Confessing your sins to a priest? Where's that in the Bible?
That's how I used to feel about the practice of confession to a priest. But, then I learned more about the practice... and found that not only is it historical, but it is also biblical.
Growing up as a Protestant Christian, I never knew much about the sacrament of confession, I just knew that it wasn't what we did in our church and frankly, the idea of it was a little strange at first. But when I converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church in 2009, I made my first confession, and it was an experience that changed the way I thought about it. I felt forgiven and I felt a huge weight lifted off my chest in a way that I hadn't felt before in asking God in private to forgive my sins. It added a tangible, real-world element to my confession. In the East, you confess your sins in the presence of the priest, who stands as a witness before God in front of the icon of Christ. In the Roman Catholic tradition in the West, one may confess anonymously or face-to-face with the priest and he then prays for you and pronounces absolution and assigns a penance.
So, what's the difference between confessing your sins privately to God and to another person?
I've been in the world that denies confession to a priest (or to other people for that matter) and the world of confession as a healing for the soul. Confession to another human being costs you something. It absolutely demolishes your pride. It's one thing to cry for forgiveness in your pillow at 2am and quite another to humble yourself to confess to someone else. It takes humility and frankly, there are feelings of guilt and embarrassment. But you should feel guilty and embarrassed about your sins. Confession to another human being makes you accountable. You know that you are going to have to go confess your sins and you try a lot harder to avoid sin when you know that it is going to be inconvenient to have to confess. In my experience, confession only to God didn't cost me as much but confessing with a priest made it even more real and it cost me my pride.
Okay, so that's just a personal experience... whoop-dee-doo. What does the Bible say?
The Bible does indeed have a few things to say about the practice of confession. Here's what Christ had to say to the 12 Apostles when He sent them out into the world, which by the way were some of Christ's last words on Earth before He ascended into Heaven.
"And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained." (John 20:22-23, NASB)
Interestingly, this is only the second time in the Bible where God breathed on a person. The only other time is when God breathed the "breath of life" into Adam. (Genesis 2:7).
Also, as you can clearly see in the text, Christ gave the authority to forgive sins to His 12 Apostles and to no one else. I don't think I ever saw this verse when I was a Southern Baptist.
Let us examine some passages in the letter of St. James that references confessing sins to one another.
"Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." (James 5:13-16, NASB).
Interesting. The word "elders" in Greek is "presbyteros" from which we get the word "priest" etymologically. In Catholic and Orthodox usage, a presbyter is a title used for a priest, particularly in the Orthodox Church.
The "praying over him, anointing him with oil" in this passage is a reference to the sacrament of last rites, whereby a sick and dying person receives this sacrament from a priest.
And to the part about confession. "Confess your sins to one another" is clearly there and clearly in the context between priests of the Church and those that are sick.
Interestingly enough, there is no biblical command to confess one's sins to God alone anywhere in Scripture.
In light of James 5:16, you have a couple of options.
Option A: You can confess your sins directly to God AND to someone else.
Option B: You can confess your sins to someone else.
What does this mean for me? This means that there is no option for a private confession only to God and not to others in light of these verses. We are talking about the Word of God here.
What does history say about confessing sins to a priest?
It's historical. Both the Catholic and Orthodox Church, the oldest churches in the world, practice confession to a priest. To some degree, Anglicans and Lutherans do too, as I am aware. That's visible historical evidence. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it.
But, what do those closer to the Apostles have to say about confession?
Here's what the saint that defended the Trinity against Arius (who denied Christ's divinity and caused a huge scandal in the Early Church) had to say about it:
"Just as a man is enlightened by the Holy Spirit when he is baptized by a priest, so he who confesses his sins with a repentant heart obtains their remission from the priest."
(Saint Athanasius, 295-373 AD).
The 4th century is pretty early on. And, it comes from the very defender of the divinity of Christ against those who said that Christ was not God. That's a pretty trustworthy source.
There's more to say and many more Church Fathers to quote. But you can be sure that the practice of confession is historical and biblical. Can you still confess your sins privately to God? Of course, you can. And you should. But, confession to others is that way that God laid it out for us. So, it is combination of private confession to God AND confession in the church is the most complete and beneficial way for the healing of your soul.
What do the most respected Protestant theologians and thinkers of the 20th century have to say about the matter?
One of the great Protestant thinkers of the 20th century, CS Lewis, practiced confession as an Anglican and highly regarded it as a good and wholesome practice for Christians. He writes in one of his letters:
I think our official view of confession can be seen in the form for the Visitation of the Sick where it says “Then shall the sick person be moved (i.e., advised, prompted) to make a . . . Confession . . . if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter.” That is, where Rome makes Confession compulsory for all, we make it permissible for any: not “generally necessary” but profitable. We do not doubt that there can be forgiveness without it. But, as your own experience shows, many people do not feel forgiven, i.e., do not effectively “believe in the forgiveness of sins,” without it. The quite enormous advantage of coming really to believe in forgiveness is well worth the horrors (I agree, they are horrors) of a first confession.
Also, there is the gain in self-knowledge: most of [us] have never really faced the facts about ourselves until we uttered them aloud in plain words, calling a spade a spade. I certainly feel I have profited enormously by the practice. At the same time, I think we are quite right not to make it generally obligatory, which wd. force it on some who are not ready for it and might do harm. (The Collected Letters of CS Lewis, Volume III).
Lewis acknowledges here that we don't face the facts about ourselves until we put it out there into words and call sin what it is... aloud. He certainly felt that he had benefitted greatly from the regular practice of confession in the Anglican Church. It is difficult to confess to someone else because it requires a lot of humility and it costs you your pride.
Another well-known 20th-century Protestant theologian, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, had this to say about the practice of confession:
“Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution...Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer in "Life Together").
Bonhoeffer raises a very interesting question here. If we are only confessing to God and not to our brother as well, aren't we in some ways, essentially confessing to ourselves and granting our own absolution? It's easy to fall into the trap of confessing without actually ever owning up to sins and never actually breaking from one's sins in a transformative way.
So, if the Bible, the Church Fathers, and prominent Protestant theologians approve and laud the practice, why not go to confession?
It is a place of healing, grace, and transformation and one of the best tools to root out sin from our lives.
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