Confession

Many people see the act of confessing their sins as unnecessary. These people make the claim that God already knows their sins and that confessing them out loud is pointless. God says otherwise. Even in the Old Testament God laid down the law to the Israelites in Numbers 5:6-7 telling them to confess their sins and not only repair the damage caused by their sins, but also give the one who was offended one-fifth more of whatever was damaged. Another example is in Matthew 3:6 where those who were being baptized by John confessed their sins. And again in Acts 19:18 where those who had become believers came forward and openly confessed their sins. If the Bible only contained These two verses regarding confession it would be enough to dissuade arguments against going to confession. However, examining Scripture reveals some of the great benefits brought on by going to confession.

In James 5:16, James insists that we should declare our sins to one another, and pray for one another, that we might be healed. He then goes a step farther and says that the prayers of a holy man avails much, just as Catholics believe that the prayers of their priests coupled with their own prayers during confession avail much. The Scriptures that have been examined up to this point mention only the benefits of confession b ut now attention will be truned toward the necessity of confession.

In John 20:22-23 Christ confers the gift of forgiving sins in his name by giving his apostles the gift of the Holy Spirit and telling them if they forgive men's sins then the sins are forgjven them, if the apostles do not forgive men's sins, then the sins are not forgiven them. The only way that the apostles could know which sins to forgive or not to forgive, would be if the sinner were to confess which sins they committed and how many times they committed them. Again the apostles are given the power to bind and loose in Matthew 18:18. In 2 Corinthians 5:16-20, Paul reaffirms that he along with the other apostles have been made ambassadors for Christ, that the ministry of reconciling men to God is now theirs, and that they do not judge with mere human judgment, rather, their judgment comes from God. With this ability of divine judgment Paul certainly judged the incestuous Corinthian ( I Corinthians 5:3 ), and he also said that he would forgive anything that the leaders of the parish at Corinth forgave (Corinthians 2:10). The hope behind this article is that those who oppose confession will revisit the reasoning behind it and come to terms with the fact that it is indeed a practice deeply rooted in Scripture from the time before Christ on up through the New Testament.

The Catholic, with his supposed background on the subject, should recognize the sacrament of Confession both as a great luxury, and also as a necessity for the forgiveness of sins. For those who would like more information contact a local Catholic priest. Many of them would welcome the chance to explain the Church's position on this subject along with any other doctrines that might seem unfamiliar to our fellow Christians. As Bishop Fulton Sheen once said, "There are not one-hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they believe it to be."