Hank's Bible Study Resources

There are two ways to come to God after you have sinned, and only one of them works.

The first way is to come the way a hired man comes after a mistake. Hat in hand. Eyes down. Bracing for the firing. The internal posture is I have to make this right or I am out. The believer who repents from this posture often does it well, in form. He says the right words. He may even shed tears. But underneath the words is a calculation. He is trying to earn back something he is afraid he has lost.

The second way is to come the way a son comes after a mistake. Hat in hand and eyes down too, sometimes, but with a very different sentence underneath. I belong to my Father. I have wounded Him. I cannot stand the distance my sin has put between us. The hired man comes to keep his job. The son comes because he cannot stand the breach.

Confession from a hired man and confession from a son look almost identical from the outside. The difference is everything on the inside. And one of them produces real change. The other just produces fatigue.

If you do not know which kind you have been doing, this is a post to read slowly.

The Verse We Have Read a Hundred Times

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

Most believers can quote it. Most believers do not realize how much depends on who they think the we is.

The we in 1 John 1:9 is not the unbeliever asking for salvation. It is the believer. Read the previous verses. John is writing to those who are in fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3). The whole letter is for those who believe. Confession in this verse is the housekeeping of an existing relationship, not the entry into a new one.

That changes the texture of confession completely.

The believer confessing his sin is not negotiating to get back into the family. He is keeping the table clear in the family he is already in.

The Greek Word for Confession

The verb is homologeō (ὁμολογέω, G3670). A compound. Homo (same) plus logos (word). To say the same thing as. To agree.

To confess sin biblically is to say the same thing about it that God says about it.

Not less. Yeah, I had a little issue. That is not confession. That is minimizing.

Not more. I am the worst person who has ever lived and there is no hope for me. That is not confession either. That is self-flagellation, and it usually says more about the believer’s pride than about the sin.

Confession is naming the thing the way God names it. That was rebellion. That was unkindness. That was idolatry. That was theft. No softer than His word for it. No harsher.

This is why repentance is hard. It requires honesty about what we actually did. Most of our prayers about our sin are not confessions. They are summaries. Forgive my sins, without ever specifying any. God does not need the specificity. We do. The naming is part of how the soul comes back into agreement with God.

These three words run together in the New Testament. Confession names the sin. Repentance changes the mind about it. Turning rotates the body in a different direction. All three together are what biblical repentance actually looks like.

Two Kinds of Sorrow

Paul makes a distinction in 2 Corinthians 7 that is worth a slow read.

For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death. (2 Cor 7:10)

There are two kinds of sorrow over sin, and they are not the same. Godly sorrow, literally sorrow according to God (kata theon), produces repentance and life. Worldly sorrow produces death.

The difference is what the sorrow is about.

Godly sorrow is sorrow because the sin grieved God, hurt others, and contradicted who you are in Christ. The grief is outward facing. It moves toward repair, restoration, return. It is the sorrow of a son who has wounded the Father he loves.

Worldly sorrow is sorrow because you got caught, because the sin made you look bad, because the consequences are unpleasant, because you are disappointed in yourself for failing your own image of yourself. The grief is inward facing. It rarely moves to repair. It mostly produces shame, paralysis, and fatigue. That is why Paul says it ends in death.

You can usually tell the difference by what your sorrow makes you do. Godly sorrow makes you go to the people you wounded. Worldly sorrow makes you hide from them.

Why Belovedness Has to Come First

Here is the move most evangelicals miss.

You cannot repent well from a place of fear of being abandoned. You can only repent well from a place of secure belonging.

Read Romans 2:4. Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? The goodness leads. Not the threat. Not the lecture. The kindness of a Father who has not let go.

The believer who comes to confession with the question will He still want me in his throat is going to confess shallowly, because anything too honest threatens the answer he needs. He will pray around the edges of the sin. He will mention something safe. He will leave the worst piece in the closet, because he cannot bear what he thinks the loss of approval would cost.

The believer who comes already secure, already loved, already kept, can afford to say the whole truth out loud. He has nothing left to lose by being honest. The relationship is not on the table. Only the breach is.

This is the gospel logic of confession. No condemnation (Rom 8:1) does not weaken the believer’s repentance. It is what makes the deepest repentance possible.

What This Looks Like in the Working Week

Here is the practice.

When you sin, do not start with self-flagellation. Start with sonship. Remind yourself, before you say a word about the sin, who you are in Christ. I am a son. I am loved. I am sealed. I am kept. There is no condemnation.

Then come to the Father with the specific name of what you did. Not vague. Specific. Father, I lied to my wife about what I spent. Father, I looked at what I should not have looked at. Father, I spoke harshly to my son when he did not deserve it. Say it the way God would say it. Homologeō.

Then ask for forgiveness on the basis of Christ’s blood, not your sorrow. Your sorrow does not pay for the sin. The blood of Jesus does (1 John 1:7). Your tears are real, but they are not currency. He is not buying repentance. He is granting forgiveness because the price has already been paid.

Then receive the forgiveness. This is the part most believers skip. The cleansing in 1 John 1:9 is real. Cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The verb is katharizō (G2511), to make clean. The believer who confesses is forgiven and cleansed. Walk away clean.

Then turn. Epistrephō. Do something different. Make whatever practical change the repentance calls for. Apologize to the wife. Block the website. Call the son and tell him you were wrong. Repentance that does not turn the body is just regret in better clothes.

That is the cycle. Sonship. Naming. Receiving. Turning. Walk it.

A Word About False Repentance

Two things masquerade as repentance and are not.

The first is shame. Shame says I am bad. Repentance says I did wrong. Shame attacks the self. Repentance attacks the sin. The believer who confuses shame for repentance ends up confessing his being instead of his doing, and over time, that grinds a person down. You cannot repent of being yourself. You can only repent of what you did.

The second is self-pity. Self-pity says I cannot believe I keep doing this. Why am I such a failure. The center of that sentence is the self. The eyes are not on God or the people you wounded. They are in the mirror. Self-pity is one of the most patient enemies in the Christian life. It looks humble. It is not.

True repentance turns the eyes outward. To God. To the people the sin hurt. Then back to God for grace to change.

A Word to the Reader

If you have lived for years in a low-grade haze of guilt, never quite sure if you are forgiven, never quite sure if the slate is clean, you may not have a sin problem. You may have a confession problem.

You may be confessing without naming. Or naming without believing the cleansing. Or repenting from worldly sorrow instead of godly sorrow. Or never receiving the forgiveness once it is given.

Try this. The next time you sin, before you say one word of confession, sit for thirty seconds and rehearse who you are. I am a son. I am loved. There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Then come. Then name the sin specifically. Then receive the forgiveness on the basis of the blood, not your tears. Then turn.

You are not begging your way back into the family. You are keeping the air clear in the family you already belong to.

Next post is the hardest one in the series. It is for the reader whose life does not feel victorious in any sense the world would recognize. Suffering. Chronic illness. Grief. Addiction. Depression. Why Romans 8:37 sits in the middle of a list of every reason to despair, and why that placement is not a cruelty but a comfort.