Do You Have To Confess Sin?

The Apostle John says,
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness " (1 John 1:9).
Does he mean confess to God only? Or do you have to confess to another believer?
The Apostle James says,
"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." (James 5:16).

The problem I have with confessing your sin to another believer is if you have a falling out, and because people are more inclined to betray one another due to this Age of Emotions, you could be telling someone something in confidence, and they use it to smear your reputation or harm you in other ways. We are not in times when Christians died for one another and allowed themselves to be fed to lions to spare each other, we are in a very wanton age, when people have a tendency to betray.

Even Jesus our Lord said,
"But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in man / in every person." (John 2:24-25).
Our Lord did not trust people, for he knew how frail man is.

I know in Roman Catholic Church Confession is sealed and a Priest if they leaked what was said would lose their post, but with scandals rocking the Roman Church, I would be afraid to spill my sins even with the Confidence Clause.

So I am finding confession very hard these days.. any ideas?

I believe there are sins one may only confess to the Father. Perhaps it is in you scripture selection, I am not certain.

In the Bible, the requirement for confession is to God. That said, co-confession to a man is not forbidden and should occur in situations where accountability is the issue. This happened many times in the Bible, for example David's confession to Nathan.

That said, great care must be taken. Nathan was not a busy-body neighbor.

This is only my opinion , not based on scripture , I would say most of the time it's ok just to confess to God , this is for our own benefit as He already knows what we did and even , what we will do in the future . I do think that if we have sinned against a person , maybe stolen something from them or said something that has definitely harmed them in some way , we should try to put that right . Return the thing we stole , tell them what we did that harmed them , apologise and ask for their forgiveness . When my husband was a young man he was a bit rough around the edges , he did use violence against other boys / men . Almost always it was in self defense but sometimes it wasn't . By the time he was in his very early thirties he was ashamed and went round to everyone he could that he had hurt and apologised . Some accepted some didn't but , he did his best and put violence behind him totally . He's glad he did that .

James 5verse 16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail.

That is my standby, to confess to Christ alone.

I mean we only have One Mediator anyway,
"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the Son of Man Christ Jesus." (1 Timothy 2:5)

The confession of sins seems to be a popular topic these days... I remember reading another thread not long ago that asked if we had to confess our sins to God, or to others.

While I understand that confessing to other human beings is scary, I do think it's necessary for some levels of sin.

Over the years, we've had countless people write on this forum about struggling with addictions to pornography, and countless others who have written about problems with drugs and alcohol. I could be wrong, but I would guess that in these situations, confessing to just God doesn't result in much change. I'm sure there are some miraculous cases, but I would be willing to bet those are far and few in between.

If we took a poll of those struggling with pornography who confessed to "just God" vs. those who had to answer to accountability partners or groups, which ones would likely report more progress?

I once had a beloved mentor who told me about a situation (that no one knew about until after it all blew up) in which a pastor was having an adulterous affair. But since his church was growing and "people were still getting saved," he felt that "confessing to God" alone was enough -- as he kept right on going with his extra marital affair, with no attempts to break it off.

I don't know the details, but my mentor told me that one day God finally pulled back the curtain of his sin and he lost everything. I always wonder if things would have gone differently if he'd had someone he could confess to and help hold him accountable.

I've had situations in my life where I wanted to cling to people God clearly told me to break ties with, and I found that God wouldn't let me confess to Him alone. In two specific cases, He put His finger on the ones I was to confess to (for matters of the heart, God has always led me to confess to another woman, never someone of the opposite gender.)

I personally could not be close to someone who was struggling with these types of sins alone because they're all too easy to keep secret and justify to ourselves without outside accountability.

But, that's just me.

I know this was brought up already, but whenever I read debates about the confession of sin, I always think of David.

I've always read that it was at least a full year after David had Uriah killed that God finally sent Nathan to him. By this time, David was living with Bathsheba as his wife, and she was pregnant with his child -- which had caused David to murder her husband to cover up their adultery.

And yet, when Nathan told him of the parable of the rich man with large flocks who took the poor man's one beloved lamb and cooked it up for dinner guests, David "burned against the rich man" and demanded that he should die. And Nathan said, "YOU are that rich man!!!"

David, living with a wife who was pregnant with his child that was conceived while she was married to another man, leading him to write her husband's death order -- didn't even recognize himself within the story!

This is how hard his heart had gotten, how callous he was, and how much he had justified his own sin. I've often wondered if David would have EVER confessed if Nathan hadn't been sent to him, though later in the Psalms, he does acknowledge that holding his sin within was "rotting his bones."

And it all started with David watching another man's wife take a bath. How many people are sitting in the privacy of their own homes, and, due to the ease of technology, are watching other people do a whole lot more than take a bath on their screens? No, I'm not saying this will cause people to resort to full-on adultery and murder, but Jesus said if it's in our hearts, we've already sinned.

What I'm saying is that this was "a man after God's own heart" -- and yet, the sins he could keep secret got him to a point that he didn't even realize that Nathan's entire parable was about him!

If God sent a prophet to us and told us a parable about our own lives -- would we recognize ourselves as the villain of the story? If God said, "YOU are the bad guy/girl here!", would we be willing to admit it?

For myself, this is something I have to ask when pondering over whether I need to look for someone else to confess to.

Yeah, what he said.

I know of one church where they stand up and tell their sins before the whole church. Uh... They can do whatever works for them, I guess, but I ain't doing that.

We're missing something though...

James 5:16
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

The reason for confessing your faults one to another is right there in that same sentence. If I don't think you're going to pray for me, I ain't telling you nothing. But if I think you are a righteous man and you will pray for me (and if I think I can count on you to talk to God about it, not somebody else) I would LOVE to tell you what I need some help with.

Well who is it that forgives sins? that is who you should confess to

Notice that - "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9) is in contrast to - If we say that we have no sin, (present tense) we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8) and - If we say that we have not sinned, (past tense) we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:10)

Certain people seem to misunderstand verse 9 to mean that we "must confess each and every sin that we commit as we commit them" (keep a specific inventory of every sin) as an "additional requirement" to "remain cleansed" and "if we forget a sin we are toast!" Who could actually write an exhaustive list of every sin they have ever committed or ever will commit? Sin is not only missing the mark by what we do but also what we fail to do. (James 4:17)

Believers "confess" (Greek - homologeó) speak the same/acknowledge/agree with God's perspective about their sins and have a settled recognition and ongoing acknowledgment that one is a sinner in need of cleansing and forgiveness in contrast with saying that we have no sin or that we have not sinned. (1 John 1:8-10)

This topic makes me think of the two thieves that were crucified with Christ . Luke ch 23 V 39-43 but especially V 41 , we receive the due reward of our deeds but this man hath done nothing amiss . Think about this carefully . Was the thief saying that he and his companion deserved to die because they were thieves ? I don't think so , stealing was not punishable by death in the Jewish law ! I think he was just confessing the general state of all humanity , that's us ! You and me ! They r not just individuals , they represent the whole of humanity I think .

no. but imagine a solid born again Christian not confessing sins! he or she will want to confess is sins to Jesus because you'l always feel a "drawing nigh" to Jesus to communicate, associate & appease as a means of comfort.

Great point! I had never considered the "two thieves" punishment before. I fully agree with your conclusion. By Torah, they did not deserve execution. Under Roman Law they probably did. Either way, they were both sinners in God's eyes. One confessed his sins and sought reconciliation, one did not. This indeed is humanities general state. Yeshua's response is a sharp demonstration of both God's grace and God's righteousness. Jesus will soon again demonstrate this distinction.

This also has me thinking about the Judas and Peter and the differences of motivation behind each of their confessions.

Both openly acknowledged that what they did was wrong. But Judas's confession ("I have betrayed innocent blood") and attempt to return the money to the religious leaders was motivated by wanting to alleviate his guilt. He refused to use this confession as an opportunity to seek God's forgiveness, and we all know what he chose instead.

Peter "wept bitterly" in seeking repentance, and was later restored to Jesus's mission when He commanded Peter to "feed my (people.)"

I always find this to be a fascinating, albeit heartbreaking contrast because both men very much wanted to confess.

Unfortunately, for Judas, it was with the wrong intent and even worse conclusions.