough. Unfortunately, it gets
worse. The real damage is done when you
combine this belief
with another standard aspect of evangelical preaching - the
conviction that God can only use a 'clean vessel'.
This combination of beliefs produces two outcomes.
Firstly, you find many Christians spend their entire lives
waiting to be made holy enough to start the work God has (we are
all assured) lined up for them. They may get
involved in various ways, help out with this or that, volunteer
for something or serve on a committee or two. But
they are always waiting for the real, significant work that is
going to come their way when they become mature enough to be
clean vessels and fit to do the Lord's work.
I hardly need to spell out what this means. For
some, they are doing the work the Lord has planned, but are
unable to enjoy it, or take the appropriate degree of delight,
satisfaction and pride in what they do, because they are
convinced He has something else planned, so this must be a
temporary, second best type of service they are
offering. For others, they cannot take up the
ministry God is calling them to because they are 'not ready',
'not sufficiently prepared' or some such excuse.
They hardly ever say it is because they are too sinful
or not forgiven enough - we evangelical Christians don't admit
to such things - but that is what it boils down to in the
end.
The second problem is experienced by those who commit
themselves to some Christian ministry that God is clearly
calling them to exercise. They often make that
commitment in faith that God will 'sort them out' - the
expectation being, of course, that He will do this
before they start the work, of course. Such
people often throw themselves enthusiastically into the ministry
- maybe as a Priest, Pastor, or some other full time Christian
worker - and know God's blessing on their ministry and life, but
all the time there is a nagging fear or conviction they they
are living a lie. True Christian Ministry can only
come from someone with 'clean hands and a pure heart' (Psalm
24:4), and the more they work at it, the more conscious they are
that this is something they are lacking.
Every time they stand up and proclaim the gospel or pronounce
God's forgiveness of sins, they are convicted of their own need
to 'get clean' before God, and their own inability to attain
that state. They are condemned by their own sermons,
but keep going because they are convinced that what they preach
is right, even if they are too immature, weak or sinful to enjoy
the wonderful blessings they describe. I am
convinced that some sermons are little more than simple wishful
thinking, while others have a real element of faith in them: if
I can preach it fervently enough, perhaps I will come to believe
it myself.
There are many factors which combine to produce stress in the
ministry. But I am convinced that one vital and
often unrecognised source of stress is the fact that many
ministers of the gospel believe themselves to be living a
lie. They preach sound evangelical theology, they
proclaim you can live as a Christian enjoying your relationship
with the Father as a forgiven and restored child, but they fail
to enjoy and delight in that relationship themselves because of
the unconfessed sin they know to be lurking in their lives.
Understanding the problem
I could continue to describe the problem in much more graphic
detail, describing many conversations I have had with people
over the years But I doubt that anything more needs
to be said: most people recognise the problem easily
enough. The question is, what can be done about
it? Before we come to look at the Biblical answer,
we need to look in a little more detail at what the Bible says
about the problem.
A major part of our difficulty lies in the fact that we fail to
understand the Bible's clear teaching about how we can become
guilty. On the one hand, we are guilty for far more
than we generally recognise, but on the other hand, we often
feel guilty when God says we are innocent.
Law
The law is much more than the Ten Commandments.
It is reasonably easy to avoid murder and adultery - at least,
it was before Jesus re-defined them! But other
aspects of the law are much harder to keep. How many
of us manage to love our neighbour as ourselves, even for one
day?
But even in the Old Testament, when the sixth commandment only
said you must not kill people, there were many sins you could
commit without realising it. You could use the wrong
saucepan by mistake, or you could walk over an unmarked grave
and not realise you were ritually unclean.
If you think of the law as being restricted to the ten
commandments, it may be just about keepable (although the one
that says don't covet is quite tricky) - but when you add all
the rest of Leviticus, it's quite impossible.
Sin
We often fail to distinguish between different types of
sin. Although we have several words - sin,
transgression, wrongdoing - we only seem to have one
concept.
But in the Bible, the language is much more subtle.
Or, to be precise, the languages. In both the Old
and the New Testaments, there is one main word (or root) which
is translated as 'sin' in English. In the Hebrew, it
is 'chata' and in the Greek, 'hamartia'. In both
languages, the root meaning is 'to miss'.
The usual picture used to describe the root meaning of the word
is that of archery. You aim at a target, and if you
miss, the word is 'hamartia'. Now, it is easy to see
how this meaning gets applied in a moral sense. A
physical falling short easily becomes an image of a moral
falling short, failing to make the mark, failing to achieve the
expected standard.
But the point remains that the base meaning of the word is not
essentially moral failure, just failure in general.
In the Old Testament, 'sin' is also used to translate 'shagah -
'to stray' - which may be a stupid thing to do, but again, is
not primarily a moral issue. It is also used to
translate 'avown' (fault) and 'asham' (guilt) - which
are clearly moral failings.
Does this matter? You bet it does! For
the sake of our own mental health, and to be responsible in our
interpretation of Scripture, we simply have to recognise
that:
|
Failure is not always a moral issue.
|
I have to ask you: did Jesus ever sin? In the moral
sense, that is - did He ever do anything blameworthy, incur
guilt for a moral lapse? The New Testament is very
clear that he was faultless, spotless, innocent.
But the New Testament also records that He was born as a baby,
and grew in wisdom (Luke 2:52). This means He was
less wise, and then became more wise. He grew, He
developed like any other infant. He had to learn to
walk and talk like any other child. He did not
spring into existence as a fully formed, perfect adult human
being.
I have never heard anyone from the mainstream evangelical
church teach that Jesus did everything perfectly first
time. He would have been a very strange child if He
had never mispronounced a word or got His grammar confused when
learning to talk, or if He never stumbled and fell when learning
to walk. Or if the first time He ever threw a stone,
(and every subsequent time) He hit precisely the spot He was
aiming for. He certainly would not have been human
like us if that were the case!
But people who are quite willing to concede that Jesus must have
failed at times when He was learning to do things, and that
these failures were not moral lapses - these people are
often very reluctant to accept the idea that some of their own
failures are not moral lapses.
|
To put it bluntly, many Christians believe they are
expected to be more perfect than Jesus was.
|
We see
imperfection as a moral failure, when often it is the best that
can be achieved in imperfect circumstances. I am
convinced that much of the time, what we consider to be a sorry
failure, God regards as as a stunning success. We
blame ourselves for falling short of some standard, when the
failure is not a moral one, and our Father is delighted we have
achieved the very best He hoped for.
Now, please don't get me wrong: I am not saying that
we do not sin, or even that we don't sin quite a
lot. But we seem to spend a lot of time worrying
about things which are not sins, while totally ignoring many
things which are far more morally damaging.
God's answer
Sacrifice
The Bible tells us a great deal about sacrifice.
The Old Testament describes numerous types of
sacrifice. One common way of approaching the
sacrifices is to put them into three groups:
- Expiation (dealing with sin and guilt);
- Consecration; and
- Fellowship
When more than one sacrifice was being offered (Num.
6:16-17, for example) they were generally offered in this
sequence - which makes sense. Similarly, on the Day
of Atonement, the High Priest had to offer a sacrifice for his
own sin and that of his family before he could officiate on
behalf of the nation (Lev. 16:11-15).
It is clear in the Old Testament that if you knew you had
sinned, you were responsible for making the appropriate
sacrifice. But it is also clear that on the Day of
Atonement the High Priest must carry out his duties 'because of
the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites,
whatever their sins have been. (Lev. 16:16, my
emphasis). In other words, the sacrifice covered all
the sins the Israelites did not know about.
This point is made explicit in the New Testament, in Hebrews
9:7. Most translations say that the High Priest
enters the sanctuary but once a year, 'and not without taking
blood which he offers for himself and for the sins (or errors)
of the people'. However, the NIV accurately reflects
the original Greek, which does not use the usual word for sin or
error, but instead uses 'agnoematon' (literally,
'ignorances'). Clearly, the main focus was on the
sins the people did not realise they had committed.
The others, we assume, had already been forgiven.
True forgiveness
Of course, the sacrifices of the Old Testament could not really
deal with sin. They were only a foreshadowing of the
one perfect and complete sacrifice offered by Jesus.
But the sacrifices of the Old Testament help us understand
Christ's work in the New, as the Hebrews 9 passage explains.
The key point is that the work of Jesus is better, 'more
perfect', more effective than the activities described in the
Old Testament. His work cannot be 'more perfect' if
He failed to deliver forgiveness to those who are ignorant of
their sin, since this is part of what was promised (and, in
faith, delivered) under the old covenant.
So it is clear that Jesus, in His High Priestly role, offered
Himself as an atonement for all our sins - both the
ones we know about and the ones we are ignorant of.
Both the sins we have confessed, amd the sins we have not
confessed.
Restored relationship
If this is true, someone may object, why do we bother to repent
and confess our sins at all? But this objection
completely misses the point.
The forgiveness of sins is a means, not an end in
itself. God's purpose is not to forgive us, but to
restore us.
Yes, we could refuse to repent and confess. Our
sins would be just as forgiven. But we would be
continuing to live outside the relationship of love and
obedience our Heavenly Father desires for us to have with
Him.
The problem with sins is not that it needs to be forgiven
(since this has already been done), but that it gets in the way
of our relationship with our Father.
Why does sin get in the way of our relationship with our
Father? Not because He refuses to forgive us until
we repent - we are forgiven already. But God is
truth - ultimate reality - and if we withdraw from reality (by
pretending the action is not wrong, for example) we hold
ourselves back from Him.
This is why confession is so important: the honest
acknowledgement of the truth. Yes, I did it, and
yes, I know it was wrong. As we accept the truth, we
find ourselves in touch with the One Who is Truth.
And since the God of truth is also good, once we know something
to be wrong, we must choose whether to continue holding on to
that wrongness, or to repent and turn to God once more.
Confession and repentance are not mechanical actions He
requires of us before allowing us to regain fellowship with Him,
but the two key ingredients which bring us to a renewed and
restored relationship with this God Who is both good and
loving.
But they are only essential if we know we have
sinned. I cannot confess a sin I do not know
about. But then, if I do not know about it, I am
not refusing to acknowledge the truth - I am not holding myself
back from the God of truth.
Equally well, if I do not know something is wrong, I cannot
repent of it. But then, I am not holding onto
something I know to be wrong. I am not choosing to
embrace evil, so it does not hinder my fellowship with a holy
God.
As soon as my eyes are opened, as soon as the Holy Spirit
reveals an area of sin im my life, then I must respond: I must
confess the truth of what He has revealed, accept the truth of
my own sinfulness, and turn away from it so that my relationship
with Him can be restored. But until He chooses to
reveal this sin, until He decides that the time is right for me
to take this step, He is content for me to live in
ignorance.
Rooting out all the sin in my life is a process that will take
all my life. It a process called
'sanctification. It is the way God has chosen to
work. He has decided we will not be made perfect in
an instant. He has decided to form us into the image
of Jesus one step at a time. How could a loving God
turn His face from me today because of sin which He has chosen
not to reveal to me until tomorrow?
Objections
I intend to add to this section if anyone raises with me any
objection to the basic message of this article. No
objections have come this way as yet. Here are a
couple of issues I have come across in other contexts.
We underestimate God's holiness
It is suggested that any approach which attempts to explain or
justify God's behaviour in sending sinners to Hell is misguided
because we under-estimate the importance of God's holiness: He
would be entirely justified if He chose to save
nobody. Nobody deserves to be saved, and if He
chooses to save some, that is an expression of His grace.
I quite agree that we generally under-estimate the importance
of God's holiness. I also agree that He would be entirely
justified if He chose to send everyone to Hell. But He
has chosen not to do this - for which I am most grateful - and
He has chosen to tell us a great deal about who will end up in
Heaven or Hell and why. I am not seeking to 'justify'
God's behaviour, only to understand as clearly as possible what
He has chosen to reveal.
Sin against the Holy Spirit
Matthew 12:31-32 tells us about a sin that cannot be
forgiven. There are equivalent passages in Mark
(3:28-29) and Luke (12:10). How does this teaching fit
into the framework described here?
It is interesting to note that this is one of the standard
'difficult' passages, and the standard interpretation fits very
well into the framework I have described.
Context is always vital, and especially so in this case. In
both the Matthew and Mark passages, the context is that people
were claiming that the source of Jesus' power was Satan (or
'Beelzebub') - Matthew 12:24 and Mark 3:22. In Luke, the
context is a collection of sayings, some of them fairly obscure,
which rely on other passages for their clarification.
In both Matthew and Mark people are attributing actions which
are clearly right and good to the powers of darkness. If
someone chooses to believe that good is evil, they are both
rejecting the good and turning their backs on the truth.
In other words, they are choosing to reject God.
God reveals Himself more clearly at some times than at others;
He reveals Himself more clearly in some situations than in
others. It is less seriouus to reject an unclear
revelation of God than a clear revelation. The clearer
the revelation, the more important our response to it.
The essence of the normal evangelical interpretation of these
passages is that, if you deliberately and knowingly reject God
(even if you do not call what you are doing by that name) then
there is no hope for you. You cannot be forgiven, because
you have rejected the only source of forgiveness.
The clear teaching of these passages, and others, is that it is
possible to reject God in such a way as makes forgiveness
impossible - not because God has decided to give up on them, but
because they have decided to give up on God. This fits
very well into the framework being described here.
Conclusion
I could go on much longer. I could quote many more
passages, but I suspect little more would be added.
Once you have seen this truth, you can recognise it running as a
golden thread throughout the Bible.
There is no problem with unconfessed sin, because our sins have
been forgiven. If we choose to hold onto sin, that
choice makes a barrier between us and God. If we
choose to reject Him and turn away from Him, the fellowship is
broken, the joy gone. But that does not mean He
ceases to love us, or changes His mind concerning the
forgiveness He has already granted, forgiveness for every one of
our sins.
If you have never turned to God, then turn to Him now - accept
the love and the forgiveness He offers. Be accepted
as a member of His family. If you are already His
child, enjoy the love and forgiveness which are already yours,
and allow Him to guide you through the steps of sanctification
as your relationship with Him deepens with each passing day,
month and year.
He will not hold your sins against you, so don't allow them to
mar the joy of your relationship with Him, or to hold you back
from the path He wants you to follow. You will never
be perfect, not in this life - but He wants to use you the way
you are. Why not allow Him the joy of seeing His
desires for you fulfilled?
Links
This article is one of a group of three, each of which
should be read in the light of the other two, as together
they deal with a set of inter-related issues. The three
articles are: