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THE ART OF CHRISTIAN CONFESSION #1

“FIRST SAY YOU’RE SORRY”

It was a classic episode in the long-running M*A*S*H television series; maybe you remember it. One of the surgeons, B. J. Honeycutt, was fanatically faithful to his wife. Month after month, there in “The Swamp,” while other officers were bragging about their extramarital exploits, “Beej” wrote letters home to Peg. He had pictures of her. He drove his tentmates to boredom, then to distraction, with endless stories about his kids and their kindergarten achievements. If there was anyone who epitomized the eternal validity of the seventh commandment, it was Major Honeycutt.

And then one night, something happened. A pretty nurse had been going through some hard times. The Korean War had split up yet another home. Her husband had dumped her. B. J. had been a convenient shoulder to cry on. But later that evening, the crying had turned into more. Much more. Things had gotten out of hand, there in her tent, and B. J. admitted to a surprised Hawkeye Pierce that he had fallen off the fidelity wagon.

“I thought I heard a thud during the night,” his tentmate said sympathetically. And then he asked his friend: “What are you doing? What’s that piece of paper for?”

And with anguish on his face, Honeycutt told him: “I’m writing to Peg. To tell her. To confess.”

And right there let’s cut away to a commercial and pose a question. Are confession and THEN forgiveness the great “If-Then” requirement in the Word of God? Must a person confess before absolution can be granted? Does B. J. have to write that crushing, killer letter to Peg before his marriage can resume? Or will that air-mail bomb have the opposite effect?

There are some well-known verses in your Bible and mine — and you know, every single one of them, as far as I can find, seems to teach that this two-step process is absolutely vital. One: CONFESS. Two: GET FORGIVENESS. “A” MUST come before “B.”

You’re probably thinking with me of that great, powerful promise found in First John 1:9. Here it is:

“IF we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify [or “cleanse,” says the King James] us from all unrighteousness.”

There it is. Confess . . . then get forgiveness and also cleansing.

Let’s try a different, modernized version, just to see if this two-part formula is still in force in a new millennium. Here’s The Message paraphrase:

“If we claim that we’re free from sin” — leading in from verse eight — “we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, IF we admit our sins — make a clean breast of them — He won’t let us down; He’ll be true to Himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.”

That’s a bit amplified, but Dr. Eugene Peterson has the same ten-foot-tall word there: IF. “IF we admit. IF we confess.”

Now friend, perhaps it seems a bit churlish, or petty, to question the majesty of this verse. After all, these 22 words in the Bible promise us the most incredible gift. If you sin, God will forgive you. If you kill someone — and confess — God will forgive you. If you make a one-night mistake, far overseas in a nurse’s tent at the 4077th, and confess, God will erase the stain. He’ll forgive and cleanse. Cheats and thieves and proud people and drunkards and cocaine addicts and radio preachers can all fall to their knees, say the words, “I confess,” and know that all is forgiven. Every time. In every case. Under all circumstances. Friend, this is wonderful news. Is it not?

Well, yes, it is. It’s a promise I’ve clung to many times; in fact, daily. Here in the year 2002 . . . daily. Confess — and then rejoice in the forgiveness.

But again we return to the question. For the saved Christian, the believer who walks and talks with Jesus, who has an abiding relationship with God, does this “If-Then” scenario still hold true? You sin . . . and then confess . . . and THEN get forgiveness. Are your sins unforgiven, are they blazing in red letters on heaven’s books, condemning you, until that moment when you get down on your knees?

If you get out your Bible concordance and look up that word “confess,” or “confession,” and examine some of the Old Testament directives on this issue, you find the same policy in place there. Notice in Leviticus five:

“When anyone is guilty in any of these ways [a whole list described earlier in the book], he must confess in what way he has sinned and, as a penalty for the sin he has committed, he must bring to the Lord a female lamb or goat from the flock as a sin offering.”

So again, confession is the first step. The required first step. Notice that there is even a kind of punishment, or making-good, that is also prescribed. But the same good news we find in First John one is included here in Leviticus, down in verse six:

“And the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.”

Here’s Leviticus 26:40:
“But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their fathers — their treachery against Me and their hostility toward Me, which made Me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies — then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, I will remember My covenant with Jacob and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.”

Let’s go just a few pages over to the book of Numbers — and of course, this is still in the very thick of the Old Testament rules.

“When a man or woman wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the Lord, that person is guilty and MUST CONFESS the sin he has committed. He must make full restitution for his wrong, add one fifth to it and give it all to the person he has wronged.”

Even the great King David, who was a man after God’s own heart, had to “jump through the hoop” of admitting sin. You recall that poignant prayer of confession: Psalm 51. But here’s another verse on the matter, found in chapter 32:

“Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I WILL CONFESS my transgressions to the Lord’ — and You forgave the guilt of my sin.”

Well, friend, I say again, for a man like King David this one-two process was wonderful news. Here was a man who lusted for someone else’s wife. And he didn’t just lust; he sent for her and committed adultery with this beautiful stranger. Then he tried to cover up the crime. When that didn’t work, he arranged to have the woman’s husband killed. Then he married the widow. Then he got caught. I mean, this was a White House mess that makes the Clinton Chronicles look like nothing. And yet King David, upon confessing his sins, is forgiven. “Restore to me,” he pleads, “the joy of Your salvation. Do not cast me from Your presence.” And God does indeed forgive him. Wonderful news. Who could complain about such a generous offer — CONFESS, GET FORGIVENESS?

And yet the question remains. If you’re a Christian — trying desperately to do right, but stumbling and falling as we all do — and confessing sincerely every time you think to do it, every time you become aware of a sin in your life . . . is forgiveness held up, held back, locked away in a heavenly vault until you say the magic words? Are you lost, then saved, then lost, then saved on an eternal roller coaster ride of spotty salvation? Is a Christian’s relationship with God like a flickering, badly connected light bulb, where every mistake causes the light to temporarily go out?

We’ll hit this question squarely on the head first thing tomorrow, with a very challenging story from the Reformation history books and a priest named Martin Luther. For now, as we close, let’s get back to the 4077th in Korea, and our anguishing friend B. J. Honeycutt. He wants to confess; in fact, he’s already written the letter to Peg. He’s got to know that he’s forgiven, that his relationship with his wife, which he prizes more than anything else in his life, is still intact.

And Hawkeye Pierce sits down next to him. “Don’t mail that letter,” he tells him. “You made a mistake, yes. But you love your wife. Don’t hurt her — don’t damage the relationship you’re trying to preserve — by confessing NOW, in a letter.”

We don’t get theology from M*A*S*H episodes; that’s for sure. And confessing to a precious human partner like a wife, with all the fragile feelings that make up a wartime marriage, is not the same as confessing to our heavenly Father, whose ego is never bruised. But if it’s true that our relationship with God is the purpose of confession — might we learn something important about HOW to confess? And exactly what confession accomplishes? And how the “If — Then” of confession and forgiveness actually work?

Stay tuned.