I understand confession doctrinally, from a different perspective, perhaps limited in context to His forgiveness of sin in His sanctification process.
For example, we are told to remain in prayer continually.
I know that when I sin, it doesn’t happen to happen when I’m in faith through Christ is all of my thinking. On the contrary, one common denominator in all sin, I’ve found, is that it always occurs independent of faith through Him.
So now comes the issue of post salvation sin and sanctification. In order for God, the Holy Spirit to be free in His immutable nature, to sanctify us, there must be something He finds righteous in us.
When we turn our thinking back to Him, (i.e. true meaning of repent, not emotional, simply turning back to Him, a brokenness in our independent thinking away from Him), then He can see our faith as righteous.
The second step of our return is confession.
I think a lot of people get confused on this point, thinking that if we apologize, God is simply being courteous in responding to us and forgetting our sin. I don’t think that is the mechanic ongoing in confession.
What I perceive is that when we sin (post salvation sin) there is a fearful expectation of condemnation in us. That expectation is because we know our Lord Christ Jesus died for our sin, and that when we are faithful through Him, He provides our salvation. I don;t find in Scripture where God jerks salvation away from us when we sin, but in our souls, our thinking processes, there is a natural anticipation, an expectation, that in a fair transaction, when we fail to remain faithful, He is not obliged to hold up the consequent end of the covenant, the deal. IMHO, this thinking is premature, because when Christ paid for all sins on the Cross, God already knew from time in eternity past, exactly who was going to be saved and who wasn’t. He still died for our sins. It was His Sovereign act in deity and in humanity to provide that propitiation for sin.
Nevertheless, in our thinking, whenever we sin, we naturally do not anticipate salvation any longer, even though once in His Royal family, we are there for eternity. Bit when we return to Him in repentence, He is free to return to us.
When we confess the sin, known and unknown, we also then have assurance from His payment on the Cross, that by 1stJohn 1:9, He is sure and just to forgive us those sins.
Confession, as I understand it, is a thinking mechanism between us and God, though faith in Christ, whereby after our repentance and confession, He is then free to continue our sanctification process and we stop scarring our soul requiring His double work in our thinking processes.
Confession is then a purely private matter between the believer out of fellowship and God the Father, through faith in Christ.
I also observe many temptations for distraction when we involve others in the confession process. For example, instead of relying 100% on God, through 100% faith through Christ alone, there is a tendency to focus on a different person when discussing our sin. That human we are discussing the issue with might afford some academic tutoring, but in no way whatsoever has authority from God to influence our very personal human spirit. We aren’t priests to the priest to the High Priest to God. Our route is to God the Father, simply through one High Priest in our individual priesthood, which only God Himself has given us, and no other.
Confession through third parties invites a counterfeit thankfulness on the part of the believer towards the priest being confessed through instead of Christ, our High Priest.
Another temptation arises for third parties to gossip regarding our sin. This promotes a worldly system of morality as a counterfeit the the system of sanctification which God has provided us through faith in Christ and allowing God the Holy Spirit perform all His work in us in accordance to His Plan.
WRT confession, I see a thinking process, which perhaps may also be involved psychologically (in the soul) which might even have physical aspects. We are told not to go to sleep while a sin is in our heart towards our fellow man. We also have provisions and allegories of the heart as being used in the soul to purify our thinking processes while we remain in fellowship with Him. It strikes me that one aspect of confession, might actually be to prevent physical aspects of renewing our mind happen in a fashion that doesn’t scar our thinking, but promotes our sanctification.
One of the worst aspects of sin, is the scarring of our thinking processes, our soul. The next time our thoughts encounter a similar sequence or environment where we sinned in the past, our scarred thinking tends to replicate the past thinking. Habits on thought are formed, in sin, as well as in sanctification. Even though God may have forgiven us, our body and thinking (soul) might still be scarred to sin, such that we have a greater propensity to sin in that area than when we never encountered the temptation earlier. In this respect, I see confession as a very personal aspect to reduce our propensity to succumb to temptation, but again only through faith in Christ.
If we use confession as an external method, for others to keep us from sin, we simply are forming a worldly counterfeit to faith in Christ, interrupting the issue before us and substituting the authority of others for our own volition.
Do you know of any other passages in Scripture which expand more upon confession than the issues strictly between God and the believer returning to Him?
**Confession, as I understand it, is a thinking mechanism between us and God, though faith in Christ, whereby after our repentance and confession, He is then free to continue our sanctification process and we stop scarring our soul requiring His double work in our thinking processes.
Confession is then a purely private matter between the believer out of fellowship and God the Father, through faith in Christ.**
I think we will have to agree to disagree on this because in doing as you say, one does not know for sure that his or her sins are forgiven.
In the Sacrament of Reconciliation we DO KNOW that God forgives our sins. To me, that is a big difference.
In John 20:22, the Lord "breathes" on the apostles, and then gives them the power to forgive and retain sins. The only other moment in Scripture where God breathes on man is in Gen. 2:7, when the Lord "breathes" divine life into man. When this happens, a significant transformation takes place.
Continuing the Scripture, in John 20:23, Jesus says, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained." In order for the apostles to exercise this gift of forgiving sins, the penitents must orally confess their sins to them because the apostles are not mind readers. The text makes this very clear.
Consider, for example, St. Pio who was granted many charisms by our Lord. He spent many hours in the confessional. People would line up, sometimes for days, in order to have their confessions heard by this saintly priest. The following gives great insight into this aspect of his priesthood.
Flowing from the Side of Christ on the Cross was the grace of reconciliation between God and Man (Rom. 5:8-11). Thus, on the evening of the Resurrection Our Lord appeared to His Apostles and said,
Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained. (John 20:21-23)
Padre Pio's conformity to the Pascal Mystery of His Lord necessarily included the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18-20) and, its fruit. Toward that end he dedicated many hours of the day to the confessional, both in the mornings and the afternoon.
According to the practice common then he heard the confessions of men and women separately. The men's confessions he would hear in the sacristy, essentially in the open with a portable grill, while the women's would be heard in the church in his confessional.
To this task he brought an advantage that few confessors have, the ability to read hearts. Padre Pio's charism enabled him to know when someone was being deceitful in confession or simply had forgotten a serious sin, perhaps through lack of an adequate examination of conscience. In such cases he was able to tell the penitent exactly what they did and when, as well as any relevant circumstances. This drew many hundreds a day to him, moved by the grace of sincere repentance and the knowledge that Padre Pio could guide them with the wisdom of God in the spiritual life.
He also drew those who did not believe in his gifts or who intended to test the Padre. These were invariably unmasked, often in harsh ways. In the end they often repented, made a sincere confession and renewed their lives, despite their initial intentions.
He could read hearts. There were several penitents who arrived at his confessional only to be turned away and told to return when their consciences were more fully formed; in other words, when they were truly repentant of their sins. These individuals would return to the back of the line - some lines running as long as 10 days. When the penitent approached for the 2nd time, St. Pio would say: "I've been waiting for you! What took you so long?"
My pastor was taught in Seminary to recognize true repentance by the penitent's tears. Several years after his ordination, a man approached him at a local hospital and asked him to hear his confession. Father immediately donned his stole and sat down alone with the man. The many poured out his heart, lamenting his sins while crying profusely. Father immediately recognized the sincerity of this man's confession.
This brings to mind the words of our Lord to St. Faustina. With regard to the Sacrament of Confession, He said:
Today the Lord said to me, Daughter, when you go to confession, to this fountain of My mercy, the Blood and Water which came forth from My Heart always flows down upon your soul and ennobles it. Every time you go to confession, immerse yourself in My mercy, with great trust, so that I may pour the bounty of My grace upon your soul. When you approach the confessional, know this, that I Myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden by the priest, but I myself act in your soul. Here the misery of the soul meets the God of mercy. Tell souls that from this fount of mercy souls draw graces solely with the vessel of trust. If their trust is great, there is no limit to My generosity. The torrents of grace inundate humble souls. The proud remain always in poverty and misery, because My grace turns away from them to humble souls
I have heard stories of a priest in the confessional at St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC. There was a Jewish man who would come to him on a regular basis, to hear his confession. The priest acceded to his request but could not administer the actual words of forgiveness. There are no words more beautiful than to hear the priest say (with fully power from our Lord): "I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen" It is like stepping out of a shower.