Reflections on Bonhoeffer’s Life Together – 104

“In confession there occurs a breakthrough to assurance. Why is it often easier for us to acknowledge our sins before God than before another believer?” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Fortress Press, 2015 (Reader’s Edition), page 92.

Bonhoeffer reasons that because God is holy and without sin, and another believer knows sin from personal experience, that we ought to find it easier to confess our sins to another believer. Then he argues that if this is not the case that we ought to ask whether we are deluding ourselves about our confession to God, “whether we have not instead been confessing our sins to ourselves and also forgiving ourselves.” He observes that, “Self-forgiveness can never lead to the break with sin. This can only be accomplished by God’s own judging and pardoning Word.”

The other believer is a guard against “self-deception.” Confessing to another believer brings our sin to light; Bonhoeffer makes a point of writing that he is not talking about a general confession, but rather confession of specific sins, and that God gives us assurance of forgiveness through the other believer “so that we may be assured of divine forgiveness” (page 93).

On page 93 Bonhoeffer is clear that confession to one another is not a “divine law,” but he does think it is “a help” – and he obviously thinks it is a significant help. “Confession stands in the realm of the freedom of the Christian” (page 94).

If we hold to the priesthood of the believer, and if we understand that a role of a priest is to cover and not expose, to mediate and not build barriers, to represent God to man and man to God; then I think we ought to pause and consider what Bonhoeffer is saying. If we strongly react against what Bonhoeffer is teaching then we might want to ask ourselves why we are so opposed to the idea of confessing one to another. Could it be because of prejudice against other traditions? Prejudice can blind us, it will blind us. On the other hand, those in traditions that practice some form of confession may well not appreciate the sacramental element of what they practice, taking it for granted and therein not encountering the Word of assurance. We all have our difficulties.

I know from experience the release and closure inherent in specific confession of sin and hearing the Word of the Cross and its forgiveness spoken to me by another brother. Also, as I have previously written, I know the victory over temptation when I tell another Christian about the temptation I am facing. When darkness is exposed to the light of the Gospel the darkness loses its power, its footing, its position.

So why don’t we confess our sins one to another? Beyond the question of whether we see the sacramental aspect of the practice, beyond the idea that this is an element of koinonia, of life together, lies the simple fact that we just don’t trust each other. We don’t trust others to view us in light of the Cross and we don’t trust others to keep our confession in confidence.

Regarding the former, if we don’t trust another Christian to view us in light of the Cross it means that we, as a people, have yet to fully encounter and understand the justification and sanctification that we have in Christ and His Cross. We have yet to view life from the eternal reality of the Cross. We have yet to learn to see with the eyes of God and speak with the Word of God and love with the heart of God. It means that we continue to compare ourselves with others, measuring one another by our own standards, ranking sin, exalting ourselves – we have yet to learn that we are called to be agents of reconciliation in Christ, through Christ, and to Christ. The evil of news headlines is not about others, it is about me and until it is about me I will not come close to knowing the fullness of assurance of justification and sanctification. Self-justification and pretension must be utterly destroyed – only then can I hear the confession of another and not flinch; the Cross of Christ must be magnified above all self-justification and self-righteousness, putting to death the hypocrisy of the “old man.”

Inherent in the priesthood of the believer is a recognition of the Sacrifice that has been made, a vision of the holy Lamb of God offering Himself on the altar of the Cross, bearing our sins, bearing ourselves – the holy Lamb dying for unholy humanity, bearing all the evil and wickedness of mankind so that we might be reconciled to God through the death of His Son. A priest is bound to fellowship with the Sacrifice, the fellowship of His suffering. As the Sacrifice gave Himself for others, so the priest of Christ gives himself or herself for others. The nation of priests is by its nature sacrificial, it is called to lay down its life for others.

The second question is one of trust, can we trust one another not to betray our confession? If we live as mere men (1 Corinthians 3:3) then we cannot trust one another for we will betray confidences, we will use our knowledge for manipulation, we will make ourselves look good at the expense of others. Again, if we know who we are in Christ, if we see our lives as the lives of priests, of saints, as those who have been justified, sanctified, and glorified (Romans 8:29 – 30), then we would learn that our relationships with others are sacred trusts, and that to violate those trusts is to violate the Atonement, the Cross, the Nature of God. Who would dare to pollute the Trinity? Who would bring defilement into the Presence of God? If God lives within His people, then to pollute the sanctity of confession, to betray a brother or sister, to defile a relationship – is to profane the Temple of God. We are not a civic organization, or a business organization, or a recreational organization…we are not even a religious organization…God’s people are God’s Temple and His Presence lives within them…who are we to desecrate His Temple? Our awareness of the Presence of God within us is seen in how we treat one another – by that measure an observer may be forgiven for wondering if we really think God lives within His people.

Bonhoeffer’s approach to confession presents us with a path to assurance and a way out of self-justification. Are we mature enough to take it, or shall we remain children playing hide and seek?