Private confession.
Private confession.
§ 98. Private confession is that in which any private person confesses his sin.
** There are three kinds of confession. (1) The one in which we accuse our entire life of sin before God. Luther (Jena German edition, vol. 3, Hist. Leonh. Keisers, fol. 443b) calls it eine Glaubensbeichte [“a confession of faith”].2 (2) The one in which we confess our transgressions to our offended neighbor and seek to be reconciled with him; that is eine Liebesbeichte [“a confession of love”] (Matt. 5:23–24; James 5:16). (3) The one in which we confess our sins to a minister of the church or, in an emergency situation, to any Christian in order to receive comfort. This is die Raths- oder Kirchenbeichte [“the confession of counsel or church confession”]. **
Otherwise it can be established with respect to its objects in four ways, for it can take place before God, before the church, before the minister, or before a neighbor.
Private confession before God is where someone confesses his sins out of a humble and contrite heart in his daily prayers and asks for their forgiveness through Christ. “I made known my sin to You, and I did not hide my iniquity. I said: I will confess against myself my transgressions to the Lord; and You forgave the iniquity of my sin” (Ps. 32:5). (“I did not hide them, but uncovered them, that You might cover them.” When man uncovers a sin, God covers it; when he conceals it, God lays it bare.) “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:9).
Private confession before the entire church is when any private person publicly confesses his sin by which he has offended the church. This was used most commonly in the primitive church, as is clear from Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Cyprian. For after apostolic times, when the preaching of the Gospel had spread to all peoples and when the political magistrate had not yet given esteem to the Christian church, public scandals often arose among Christians. Then, to preserve discipline and to try to deal with these public scandals, they demanded a public confession of sins from the fallen, which they called ἐξομολόγησις [“confession”]. In fact, they imposed punishments on them by which they bore witness of their true repentance and made satisfaction to the church for the offense (see B. Rhenanus, notes on Tertullian’s De poenitentia). The confession made before the church can be subdivided into voluntary and coerced. Voluntary confession is when those who were guilty of enormous sins would themselves come voluntarily before the leaders of the church, publicly tell their sins, bear witness to their earnest contrition with outward signs, and promise correction of their life. Coerced confession is when those who were guilty of a public crime and were yet embarrassed to confess it and refused to accept punishments would be forced by the church to make a public confession [ἐξομολόγησις]. Irenaeus (Adv. haeres., bk. 1, ch. 9) mentions some women seduced by Marcus the Valentinian who did not want to admit what they had done. He says that “they hesitate between the two courses and suffered what the proverb says, ‘Neither without nor within.’ ” Eusebius (bk. 6, ch. 2) tells of Philip, the son of Gordianus, that when he wanted to share in the prayers of the people in the church, the bishop would not permit this unless he first confessed. Here the following examples can be assigned: Achan, from whom Joshua (ch. 7:19) demanded a public confession of his sin, and the incestuous Corinthian whom the apostle, through excommunication, caused to request pardon for his sin publicly (1 Cor. 5:5; 2 Cor. 2:7). In the same way, the example of the sinful woman who went up to the place of the feast and confessed her sin tearfully (Luke 7:38) can be assigned to the first kind of confession.
Private confession before the minister of the church is where the sinner humbly confesses his sins before the minister of the church either in general or certain sins in particular, especially those which cause his conscience anguish and because of which he needs counsel and consolation, and then asks that absolution be given him in Christ’s name. The following examples can be assigned here: David, who said to the prophet Nathan: “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Sam. 12:13); and the Israelites “whom John was baptizing and who were confessing their sins” (Matt. 3:6).
Private confession before a neighbor is nothing other than a mutual and fraternal reconciliation by which the person who has offended his neighbor in word or deed, and has been led by his repentance to confess that he has sinned, asks that he be forgiven. “If you are bringing your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First, be reconciled to your brother” (Matt. 5:23–24.) Christ teaches us (Matt. 18:22; Luke 17:4) that the brother who has sinned against us and asks for forgiveness must be forgiven not seven times but seventy times seven times. “Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another” (James 5:16).