“In confession there occurs a breakthrough to the cross. The root of
all sin is pride, superbia [Latin for
pride]. I want to be for myself; I have a right to be myself, a right to my
hatred and my desires, my life and my death…Confession in the presence of
another believer is the most profound kind of humiliation.” Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Fortress
Press, 2015 (Reader’s Edition), page 90.
Bonhoeffer argues that Jesus
Christ suffered shame for us, being crucified as an evildoer, and that when we
confess our sins to one another that we are forced to abandon our pride and
selfishness and experience humiliation and shame, and in so doing share in the
Cross. “The cross of Jesus Christ shatters all pride (page 91).” There is also
a breakthrough to community in confession for we lay down our masks, our
pretentions, our religiosity, and stand together at the Cross of Christ – all
of us in need of the forgiveness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Crucifixion was a humiliating death, we are called to the fellowship of that
death – the last vestiges of our pride must go, and must go again, and must go
again. “Now we share in the resurrection of Christ and eternal life (page 91).”
Contrast the shame inherent in
Biblical confession with the therapeutic disclosure of struggles and wrong
doing and “mistakes” that society encourages us to engage in today – both
within and without the church. There is no closure in such practices, no
forgiveness, no peace – without the confession found in Biblical repentance
there is no Cross and no forgiveness. Therapeutic deism avoids the Cross and
its shame, it avoids admission and confession of sin; rather than insisting on
the death of the old humanity and its sin nature it seeks to reform it into
respectability, to administer palliatives, to clothe it in psychology and
extra-Biblical images and thinking.
Bonhoeffer writes that in
confession we find “a breakthrough to new
life.” The break with the past is made when sin is hated, confessed, and
forgiven (page 91).” He quotes Proverbs 28:13, “No one who conceals
transgressions will prosper, but one who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”
“What happened to us in
baptism is given to us anew in confession. We are delivered from darkness into
the rule of Jesus Christ (page 91).”
Why has Bonhoeffer chosen to
emphasize confession to one another at the end of this book? Why is he taking
so much time with it (for there is more to come)? Why does he see so many breakthroughs inherent in confession one
to another? Why is this so important to him? What do you think about all of
this?
I cannot pretend to know all
of the answers to the above questions. I do know that as long as we hide behind
our self-righteousness that we are playing a religious game, and that simply
saying, “I am a sinner,” or “I have sinned,” or joining in public
congregational general confession and not
naming our sin in confession one to another allows us to continue our hypocrisy
and façade, it allows us to continue to play the game. We need not humble
ourselves when we avoid naming specific sin in confession, we need not confront
the shame that Christ endured on the Cross, we need not participate in His
shame and humiliation.
Not naming sin in confession
one to another allows us to live in isolation and it allows sin to continue its
hold on us, we are prisoners of that which we hide and do not confess – sin
thrives in darkness, but when it is exposed in confessional repentance then it flees.
Again, this is not some voyeuristic therapeutic exercise in which we parade our
sin and evil before an audience seeking sympathy and applause, this is Biblical
confession and repentance acknowledging not just that we have sinned against
other men and women, but that we have sinned against a holy God and desperately
need His forgiveness.
Perhaps we have become
powerless to minister to others mired in deep sin and seeking deliverance
because we no longer see sin for what it is in our own lives. If we look for therapy for ourselves we will
default to therapy for others; only the Cross of Christ and the Christ of
the Cross can deliver from sin, can heal from its effects, and can restore us
to fellowship with God and with one another. Perhaps we have been so
therapeutically smart that we are spiritually stupid.
There can be no real life together if we pretend to be
something we aren’t.
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