Relocating To Elfland

I remember an evening class during my first semester in seminary, in which we were discussing repentance and confession of sin. I think we may have been working on Westminster Confession of Faith 15.5, “Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man’s duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly.” I remember telling the prof how hard this has always been for me, because I commit so many sins that, to confess them all, I would have to be confessing pretty much every waking minute. 

I doubt many Christians struggle with this kind of obsessive thinking. But perhaps some do, and if so it may be a relief to them (as it has been to me since that evening) to understand that when the Bible tells us to confess our sins, it is not telling us we must confess every single episode of every single sin. Take a fellow who has become ensnared in pornography. He must confess his lust and idolatry (and other related sins) particularly; he must not content himself with a general confession, “Dear God, I have sinned, please forgive me, amen.” But particular confession does not mean he must recount to God every look at every magazine, including date, time, and place. 

I say this because confession is vitally important in Christian piety, and I wonder if some are not driven away from it because we know we sin daily in thought and word and deed, and it is hard to find enough hours to confess it all. Perhaps we have missed the point: God does not ask us to come to Him as in a confessional, recounting every act of sin (which tends to breed superficial thinking about sin, in any event – as if sin consists primarily in acts). Rather, He commands us to confess our sins, particularly, by name, and this need not take long hours of time: “Father, I have frequently spoken in anger today. I say of that angry speech what You Yourself say of it: it is a falling short of Your glory, it is an attempt to control others, it is murder in seed-form. I am unworthy of the least of Your mercies, but for the sake of my Savior, Your beloved Son, be faithful and righteous to forgive me, and to cleanse me from this and all unrighteousness.”