Confession is the admitting of doing wrong and the repenting of that wrong. Absolution is to be forgiven for the wrongs we confess. An error we make in today’s world is that, when someone tells us they are sorry for hurting us, we say, “That’s okay.” But, it is not okay. Doing wrong is a sin, and it is not okay to sin. When someone confesses, repents and tells us that they are sorry, we should tell them that they are forgiven, not that it is okay for them to do the wrong.
As our Bible reading for today says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. After looking at the Ten Commandments, how can any of us say we are without sin? Maybe we had better look again. We find out that we are sinners: now what? Now, comes confession. A hard fact to swallow is that God already knows our sins; therefore, it only makes sense that we should confess all of our sins to Him. We should confess even those sins which we do not know we have committed.
What about private confession before the pastor? Do we have to tell the pastor all of our sins? No, the Bible says nothing about confession to the pastor, only to God. Before the pastor, however, we may want to confess certain sins, especially those that are on our conscience and are bothering us— in order that he might pronounce God’s forgiveness to us.
Following our sincere confession, we receive absolution. We are absolved, that is, forgiven, from all our sins, especially those of which we have confessed. If we have confessed before God all of our sins, then all of our sins are forgiven. When this happens, we are to forget those forgiven sins and remember them no more. If we do believe God’s Word when He tells us that our sins are forgiven, they are removed as far as the east is from the west (they never come together). When we are forgiven, God wipes them out. We can turn right around and ask God about that sin for which we were just forgiven and He will say, in essence, “What sin?”
Because we daily sin much, we should daily confess our sins and receive God’s forgiveness.
Dear Lord, forgive me for all my sins, for the one I know and confess to You as well as the one which I have forgotten and know I should confess to You. Thank You for sending Jesus to take all my sins, all my sins from yesterday, for today and even the ones that I have yet to commit or omit tomorrow. Thank You that Jesus lived a perfect life, suffered, died and rose in my place. And thank You that through Jesus’ work I have the gift of forgiveness and the promise of life with You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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