Lawless Christianity Part V: No More Confession?

This is part 5 of 7. If you haven't read the previous parts, please do so before continuing, thank you! If you would like to contact the author you can email here: justin.hornbaker@gmail.com.

No More Confession?

As mentioned in the introduction, this is where I will begin to point out the errors which a peculiar strand of antinomianism that follows someone named Bob George (author of Classic Christianity) is teaching. If I’m not mistaken though, the error I’m about to delve into may not be uncommon for many strains of antinomianism, so it is very relevant.

Antinomianism originally justified itself in Martin Luther’s day by advertising as the only true way to understanding the gospel and the only freeing solution to the legalistic bonds dispersed by the Roman Catholic Church. With that in mind, it should not be surprising that the biblical doctrine of confessing sins would be a target. The Roman Catholic Church holds confession (as they define it) so high, it’s necessary to take part in if you don’t want to end up in purgatory after death for an unmeasurable amount of time as payment for unconfessed sin. Protestant Christianity never needed a third option such as purgatory since the true Gospel removes all sins, past present and future. Naturally, an antinomian would retract from this as far as they can go, some even to the point of denying any confession is needed by the Christian after the initial event salvation. The biblical teaching on confession of sins is pretty straightforward. Evangelicals need only reference the clearest verses in the New Testament to discern what confession is:

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he (Jesus) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8-9

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. James 5:13-16

Pray then like this:“Our Father in heaven,hallowed be your name.Your kingdom come,your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.Give us this day our daily bread,and forgive us our debts (confession!), as we also have forgiven our debtors.And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Matthew 6:9-13

If you take these verses at face value, you will come to the conclusion that confession of sins (or debts) should definitely be part of the Christian walk. It should be done in prayer to God directly, to other believers for accountability and in both situations we should be specific about which sins the Holy Spirit compels us to confess.

Now, with that in mind, here is what was taught in regards to confession by the local antinomians. They first claimed that we should not confess our sins at all. I took the opportunity to ask about 1 John 1:9 (above), and the teacher at that time claimed that that particular verse was not written for Christians, it was written for gnostics! This is obviously false because each epistle was meant to directly address a church congregation.The audience was certainly called to address gnostics, but the teaching was specifically for the church’s edification, to understand their faith better and finally to take what they had learned to defend against falsehoods such as gnosticism.

One of the antinomian teachers back-tracked their initial rejection of confession and claimed that we do in fact “confess” our sins, but we should never be specific about which sins we confess; he claimed we should simply thank God for forgiving our sins. This really didn’t help the matter considering it becomes another redefinition of what the church has always understood confession to be, and leaves all mention of specific sins out of the picture, leaving only ambiguity; much like their distortion of Christ’s Law.

Many times while being under the antinomian teaching I was left scratching my head, questioning myself before any research was done. But it was a blessing by God that all the council I sought confirmed the clarity to which confession is taught in scripture. Phil Johnson of GraceLife Pulpit was one of those that shed light on this. I did speak to him personally at a conference in Montana, but here is what he had to say in one of his recent sermons:

“Every now and then I run into little pockets of people who teach that since we are justified by faith and promised full and free pardon for all our sins past, present, and future we don't need to confess our sins or seek God's forgiveness again. (Even though Jesus taught us to pray, "Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins" these guys seem to think they know better.) Behind my office door I have a "heresy" bookshelf where I keep books that I need to refer to occasionally but would never recommend. There's a stack of books there by authors who say Christians should never ask God for forgiveness.”

Furthermore, there are more practical consequences to eliminating a biblical understanding of confessing sin. John MacArthur points out:

“Whenever you excuse your sin, you're really putting the blame on God. Now you have a classic illustration of this in the book of Genesis. You'll remember that Eve sinned and then Adam sinned, and then God comes to Adam and He says, Adam, why did you do that? And you remember what Adam said? He said, “The woman You gave me.” And people have always thought he blamed Eve. But he didn't blame Eve. He said, “The woman You gave me.” Who did he blame? He blamed God.” - Back To The Basics: Confessing Our Sins

I certainly don’t want to face God after a lifetime of blaming Him for my sins, do you?



To be continued... (Part 5 of 7)



Originally titled "Antinomianism: A Self-Refuting Heresy."