Past Due - The Role of Confession in the Christian Walk

Some years ago as I was reading in my personal devotions, I was reading in Romans 3 and verse 25 really jumped out at me, but just a few words in particular. At that time, I was reading the King James Bible almost exclusively, so I will use that version here as well, since it is from that translation that this article will make the most sense.

Romans 3:25, in the King James Bible, reads, "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;". The "whom" at the beginning of this verse is talking of Jesus Christ, through whom the propitiation, or appeasement to God is brought. This verse is telling us that God withheld His punishment of our sins at the times that we committed them so that we would have the opportunity to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus’ sacrifice. If God had smote us in the moment of our sin, then there would be no chance for anybody to ever receive the gift of salvation. It would be like God was watching us and at the moment that we first sinned, it would be ZAP!, you’re gone!

But what if this verse is telling us more than that? Is it possible that there is a dual purpose to the words of this verse, much as there is a dual fulfillment of prophecy many times throughout the Scriptures? The way that this verse struck me on that long ago day lead me to believe that this is the case, and I want to explain to you what I think I discovered for myself then.

 I want to start by saying that when we look at this verse in other translations, the following understanding does not jump out at us the same way, so I want to be clear that I could be mistaken in reading this understanding into these words. My preferred version of Scripture that I use now is the New American Standard Bible (NASB), but I still hold a strong respect for the King James (KJV) and New King James (NKJV) versions. The KJV’s are a little harder to understand at times due to the archaic uses of the English language, and I like that the NASB capitalizes the different words that are used to refer to the different persons of God in the same way that I do. I started doing this myself before I knew that there was any translation of the Bible that did the same. By doing this, a clarity is added to certain passages of Scripture where there are a lot of “he’s” and “his” and “him’s” being used. But I value having access to different translations of God’s Word because sometimes there is something that jumps out of one or two translations that are obscured in others. Please keep this in mind as I explain what I think I have found and how it has shaped my understanding of God and our relationship to Him, which may have implications for us all the way to eternity.

The words that jumped out at me as I read this verse are, “to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past”; in particular, “of sins that are past”. The first fulfillment of this statement in the context of these words is that God did not punish man for his sins upon the commitment of his sins, but rather He showed His righteousness by withholding the punishment until such time that Jesus came and provided an alternate propitiation of God’s wrath. This had been God’s plan to address man’s sin since Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden. Man merely has to recognize the substitution that has been made for him and accept the gift of that substitution in order to be saved from his earned destruction of the wrath of God. I am reminded of lyrics from a song by the music group Third Day; “If it’s true that the wages of sin is death, then I’ve earned quite enough to quit.” We have all earned the wrath of God through our sinful nature. It is only due to God’s forbearance that the punishment was delayed. Verse 26 from the New International Version (NIV) tells us clearly that “he did it [withheld His judgment] to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”

So the surface understanding is pretty clear, but as I said, I think that there is a second meaning to this. It makes sense that upon our realization that Jesus is the Son of God and that He gave Himself as a sinless sacrifice to take the punishment for our sins, that we would be confessing the sins that we have already committed, as in those that are in our past. This is the point at which we attain our salvation; we are a child of God, washed clean by the blood of the Lamb. As I have stated before, this is a first step in a journey; salvation is not a destination, it is a beginning. We will continue sinning even after we have received salvation. We are fallen creatures beholden to our sin nature, but due to our acceptance of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are no longer subject to the penalty for that sin; the penalty being eternal separation from God in the lake of fire. As long as we continue to walk with God, our eternal salvation is secure, but we will still sin. Does this have any effect on us, or are we continually washed clean even as we continue to sin?

Here is what I think this verse is additionally pointing to. “For the remission of sins that are past”. Is it possible that this verse is telling us that our past sins are covered, but our future sins are not? This is not to say that we lose our salvation when we sin; this is not so! But I cannot go into that further until we lay a foundation of understanding. We hear people say that Jesus’ blood washed all our sins away for all time. Is this Biblically accurate? I posit that it is not.

 I normally like to first lay out the counter-arguments to the point that I am making, and then offer my rebuttals and evidences afterwards so that you, the reader, will leave with the subject of the article having been argued as being the last thing that you read. In the case of this article, I think I need to first lay out my position with it’s evidences so that when I present the arguments against it later, you can see that I am not making arguments against accepted tenets of the faith. I don’t want to lose you before I can clearly make my point, and I will probably risk doing so if you don’t know where I am coming from with my arguments. So please follow as I lay out my conclusion first, then my supporting arguments, and finally those arguments that might be used against my position.

In short, I believe that any unconfessed sin will be carried to the Bema Seat, or the Judgment Seat of Christ. This is not the Great White Throne Judgment. The Judgment Seat of Christ is where the rewards of Christians are determined. These are two different judgments; Christians are not subject to the Great White Throne Judgment because we have accepted Jesus as our Saviour, but there still needs to be a determination of our eternal rewards. 2 Corinthians 5:10 tells us, “For we [believers] must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” If there are bad deeds to be considered when the rewards are determined, does this not imply that these are, at least potentially, sinful acts that believers are being held accountable for? The Apostle Paul tells us that we are building upon a foundation of salvation, as laid by him, and that foundation is Jesus Christ. That foundation is what ensures our entry into Heaven, but we must be careful what we build on top of that foundation. The structure that is built on top of the foundation is what we are responsible for. 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 warns us; “According to the grace of God which was given to me [Paul], like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. ¹¹ For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, ¹³ each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. ¹⁴ If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” So I want to be very clear; our salvation is secure as long as we remain with Jesus and do not reject Him, but there is more that will be considered when we are about to enter eternity with Him. These are our works, which includes our sins which we have not confessed.

This is not a popular position to take, but I will lay out why I think this is the case, starting with Romans 3:25. As I stated earlier, Christ is the appeasement for the remission of “sins that are past”. Let’s start in the Old Testament in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” God’s people in the Old Testament were the Israelites; Christians are God’s people in the New Testament. IF we humble ourselves and turn from our wicked ways, our sins, THEN He will forgive our sin. Christians, as God’s people, need to turn from our sins and seek His forgiveness, even as we remain covered by the blood of Christ. This implies that this is not for those who are not already His people, but under the new covenant, we have already confessed our sins – those that we had already committed at that time. This could imply that we need to continue to confess as we continue to sin.

 Colossians 2:13-14 tells us that after we were dead in our sins, Jesus made us alive again, “having cancelled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way,”. When we came to Christ, we already owed a debt to God. That debt was due to the sins that we had already committed, but Christ cancelled that existing debt, what consisted of the decrees that had been made against us up to that time. There is no mention of future decrees also being covered.

 So now we have established that our debt of prior sins has been cleared; what comes next? 1 Peter 2:21,24 has some instructions for us along with the reason for those instructions; “²¹ For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, ²⁴ and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.” Jesus left an example for us to follow in His steps, that is to live a sinless life and to bear up under our suffering, and He bore our sins so that we might die to sin. We are to forfeit our desire to sin – easier said than done, but it is what we are called to do. But why is this important? “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

 If our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, does it not make sense that we should strive to keep our temples clean for Him? What makes our temple unclean? A collected heap of unconfessed sins would definitely make the temple undesirable for Him to inhabit, wouldn’t it? So how do we clean out that pile of detritus? We confess our sins, even as we are already the temple of the Holy Spirit, we still need to maintain a cleanliness. This means that even after we have received salvation, there is a regular maintenance of cleaning that is required.

 And now my favourite supporting argument for my belief that we are called to confess our sins regularly, even after having received the gift of salvation. 1 John 2:1-2 says, “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. ² He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” Jesus is our advocate. The French use this word to refer to a lawyer. Jesus will advocate for us before the Judge, His Father. But He can only do so when we bring the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us to Him as our representative; this is confession. It is when we do this that our advocate will look at the Judge and tell Him that the debt has already been fully paid by Him. If we fail to bring the certificate to Him while He is our advocate, we will have to present it to Him when He is our judge, and it will be counted against us. Not towards eternal punishment, but against our otherwise earned rewards.

So now that my argument is laid out and you hopefully understand the basis of my position, let’s try to find some verses that can be used against this theory. There are only a few verses that I have found that I think could be used as an argument that our sins are all covered for all time when we receive salvation. One of these is Romans 8:1-2, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ² because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” We are told that there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ, but this is not a freedom from all condemnation; we have been set “free from the law of sin and death”. Being set free from the law of sin and death means that we will not suffer death due to our sin; this does not mean that our sins are expunged in perpetuity into the future. I see a repeat of the "blessed hope" that we have for eternity (Titus 2:13, 1 Peter 1:3), a salvation from eternal spiritual death, not a promise that our future sins will not weigh us down.

 I can see Hebrews 7:27b as another possible argument for the belief that our past and future sins are forgiven. It states that, “He sacrificed for their [the people’s] sins once for all when he offered himself.” Jesus offered Himself once and that was all that was needed, because He was the perfect Lamb of God, without sin, blameless; so His sacrifice was sufficient for all the sins of the whole world through all time. But, where it says that His sacrifice was “once for all”, what does that mean? Jesus’ sacrifice only needed to be accomplished once because He is the perfect sacrifice. If He had not been perfect, then there would need to be multiple, even perpetual sacrifices, the same as was the case under the old covenant. But because of Jesus’ perfection, we have the new covenant with the cessation of sacrifices. His sacrifice was for all people that would live throughout all time, not that they would have immediate access to God the Father; it has to be accepted by each person individually. It is available “for all”; it is not accepted by all. So again, this is not saying that all sins are atoned for, but only those for which the atonement is claimed. The "for all" talked about here is all people who are to live.

 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 could also be used against my position, so let’s look at it. “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, ¹⁹ namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” God was not counting their trespasses against them. That jives with my position; it doesn’t go against it. God is the judge who sits on the Great White Throne – Christians will not stand before Him, so God will not count our trespasses against us. As Christians, we will face Jesus when He sits on the Bema Seat to dispense rewards. This is the One who will hold unconfessed sins against us as strikes against our earned rewards. After all, any unconfessed sins are an offence to Him who already paid for those sins to be erased, as long as that option is exercised.

 And why do we stand before Jesus at the Bema Seat? Because “there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, ⁶ who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.” (1 Timothy 2:5-6). Jesus is our mediator, who gave Himself for all men, again, as long as His offer is accepted. Any man who does not accept the offer of Jesus’ payment bears the weight of His sins before God. Does it not make sense that even if your eternity is secured, you will bear the weight of your unconfessed sins in some way and at some time as well? After Jesus acts as our mediator and has taken the punishment for the sins that we confess, does it not make sense that He will then investigate the one who has accepted Him as their advocate to determine how much He has taken on Himself? And what is He to do about the sins that we have not confessed and asked Him to take care of as our advocate? They must be accounted for; the accounts must balance. Somebody has to pay for those unconfessed sins, so it must fall to us.

 The closest Scripture that I can find that could do some damage to my theory is found in Hebrews 10:12, 14; “¹² But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. ¹⁴ For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Who are the sanctified who are perfected for all time? Those who obey God, which leads to righteousness, and righteousness leads to sanctification (Romans 6:17-19; The Teaching of Righteousness). And what is obedience to God? Confession of sins and the pursuit of holiness surely fall under obedience, since these are among the things that we are commanded to do. This is for those who have attained to be set aside for Christ; vessels dedicated to God’s service. These blessed few will be perfected for all time. Unfortunately, this does not apply to the vast majority of those who will accept the gift of salvation. This is due to two things; a lack of discipleship to knowledge is first, and second is an unwillingness to sacrifice as is needed in order to be sanctified once knowledge is attained.

 So I hope that you will agree with me that there is an argument to be made for the importance of continual confession of our sins to Jesus, even long after we have attained salvation. It would be a shame to stand before Him one day and see what we could have received as our reward, only to see it dwindled down by the weight of the unconfessed sins that we failed to have Him take care of for us before the Righteous Judge when Jesus was our advocate.

I will also point out that continual confession is an excellent way to achieve victory over habitual sin. You see, as we commit a habitual sin, if we bring it to Jesus in confession every time, we will start to feel self-conscious about it when we are about to commit it again. As those who love Jesus, we don't want to disappoint Him, so to bring the same thing to Him for forgiveness again and again causes a healthy shame to settle upon us. This will start to come to mind as we are about commit that sin and will cause us to take a pause with the knowledge that we will feel shame again after sinning, having the knowledge that we will be disappointing Jesus again. This leads us to consciously decide to avoid that sin, which can grow into a habit of it's own, leading us to victory over that which we have likely wrestled with for a long time. Freedom from sin comes from continual confession.

I implore you to begin to practice regular confession of your sins, as you commit them or as they are brought to your mind. Clean your slate and empty your vessel of the things that you will have to present to your judge, for we will all be judged; believers just have the scales tilted in our favour.

Please let me know if this article has been helpful to you by leaving a message in the comment section below.