Confession of sin and 1 John 1:9

Do Christians need to Confess their sins in order to be Forgiven?
The answer is an emphatic, "NO!"

"But what about 1 John 1:9?" - the only verse in the entire New Testament that speaks about confessing sins to God.


Below is an article by Andre van der Merwe from his web site: www.newcovenantgrace.com
As well as an attached Video that may help you to see the Good News more clearly :)


"Firstly note we are NOT propagating a sinful lifestyle. We are NOT encouraging people to just go out and commit hideous deeds of licentiousness. We believe in obeying God and living a holy lifestyle, but these are only the fruit. The root is being established in grace & righteousness, knowing who you are in Christ. So let’s get into this week’s message.

[1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness].

This verse has to be read in the context of the rest of the book of John – written to a group of believers whose ranks had been infiltrated by teachers of Gnosticism. John seems to be gentle whenever he addresses the Christians, calling them “my little children”. But in other parts of his letter, when he is countering the teachings of the Gnostics, he becomes quite protective of his brothers and sisters in Christ, and his words quite harsh. At the time John wrote this letter, the Gnostics had already left the ranks of the Christians [1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us], but remnants of the Gnostisism teaching were still confusing the Christians that remained.

Gnostics are people who believe that creation is flawed and was created by a flawed creator, a movement out of which the “Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints” or “Mormons” has arisen. They also believe that there is no such thing as sin in the world, and as an UNBELIEVER that you do not have to confess your sins to God to be born again.

Even though the book of 1 – 3 John was written to the church, 1 John 1:9 was NOT a command for people to grovel in sack cloth & ash, instead it is simply a statement to contradict the false teachings of the Gnostics. There were people in John’s church (who had not been born again yet) who were self righteously claiming that they did not need to confess their sins to receive eternal life. They were still confused by the teaching of the Gnostics, even though the Gnostics had already left. John countered this lie and said the following: [1 John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us].

And then in the next verse he reveals how to be saved: [1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness]. God will cleanse them from ALL unrighteousness if they will only confess that they need to be forgiven of their sins. If 1 John 1:9 were addressed to the believing Christians (the ones who were already saved), it would then contradict the following verse: [1 John 2:12 Little children, I write to you because you have been forgiven your sins through His name]. Why would John command people to confess their sins if He says a few verses later that they HAVE been forgiven? If confessing our sins was such an important practice in the life of a believer, why did the writer of the biggest part of the New Testament, Paul the apostle, not command us to do it once??

Under the New Covenant, ALL our sins (past, present & future) have been forgiven. When Jesus taught his disciples (who were still under the Old Covenant) the Lord’s prayer, He told them: [Mat 6:12 and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors]. But under the New Covenant our motivation to forgive others is different. We don’t forgive anymore in order for God to forgive us, but now we forgive others because WE HAVE BEEN forgiven. Col 3:13 … even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

Countless doctrines have been formulated by the modern day church about confessing our sins to God, all based on this one verse (1 John 1:9). It’s quite amazing if we realize there are no other verses in the entire New Covenant that tells us we should confess our sins to God! It’s even more amazing if we realise that this verse was not even intended for Christians who trust in the forgiveness of God, but for self righteous people! There are millions of people who have turned their back on Jesus & left the church, not because they are evil or sinful people, but because they are sincere people that for years & years have been taught a mixture of Old Covenant law and New Covenant Grace. These people have came to a place where they felt that other Christians and themselves were such hypocrites, that their failures and mistakes were so great, that their discouragement drove them away from Jesus into the wilderness. They gave up on Jesus and His word, although they still love Him in their hearts.

But you may ask, “Why would God not want us to confess our sins to Him? After all, we do make mistakes!” The answer is simple: Because walking around the whole day remembering all the bad things we have done will not bring us closer to God! Jesus already paid the full price so that we could have unbroken fellowship with the Father. This means that when we make a mistake, it does not break our fellowship or right standing with God. Jesus was forsaken by his Father on the cross so that we would never have to experience that! Does this mean that we just go out and live a life of full blown wickedness & depravity? No!! But it definitely means that God wants us to have confidence before Him, and to be more aware of our righteousness and His grace than of our shortcomings & mistakes. [Heb 10:19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; 21 And having an high priest over the house of God; 22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water].

How can we have boldness before God if we have to grovel on our knees and plead for the forgiveness of our sins every time we pray? If we can’t have confidence before God, how then can we even dream to stand in front of a blind person and say confidently: “Blind eyes open in the name of Jesus!” We’d always feel that God does not want to use us because we have too much sin in our lives. No amount of crying, confessing, remembering your sins, emotional torment or anything we can do can add to the finished work of the cross, where our sins were forgiven, once and for all.

So when you find yourself conscious of your sins, simply say: “Thank You Jesus for the perfect work of the cross that has removed my sins completely. Thank you Holy Spirit for convicting me of righteousness, not my own, but the righteousness given to me as a gift (2 Cor 5:21) and I praise You that nothing that I do can ever change that or ever separate me from your love!!!” Grace does not mean the denial of occasional mistakes in our lives – that is a dangerous thing to do – rather grace removes the punishment and guilt of that sin (Tony Ide – Freedom Life Fellowship, Perth, Australia). Grace is what makes us worthy!


So in closing, the Bible teaches all unbelievers to confess their sins to God to be born again and come into Christ, but the Bible does not teach New Covenant believing Christians to confess their sins to God."


Here is a video from JP on the subject!






Just one last note from myself - Some have said that "to deny sin - by not confessing it - is to embrace the error of Gnosticism ourselves."
The thing is that we do not deny the existence of sin at all, rather we are fully acknowledging the existence of it. Sin is one of the reasons God went to the cross! If sin didn't exist (as some are accusing us of saying), then there would be no need for the Cross. If there was no cross, we could not be believe Gods Love for us. We absolutely MUST believe that sin exists and that Jesus is OUR SAVIOUR FROM IT.
Thats why we confessed our sins UNTO Salvation, embracing our "once for all time forgiveness" that was made manifest at the Cross.


Peace and love to you all. If you have questions please feel free to ask.
Andrew

Is Grace Simply a License to Sin?

"Is Grace Simply a License to Sin?
This topic has presented itself in the form of numerous questions and statements in the past, such as the following:

• Does preaching Grace lead to a careless lifestyle?
• Won’t people run out and sin recklessly if they get too “deep” into the Grace message?
• We can not preach Grace to a new believer because they are not mature enough to be trusted with such freedom yet.
• Taking the Law off believers gives them a license to sin.

All these statements fly straight in the face of what the Bible teaches about Grace:

[Tit 2:11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age].

Firstly let us consider how Grace influences a person’s thinking. When we comprehend what the message of Grace is all about (how God pardoned the sins of the whole world (Heb 10:17), abolished the written code of the Law (Col 2:14), set people at liberty to live free from the fear of judgment and punishment (1 John 4:18), how believers are encouraged to have boldness when approaching God (Heb 10:19-21), that we can be confident that God will never be angry with us ever again (Isa 54:9-10) and many other truths like these), it is clear that a proper understanding of these matters will in fact NOT encourage a person to want to sin, but rather inspire such a person to be more thankful towards God for all He has done, to live a life worthy of the sacrifice made by Jesus and to deny ungodly conduct as stated in Tit 2:11-12 (above).

Mostly the arguments and questions against the Grace message, such as the ones we mentioned above, come from people who are not necessarily afraid that they themselves will be deceived into wanting to commit more sins, but their arguments are for other “weaker” Christians who in their opinion do not yet have the “maturity” to handle the responsibility that comes with such freedom. Therefore they encourage that the truth of the Grace message be taught with a healthy dose of Law mixed in to warn these “weak” Christians against the perils of sinning. How ironic isn’t it then that the Bible teaches us that sin doesn’t increase through Grace, but rather through the Law: [Rom 5:20 God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant] (NLT). Grace actually came in and removed the sins that were made more abundant through the Law!

So for someone to say that Grace is a license to sin, it simply serves to expose such a person’s ignorance to what Grace actually means and stands for. It reveals that they don’t understand that the power of the Holy Spirit inside a believer (reminding them of their complete 100% righteous standing before God) is an infinitely stronger empowerment for “good behaviour” than threatening someone with the Law. As a result the legalists can all relax and come to terms with the fact that the Holy Spirit can be trusted with the transforming work in the life of a believer: [Phil 1:6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ]. Nobody appointed us as each other’s moral policemen, so how can we ever try to assume that function?

The truth is that Grace can never be reduced to an “acceptable” level to compensate for the insecurities of legalists. Due to the extreme nature of the Law, Grace needs to be preached in its purest form as well in order to free people from the poison of “works based” mindsets"

By Andre van der Merwe

Walking in the Light

I came accross this article by a guy called Andre vd Merwe. Its brilliant, this passage certainly has been used over time to get Christians to focus on the wrong thing:

Walking in the Light
[1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin (NKJV)].
Walking in the light as God is in the light, is a result of God giving us his righteousness – John is talking about our position here, not our behaviour. Our position in Christ is eternally secured the day we put our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. From that day on we walk “in the light”.
What is “light”? Jesus said “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12) Thus Jesus is light. When we are born again we are IN Christ (1 Cor 1:30, Eph 2:10), and therefore we are IN the light. Also because we are IN the light, we also become the light. [Eph 5:8 you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light]. Jesus also says we are the light of the world. [Matt 5:14 You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden]. As He was (and still is) the light, so we have become as He is.
Most of the arguments against the Grace message come from the book of John. Most legalists that read this book see it as a book that tells us what we are supposed to do, instead of reading it in the correct context: The book of John was written by John to his “little children” who had just come out from under the false teachings of Gnostics. John was by no means trying to tell them to “DO THIS!” or “DO THAT!” No he was telling them how secure they were in Christ, assuring them of their eternal salvation.
[1 John 1:6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth]. This verse makes it even more clear – we can not say that we have fellowship with God (in other words that we have been born again) if we walk in darkness (which means we are not actually born again), because then we would be lying. In simple English: You cannot say you are a Christian if you have not been born again!!
[2 Cor 6:14 For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? 15 And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?] Did you see how these things are contrasted with each other? Righteousness vs. lawlessness, light vs. darkness, Christ (anointed) vs. Belial (worthless) & believer vs. unbeliever.
1 John 1:7 (our key verse) says the blood cleanses from EVERY sin, and that pretty much means EVERY sin. In the original Greek language the word that was used for “cleanses” was katharizo?. This literally means to “continually cleanse”. So if we make a mistake, the blood removes it completely, and this happens day & night without ceasing. If you believe you can “walk in the light” based on your own obedience, why then would you need the blood to continually cleanse you? Because now you are doing it all yourself! No, we walk “in the light” because we have been given the righteousness of God as a free gift. I say again, John is talking about our position in Christ and not about our external behaviour. Here are some more verses to explain this:
[Eph 5:8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord;]
[Rev 21:23 And the city had no need of the sun, nor of the moon, that they might shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 And the nations of those who are saved will walk in the light of it; and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour into it].
Yes when we look at our behaviour we will clearly see that we make mistakes every day and that we don’t necessarily walk in the light in our actions, but that is because our minds have not been fully renewed yet. Until the day we die, there will always be some area in our lives that we will need to bring under submission of the authority of God, whether it be thought patterns, habits, or whatever. The point is that we don’t do these things to earn God’s approval, but they happen spontaneously as a result of us falling more in love with Jesus and becoming more and more aware of how wonderfully we have been saved: [Phil 2:12 … work out your own salvation with fear and trembling] (which actually means to “consider with awe and wonder”). It doesn’t say work AT your salvation, because Jesus has already done it all. But when you work something out, it means you figure it out for yourself.
Until the day we go to be with the Lord, we will always be able to improve our external behaviour and bring it more in line with our perfect position IN Christ. But until that day, God has already provided MORE THAN enough Grace to cover any mistakes we may make along the way: [Rom 5:20b But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound].
There is nothing wrong with living moral lives, but we should not use our ability to live moral as the measure/standard of our relationship with God."

God Blessed you!!