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jewscout said:Is there a form of repentence and confession in your faith? How does it work? Do you confess to a Deity or a religious leader?
Yep.... sure does.johnnys4life said:I confess directly to God. I do believe he hears and forgives me.
SOGFPP said:A little bit more on Roman Catholic confession:
Jesus' call to conversion and penance, like that of the prophets before him, does not aim first at outward works, "sackcloth and ashes," fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion. Without this, such penances remain sterile and false; however, interior conversion urges expression in visible signs, gestures and works of penance.
This is the part of the process that everyone seems to miss about our faith....... the interior conversion is paramount in the process. It is a conversion to God with our entire heart .
Good!
Conversion is first of all a work of the grace of God who makes our hearts return to him: "Restore us to thyself, O LORD, that we may be restored!"
The area of most confusion is that we confess and are forgiven by the Priest.... this is not the case:
The confessor is not the master of God's forgiveness, but its servant.
And to all of the above I say, your church and I are in total agreement.
But the priest does say, "your sins are forgiven" doesn't he? Is that because he believes that God has actually forgiven the person because of their willingness to repent, or because they confessed...?
Please remember, that all of this is quite Scriptural:
John 20:21 - before He grants them the authority to forgive sins, Jesus says to the apostles, "as the Father sent me, so I send you." As Christ was sent by the Father to forgive sins, so Christ sends the apostles and their successors forgive sins.
John 20:23 - Jesus says, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained." In order for the apostles to exercise this gift of forgiving sins, the penitents must orally confess their sins to them because the apostles are not mind readers. The text makes this very clear.
Matt. 9:8 - this verse shows that God has given the authority to forgive sins to "men." Hence, those Protestants who acknowledge that the apostles had the authority to forgive sins (which this verse demonstrates) must prove that this gift ended with the apostles. Otherwise, the apostles' successors still possess this gift. Where in Scripture is the gift of authority to forgive sins taken away from the apostles or their successors?
Well, I think here, different people will take a different approach on how to interpret it. I think what I was told was basically it was one of two things. Firstly, they think the disciples were told to go out and spread the gospel as a way of "forgiving sins". If they lead a person to accept Christ, that would mean they had been forgiven, if not, then not. That's the only way that made sense to them because they believe there is forgiveness through Christ alone, as the Bible does say "there is no other name under heaven by which a man may be saved". (Sorry, I don't have the exact verse there, so if it's being misquoted I do not know, I am just saying it from memory having heard it). See, Protestants, and I can't speak for ALL of them, generally believe that interpretation of scripture comes by way of the Holy Ghost living inside you, inside anyone who is truly "saved". So people in the faith who interpret it wrong I suppose are just not listening to God.
They didn't believe in the disciples or apostles having any special particular authority that we as Christians do not have, so it didn't matter who you confessed to, as long as they were believers, and they could pray for you, but you had to keep very much in mind the fact that it is GOD forgiving you, not the other person. But they normally did go direct, to Christ, and here is one passage that was often quoted to us:
http://www.religiousforums.com/bible/index.php?keyword=7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another °, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
http://www.religiousforums.com/bible/index.php?keyword=8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
http://www.religiousforums.com/bible/index.php?keyword=9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
They consider this as proof that you can go direct to Christ, and still be forgiven.
The other thing was, if I was told that Christians should confess thier sins to each other within the church, you must remember they consider the church the body of believers, that is the body of Christ - those who are faithful to him - anyone who is a true believer. (And at my old church, confessing your sins actually IN the church was very highly discouraged, a while back a man had stood up and said he was sleeping with another church member's wife, well that member had a husband and he went and shot the guy to death a few days later, so they were pretty much a 'keep your sins between you and God' type of church).
But at Bible study they couldn't quite get around those verses (the ones you quoted, so It was explained to me like this, if you had just one or two people you trusted enough to confess your sins to, that would be good enough, they grudgingly admitted that confession of some sort was necessary. And so I wonder now, why didn't they tell me that in church?
Personally, I always relied on other Christians, close friends, to confess, after I was told that. It has backfired a time or two. For a while I considered my husband as my confessor, and I still do, don't generally keeps sins from him, or at least not the ones I remember. The thought of confessing to a stranger, even if he is a priest and it is sort of his job, quite frankly scares the livin daylights out of me. It is not exactly a big wide welcome sign hovering over the Catholic church, not for me. In fact I think I remember that is one of the things that drove me away, when I aimlessly wandered into a Catholic church once at 15, and asked someone how do you become a Catholic? I remember they stressed how serious it was, and then brought up the part about confessing...and I couldn't hit the door fast enough. Didn't even know Jesus then, really.
James 5:15-16 - in verse 15 we see that sins are forgiven by the priests in the sacrament of the sick.
This is another example of man's authority to forgive sins on earth. Then in verse 16, James says Therefore, confess our sins to one another, in reference to the men referred to in verse 15, the priests of the Church.
Well, this is, I am trying to remember but I think they said sometimes if you are dealing with unconfessed sin it can make you sick, and so it's better to confess to the elders and be annointed. That's about as far as they went with it.
It also is represented by history.... with the earliest Christians, as seen in this quote and many others (i'll just show you one to get an idea)
"Moreover, it is in accordance with reason that we should return to soberness[of conduct], and, while yet we have opportunity, exercise repentance towards God. It is well to reverence both God and the bishop." Ignatius, Epistle to the Smyraeans, 9 (c. A.D. 110).
Scott