The Nature of Confession of Sin

From Lesson 201 of the Biblical Framework Series

Charlie Clough

The greatest example is David and what’s interesting in David’s case, to further substantiate this problem about emotions and getting the standard right, is isn’t it amazing to read in Psalm 51, for a man who committed adultery and murdered, to say “Against Thee and Thee only did I sin.” Isn’t that strange language, “Against Thee and Thee only did I sin.” Now I’m sure David is not being… I mean, he must have been heartbroken when he realized he’d just killed one of his top officers, Uriah. Here’s a guy he sent out into war and deliberately engineered the tactics to kill this guy. He lost a trooper, a real good guy for him, and I’m sure he realized later, I mean the first baby he had by Bathsheba died, and then he had that awful trauma with his sons, one raped a sister and the other one killed a son and then Absalom started the whole nation in a revolt against him, it was just a mess, a continual mess that happened. So David’s not saying that he’s indifferent to the consequences, but what he is saying in Psalm 51 is that the sin ultimately is against God.

It helped me understand this, and I don’t know why I didn’t see this before, but years ago I was on a jury, and the lawyers were picking out the jury, questioning you about this and that, and I forgot what was the problem, the judge had the lawyers explain the nature of an infraction of law. What they pointed out was that so and so had done something to so and so, but the crime was against the State of Texas. And I got to thinking, the crime against the State of Texas, wait a minute, I thought the crime was against the victim. No, the crime is against the lawgiver. So our sins are a crime against the Lawgiver. Yes, they hurt people, but the crime is against God, not against the people. It is a crime socially, I mean, I’m not denying that, but I’m saying to understand what David’s driving at in Psalm 51 when he says “Against Thee and Thee only have I sinned,” he’s excluding Uriah, he’s excluding Bathsheba, he’s excluding the families involved. You’re saying is he making light of that? No, he isn’t making light of it but he’s acknowledging the focal point.

So that Psalm 51 verse in that sequence of chain that I gave you, that Psalm 51 verse is very important because it defines the nature of confession. The confession is a confession of guilt against God. That’s not saying not to go and try to make it right with the person you’ve offended, but that act of going to try to make it right with the person you’ve offended is not the confession that’s mentioned here.

Also notice something else, there’s not any intermediary in the confession. You don’t confess to somebody else who represents God. There’s no intervention of a priest. That’s interesting from the New Testament point of view because who are believers said to be in 1 Peter? You’re “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood,” so there’s the priesthood of the believer. And that was one of the doctrines that split Europe in half in the Reformation. You can imagine the power this had, if you think about it. Imagine yourself having been raised all your life to believe that you had to go to confession to the priest or you could have no fellowship with God. Now just imagine you were brought up this way, you did it, you saw your mamma do it, you saw your daddy do it, year after year after year after year, you did it and then all of a sudden one of these Protestants comes up to you and tells you, you don’t have to go to a priest, you can go to God directly. As a Christian who is it that indwells you? The Holy Spirit. Who is praying for you to maintain that grace pipeline? The Lord Jesus Christ. Whose righteousness causes you to have status anyway? It’s His righteousness, it’s not yours. So you exercise your priesthood, your individual personal priesthood by making confession for your own sin. That’s a monumental breakthrough. That’s what was so liberating and freeing. And that’s what so scared Church authorities because religious establishments are sinful like any other kind of establishment and one of the things every establishment does, at least every one I’ve been associated with, always tries to perpetuate itself. Well how do you perpetuate yourself? By getting a lock on the customer, on the market. How do you get a lock on the market religiously? By putting yourself as the in between mediary between God and man.

So the Protestant Reformation was a devastating blow to this, when they dared to say that men and women could come to God privately in their own priesthood and make confession of sin. What a mind-blowing thing this was. That’s what was so scary about the Protestant Reformation. That doctrine alone, the priesthood of the believer at this point of confession, broke the stranglehold of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe. And this was the focal point.