confession of sin

Biblical and Early Church Models of the Confession of Sin

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In traditional Christian worship, acts of confession of sin may appear in the acts of entrance, the service of the Word, or at the Lord’s Table in association with the prayer of thanksgiving. In the worship of the contemporary liturgical renewal, the confession of sin usually occurs after the prayers of intercession, marking the transition into the service of the Lord’s Table. Prayers of confession are not usually found in the corporate worship of evangelical and charismatic churches; confession of sin is an act that usually accompanies individual conversion to Christ and personal counseling situations, rather than the life of the gathered assembly.

The concept of “confession” in the Bible is broader than the confession of sin; it includes above all the acknowledgment of the historic saving deeds of the Lord. Confession thus has a dominant creedal element that focuses attention on God rather than on the worshiper. Biblical worship is typically not introspective, as worship tends to be in contemporary North American culture. The Hebrew word for “making confession” means to confess Yahweh: to “confess [his] name” (1 Kings 8:33) and to acknowledge his acts in behalf of his people; it is often translated “give thanks.” Israel is often invited to “Confess Yahweh, that he is good; for his covenant love is forever” (Ps. 136:1, author’s translation). Confession is “agreement with God” in the sense of ratification of his offer of covenant.

This does not mean that the biblical worshiper is unmindful of sin in approaching the Lord. On the contrary, the majesty and dignity of the Holy One frequently evoke an acute consciousness of the worshiper’s sinful estate. One thinks of the archetypical experience of Isaiah, beholding in vision the presence of the Lord of Hosts in the sanctuary, and crying, “Woe to me! … I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips” (Isa. 6:5). The sin of which Isaiah is conscious is not in the first instance his violation of moral precepts or of the laws of God; rather, it is the deeper sin of having trespassed into forbidden territory, the creature’s fleeting glimpse of the glory of his Creator: “My eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” It is not humanity’s meditation on itself that calls forth confession of sin but the revelation of the surpassing worth of the awesome God: “Man shall not see me and live” (Exod. 33:20 RSV). Biblical confession is always God-centered.

The sacrificial worship of the Israelite sanctuary was based on the worshiper’s awareness of the distance between him or her, as a member of an all-too-often faithless and indifferent people, and Yahweh in his holiness and faithfulness to the covenant. While prayers of confession of sin are not typically part of the sacrificial worship, it is the Lord’s express desire that his people “humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways” (2 Chron. 7:14).

Thus prayers of confession are found in the Davidic worship of the Psalms, which express a personal and intense relationship between the Lord and his “godly ones” or ḥ‡sidim (Pss. 50:5 nasb; 149:5 nasb), those returning his covenant love. For such worshipers, consciousness of having violated the divine commandments can become a matter of acute spiritual crisis, as given voice in David’s outcry:

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.… Do not cast me away from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. (Ps. 51:4, 11)

The psalmists recognize the necessity of confession of sin in order to open oneself to the forgiveness of God, to restore the broken relationship:

When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Selah. 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. Selah. Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found. (Ps. 32:3–6)

Although such prayers are offered in the form of an individual confession, the speaker—especially in the role of the king—represents the community as a whole. Moreover, the use of the Psalms in the celebrations of the sanctuary, through the performance of the Levitical singers and musicians, places their confessional portions, along with all else, within the orbit of corporate worship.

There are also psalms (such as Pss. 78; 106) that specifically address the corporate sin of the nation in the form of extended confessions of both Yahweh’s deeds of deliverance and the people’s rebellion and unfaithfulness:

But then they would flatter him with their mouths, lying to him with their tongues. Their hearts were not loyal to him, they were not faithful to his covenant. (Ps. 78:36–37)

We have sinned even as our fathers did; we have done wrong and acted wickedly. (Ps. 106:6)

The psalmists are aware that the sin of the community is not hidden from the Lord; they call on him for his mercy:

You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. (Ps. 90:8)

Do not hold against us the sins of the fathers; may your mercy come quickly to meet us, for we are in desperate need. (Ps. 79:8)

Similar confessions of sin are found in the utterances of individual spokespersons for the Israelite community during the Exile and the following period of restoration. Lamentations, written by Jeremiah, is a confession of national sin. The prophet Daniel prayed a prayer (Dan. 9:4–19) acknowledging that the curse of Yahweh’s judgment was justified by the unfaithfulness of the people (cf. 2 Chron. 6:37). He pleaded with the Lord to turn his wrath away from Jerusalem and to restore his presence in the sanctuary. Nehemiah prayed a prayer of the same type upon learning of the distress of the remnant in Judea in the early postexilic years (Neh. 1:5–11). While not corporate prayers, these confessions may have been based on liturgical models recalled from the suspended worship of the Jerusalem sanctuary.

The early Christians were a community gathered around the joyous “good news” of the Resurrection and the restoration of the broken covenant in Jesus Christ. The church viewed itself as the “Jerusalem that is above” which was freed from the bondage of guilt under the law (Gal. 4:26); for those spiritually reborn in Christ, “therefore, there is now no condemnation” (Rom. 8:1–2). As the bride of Christ, the church is “the Holy City, the new Jerusalem” (Rev. 21:2), a “general festal gathering” (panēguris, Heb. 12:22 author’s translation). The New Testament church was a celebrative assembly in which corporate prayers of confession of sin were out of place. The church’s confession was confession of Jesus Christ as the incarnate Son of God (1 John 4:15; 2 John 2:7), the anticipation of a universal confession “that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:11).

That individual Christians might sin, however, was readily acknowledged, and provision was made for the worshiper to confess his or her faults and be restored. Thus James urged believers to “confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (James 5:16), while John reminded the church that Jesus Christ is its Advocate with the Father, and that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

The recognition of persistent human failure and unfaithfulness, even within the community of those who had responded to the call of God in Christ, eventually led to the inclusion of prayers of corporate confession into Christian liturgies, often as acts of preparation for participation in the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion. An example of a contemporary prayer of general confession, based on historic models, is taken from the Lutheran Book of Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1978):

Most merciful God, we confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name. Amen.

Elements of New Testament Worship

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Though the New Testament does not give any detailed information on the structure of the first Christian services, it leaves little room for doubt concerning the basic elements of primitive worship: prayer, praise, confession of sin, confession of faith, Scripture reading and preaching, the Lord’s Supper, and the collection. Early descriptions of Christian worship, such as that in Justin’s Apology, reveal a close similarity to the practice of the synagogue. Even without the synagogue model, however, the fundamental elements would surely have found a place, and distinctive Christian features would have their own origin.

Prayer

Prayer, in the more specific sense of petition, is a constituent element of worship. The first duty of the church between the Ascension and the outpouring of the Spirit was to wait in prayerful expectancy. Persecution quickly forced the Jerusalem church to its knees in common prayer. The needs of Christians, the needs of apostles, and the needs of the world all provided constant material for intercession. Common concern produced common petition. One cannot say exactly how the church prayed. Perhaps a leader prayed for the whole, perhaps individuals prayed in course, perhaps there was the recitation of a form or forms of prayer. Rather surprisingly, there is no immediate reference to a congregational use of the Lord’s Prayer; its use in the Didachē, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (an early Christian manual) is an individual usage (see Chapter 8). The Amen, having acquired a new and even deeper meaning from its use by Jesus (cf. 2 Cor. 1:20), occurs frequently in the New Testament and probably served as a congregational response, as in synagogue worship (cf. Justin, Apology I, 65–67). Stock phrases like maranatha might have been used also (1 Cor. 16:22; cf. Rev. 22:20; Didachē 10, 7); otherwise, it is difficult to see why they should be preserved in Aramaic. Blessings, whether from the Old Testament or in the new Christian form of 2 Corinthians 13:14 or Revelation 22:21, probably came into rapid use. The Epistles especially testify to the emergence of the distinctive vocabulary of Christian worship in the New Testament period. Whatever the forms, however, the essential element of prayer belongs to worship from the very outset, and a genuine Christian service without it is almost unthinkable.

Praise

Closely related to prayer is praise, the confession of God’s nature and works. Indeed, prayer in the form of thanksgiving is itself praise. Almost all the prayers recorded in the New Testament contain an element of doxology. They recall God’s acts and thus sound a note of assurance and triumph. Quite apart from prayer, however, the praise of God has its own place in New Testament worship. The infancy stories show how the life of Christ began with angelic and human canticles that ultimately served as new songs in the congregation. The cry of jubilation uttered by the Lord took quasi-hymnic form. Jesus and the disciples sang a hymn—probably the customary Hallel—at the Last Supper. Paul refers to a psalm at worship in Corinth and to hymns and spiritual songs in Ephesians 5:19. Scholars have discerned possible fragments of early Christian hymns in such passages as Philippians 2:5–11 and 1 Timothy 3:16. The hymns of Revelation show that songs are sung in heavenly as well as earthly worship, though some expositors think Revelation 4–5 might be based on the worship of the congregation. In the earliest period, the Psalter was probably the hymnbook of the church, but if the reference in Pliny’s letter to Trajan (Letters X, 96) is to Christological hymns, it seems that quite early new and more specifically Christian hymns found a place in the confession of praise.

Confession of Sin

The confession of sin is at the heart of worship, for as the worthiness of God is exalted, the unworthiness of man demands acknowledgment. The prayers and psalms of the Old Testament are full of the recognition of guilt, which obviously goes hand in hand with a plea for forgiveness and restitution, and with praise and thanks for the divine mercy and pardon. In the New Testament, the gospel is by its very nature a divine word to sinners. The baptism of John is a summons to repentance and conversion. Jesus takes up the same call, followed by his apostles, in the first preaching of Acts. Peter, confronted by Jesus, confesses that he is a sinful man (Luke 5:8). The prayer God hears in the temple is the penitent prayer of the publican rather than the self-congratulatory prayer of the Pharisee (Luke 18:9–14). In the church’s worship, the great occasion for the confession of sin is at baptism, when the old life of sin is renounced and the new life of faith and obedience is begun. In post-apostolic days the public confession of specific faults was required when the excommunicated sought readmittance. It may be seen from 1 John 1:8–10, however, that confession of sins to God, whether individually or in concert, played a continuing role in the life of believers. Paul, in his letters, refers again and again to the utter dependence of himself and all believers on the divine mercy. Thus, although there is no great evidence of specific prayers of confession in New Testament worship, this element must be presupposed as the basis of all prayer and praise. Prayer itself has to be in the name of Jesus since there is nothing in oneself or in one’s own name that could constitute a valid ground of either access or answer (cf. the role of Jesus as high priest and intercessor in Heb. 7).

Confession of Faith (Baptism)

In the Old Testament the Shƒma‘, though primarily a commandment, served also as a confession of faith: “The Lord our God is one Lord.” As such it had found its way into the worship of the synagogue. Though the Lord gave it added attention, it was not adopted by the early church. The main reason was not that this basic confession was abandoned but rather that there had now been added the distinctive Christian confession “Jesus is Lord.” The faith of the primitive church is faith in Jesus as Savior and God. Peter makes this primary affirmation in Matthew 16:16. It is seen again in Thomas’s confession (John 20:28). John’s gospel was written with a view to the lordship of Jesus (John 20:31). The work of the Spirit is to induce in Christians the affirmation that Jesus is Lord (1 Cor. 12:3). All tongues will finally confess this (Phil. 2:11). On this belief rests the full confession of the triune God (Matt. 28:19). This confession is specifically made in the church at baptism, which is done in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:38). The eunuch professes belief in the Lord (Acts 8:37). Cornelius is baptized in Jesus’ name (Acts 10:48). The Philippian jailer is baptized when he believes in the Lord and is saved (Acts 16:30–34). The evidence of the later church (Justin, Apology I, 61) is similar. The baptismal confession was often made in interrogatory form, and it was followed by baptism in the triune name (or triune immersion, as described in Didachē 7).

Whether there was also a specific confession of faith in ordinary worship is open to question; the New Testament offers no instance. Baptism itself, however, was also a normal part of the worship of the church. Taken over from John and continued and commanded by Jesus, it was required for admission to the church, and it included at its heart a confession of faith as well as repentance. Administered in various circumstances and with wide variations of wording, it retained its essential features through every change. The first service for the convert was of common concern to the whole congregation. Like the Lord’s Supper, it had a primary declarative aspect, for the ultimate baptismal confession is confession of the saving act of God in the death and resurrection of Christ. Nevertheless, it also provided an opportunity for the affirmation of faith, which was quickly seen to be a reaffirmation by existing believers. The later weekly confession is a fairly natural and not unbiblical development, which finds a regular place for this essential aspect of worship.

Reading of Scripture

Rather strangely, the New Testament does not refer to the reading of the Old Testament in the common worship of the church. Paul’s epistles are publicly read (1 Thess. 5:27), and this might have formed the beginning of the later New Testament readings (cf. Justin’s “Memoirs of the Apostles,” Apology I, 66). The traditional texts relating to the Lord’s Supper also seem to have been rehearsed (1 Cor. 11). In light of synagogue practice, the extensive use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, the later knowledge of the Old Testament displayed in the post-apostolic period, and the early patristic references to Old Testament reading, it is virtually impossible to suppose that the New Testament church did not include Old Testament readings in common worship. The fact that there were sermons (for example, Paul at Troas) supports this. A sermon in the synagogue was primarily exposition. Early Christian preaching was especially concerned with showing the fulfillment of the Old Testament in Christ. Furthermore, the mention of an interpretation seems to presuppose a reference to the Old Testament. The high estimation of Scripture (cf. 2 Tim. 3:15–17) is a further consideration. Great freedom was no doubt exercised—even the synagogue had, as yet, no prophetic lectionary. But the reading of God’s written Word, first in the Old Testament and then increasingly in the New Testament, was surely a constituent part of worship from the very first, as it patently was in both temple and synagogue, and then again in the church of the second century.

Preaching

In contrast to reading, preaching is solidly attested. Paul preached at Troas. The prophesyings at Corinth also seem to be forms of Christian exhortation. The needs of evangelism and education as well as edification made it essential that the ministry of the Word be included in the early services. The synagogue provided a partial parallel; the teaching of Jesus was an example. The apostles were specifically called to the ministry of the Word (Acts 6). At a later time bishops were to be apt teachers (1 Tim. 3:2). Preaching combined several aspects of “worship”: declaration of God’s work, confession of faith, underlying prayer, and the climax of praise. Early preaching was particularly related to the Old Testament on the one side and to the life and work of Christ (later the New Testament) on the other. While not restricted to formal exposition, it had a strong expository content, judging from the sermons in Acts. Among Gentile Christians in particular, a good deal of information would have to be passed on in preaching, for the same level of biblical knowledge could not always be assumed as among Jewish Christians or the early “god fearers.” Apollos, a man mighty in the Scriptures, exercised an important ministry in this field (Acts 18:24–28). Justin gives evidence of the secure position of preaching in the typical Christian service in the post-apostolic period.

The Lord’s Supper

If baptism was an addition to synagogue worship (though not without some parallel in proselyte baptism), this is even more true of the Lord’s Supper. Both biblical and patristic evidence supports the view that this was from the very first a constitutive part of weekly worship. Certainly, in Justin’s time, there is no disjunction between the ministry of word and ministry of the sacrament, and the examples of Troas and Corinth suggest that, with variations of time and structure, the same applies in the New Testament period as well. The one gathering embraces not only prayer, praise, reading, and preaching, but also the holy meal, which was probably accompanied by blessings (cf. Didachē 9–10) after the manner of the Passover. The Lord’s Supper took the place, not only of the Passover but also of the temple offerings. This is why sacrificial language soon came to be used in respect to the Lord’s Supper (cf. Mal. 1:11). Yet it was not strictly a replacement: the Lord’s Supper shows forth the one sacrifice for sins forever. Christ as high priest has made a mediatorial and sacrificial ministry at the human level redundant. Hence the ministers of the Lord’s Supper, whether apostles, bishops, presbyters, or deacons, are truly ministers, not priests. The focal point is a declaration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for mankind. This is the ground of the fellowship here enjoyed with God and with fellow believers. Ultimately, then, the Lord’s Supper, like all else, is Christological rather than, in the narrower Old Testament sense, liturgical. To describe it as quintessentially liturgical is misleading. It is also to hold in disregard its real place and significance within the church’s worship as a perpetual reminder that worship is possible only on the basis of the atonement that God himself has made by his self-offering in the Son.

The Collection

The reference to a weekly allocation in 1 Corinthians 16, the liturgical significance ascribed to alms in Philippians 4:18, and mention of an offering in patristic writings have lead to the view that a collection formed a basic element in Christian worship. Difficulties to this conclusion include the following: Paul does not speak of a church collection; like the Philippian gift, the Jerusalem collection was probably a special project (though rapidly succeeded by extensive relief for the poor); and Tertullian refers only to a chest for spontaneous gifts (Apology I, 39, 1–6). Furthermore, some scholars argue that Justin’s offertory (Apology I, 65) is that of bread and wine for communion, though this was not an obvious part of the original institution. On the other side, one should consider that almsgiving had a long Old Testament history and that the importance of liberality as part of serving God is beyond dispute. Thus, if it is too much to say that the collection is a constitutive part of the service, there are grounds for its later inclusion. The kiss of peace falls into a similar category.

Occasional Services

It has often been noted that there are no marriage or funeral services in the New Testament. It should be remembered, however, that such services are only an application of the basic elements of worship—prayer, praise, reading, exposition, and the Lord’s Supper, where appropriate to specific situations. In fact, the New Testament mentions certain occasions—for example, confirming by the apostles, ordaining, and perhaps the anointing of the sick—when biblical signs (laying on of hands, anointing) was used along with other liturgical elements. This does not mean that there were developed special services for confirmation and other biblical signs. It shows that the basic elements can be rapidly adapted to particular needs, sometimes with a particular sign. The consecration of Paul and Barnabas to missionary service at Antioch offers an instructive example (Acts 13:2–3). Whether any given service can find a precedent in the New Testament, it offers the materials from which a genuinely biblical service may be constructed, and the injunction that all things are to be done in the Lord means that the introduction of elements of worship is never a misplaced or unwarranted intrusion.