To all bean curd lovers, my apologies in advance :P

A few weeks ago I listened to a Christian Q&A session posted online and was disturbed to hear some patently unbiblical teaching regarding confession. I’m not talking about the Roman Catholic practice of holing up in a booth and admitting your wrongdoing to a priest (who has no power to forgive you whatsoever). No this was a little more insidious.

It goes thus: if you’re a true Christian (that is, someone who has repented of sin and is trusting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation) then God has forgiven your trespasses and you never have to ask for forgiveness of sin again.

What a problematic statement.

First of all, it’s half true. Yes, God has forgiven all our sins (Psalm 103:12) and yes justification is a one-time deal wherein God forgives a sinner based on the merit of Christ’s perfect righteousness alone.

But what’s this business of never having to ask forgiveness ever again?

I call it the DAFT view (Don’t Ask for Forgiveness Theology). It’s an old idea often linked to antinomianism or the extreme grace idea that says adherence to the Mosaic Law is unnecessary for the modern Christian.

It’s sneaky, like tofu, pretending to be meat while actually being a poor substitute.

Yet I can see why it’s attractive – who wouldn’t want to just ditch all the negativity that comes with sin and get on with the more positive aspects of the Christian life? If God has forgiven us (which He has) and has blotted out our sins (which He has) then perhaps it makes better sense to focus on living by the Spirit rather than having to contemplate our sin and ask for forgiveness all the time (it’s not).

It’s dangerous theology, to say the least. And that’s because the Bible, contrary to this flawed doctrine, teaches us that:

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

You’d think that’s a pretty clear verse huh? Yet many people want to do away with this, as if it were some impediment to the Christian life rather than a critical component. DAFT guys have to reinvent the meaning of this verse and reinterpret certain passages to give their DAFT teaching legs. Yet in so doing they mangle the Bible and destroy the faith of others.

For example, DAFT folks teach that Jesus’ command that we confess our sins doesn’t apply today.

You see the first torpedo that DAFT proponents have to dodge is the issue of Christ’s model of prayer where he teaches us to confess our sins (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4). Note Jesus’ specific words:

“Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us” (Luke 11:4).

As a suggested prayer pattern from our Lord I’d say this is a crucial thing to practice. Yet DAFT people say this verse no longer applies to us because, get this: at the time he said that He hadn’t died on the cross yet.

In other words, atonement wasn’t yet made and therefore justification by grace wasn’t yet possible. Jesus, they say, was telling His disciples they needed to continually ask for forgiveness of sin because, who knows, if they got trampled by a mad cow or crushed underneath an unstable brick tower, they might end up in hell for unconfessed and unforgiven sin.

In a works-righteousness economy where people have to earn their salvation by obeying the Law, this makes perfect sense. Except there never was a works-righteousness economy (not in God’s eyes anyway).

You see this whole new covenant (saved by grace)/old covenant (saved by law) thing is a flawed understanding of God’s plan of redemption. It’s a broken understanding of the gospel. DAFT folks would have us believe that as members of the new covenant, the covenant of grace, we are forgiven by grace – the grace made possible by the death of Jesus Christ – who now freely forgives people and no longer demands them to go through the complicated and perpetual requirements of works-righteousness Judaism to be saved.

But that view is only half true because salvation has ALWAYS been by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus. It’s been this way since the time of Adam and Eve. There was never a time in redemptive history where a person could be saved by doing good and praying for forgiveness on a daily basis.

We know this because the author of the book of Hebrews labors to inform his readers (a Jewish community steeped in Pharisaic, works-oriented doctrine and no doubt struggling with the concept of grace) that salvation by grace through faith has always been the case. He argues for this throughout the beautiful chapter of Hebrews 11, beginning with Abel, making his way through Noah and the Patriarchs, steadily contending that salvation was always a free gift imputed to us rather than earned.

Note the author’s comment in verse 11 that Moses forsook the pleasures of the Egyptian court for the sake of Christ “because he was looking ahead to his reward” (Heb 11:26). Moses was looking to Christ in faith!

Paul says that Abraham was justified by faith and not works (Romans 4). Like Moses, he was looking ahead to the Messiah, and was thereby justified by faith in Jesus Christ through the merciful grace of God.

We on the other hand, look back to the finished work of Jesus the Messiah but are still justified by the same means – faith alone by grace alone.

That’s how salvation has always been. To say that people who lived before Christ had to somehow earn or acquire salvation other than through faith in Christ is unbiblical.

In light of this, what did Jesus mean when he gave his model of prayer? If he wasn’t teaching his disciples to ask for forgiveness daily that they might be consistently assured of salvation, what was he saying?

In John 13 we find a fascinating answer. Jesus and his disciples gather in the upper room for the Passover meal, the Last Supper. They have come in from another long day in the hot and dusty outdoors, their feet grimy and in need of washing before sitting down to eat. Jesus, in a startling act of humility and love, decides to perform this act Himself. He wraps himself in a towel, splashes some water into a bowl, and begins to wash his disciple’s feet.

Peter finds this offensive. The Lord God of the universe is washing them? He quickly objects: “You shall never wash my feet” (v8).

Jesus responds in the same verse: “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

Peter thinks about this and decides he wants to have full part with Jesus (which isn’t surprising, since he was perhaps the most devout and outspoken of the disciples and wanted to be with Jesus in everything). Not wanting to lack in any way when it came to communion with his Lord, he tells Jesus, “Not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” (v9).

Jesus’ reply is significant: “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean… ” (v10).

Did you catch that? Jesus was painting a spiritual analogy, telling Peter that someone who is justified (whose sins are completely forgiven) is like someone who has taken a bath and is totally clean. That person need not be justified again; it’s a done deal (“You are clean”). All he needs is the occasional washing of feet to get rid of the build up of dirt that comes with walking in this tainted world.

In other words, confessing your sins as a believer is not a matter of justification (coz that’s already been sorted); it’s a matter of sanctification or holy living (which is an ongoing process). We confess our sins as believers because we need day-to-day purification, that washing of the feet, so we can consistently enjoy the harmony of fellowship with our holy and perfect Lord.

We don’t ask for forgiveness out of some spiritual obligation to maintain good credit with a vengeful God, we ask forgiveness because we know God is holy and we want no part in anything that offends Him.

In more practical terms, we confess sin because to harbor it or ignore it would be like stepping in a patch of dung and entering a restaurant pretending nothing happened. Eventually the stench becomes so overwhelming all the guests leave or you’re booted out the door. Disharmony happens. And the only way to set things right is to wash off the dung (not buy a new pair of shoes).

Sanctification is a lifelong course that begins at our justification and carries through until our glorification, when the Lord calls us home to be with Him. It is our A-Z journey to Christ-likeness, a necessary path and natural consequence of being born again. We are all at different stages of sanctification and we all bear fruit to various degrees (Matthew 13:8). But make no mistake, all true believers are on the road and all true believers step in dung on the way.

That’s because we are still prone to sin (1 John 1:8). Yes we’ve been transformed and made into new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17) but we are still stuck in the flesh – our bodies, the earthly casings tainted and corrupted by sin (Romans 7).

This is why we are urged to confess our sins and forgive others; we need to be honest with our condition and bring before the Lord the stuff that bogs us down – our constant blunders, unbroken habits and secret sins. We need to confess and lay them before the Lord because the opposite would be to deny them and say that sin is of no consequence.

John had this to say of the man who felt no need to acknowledge his sin:

“If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives” (1 John 1:10).

I don’t know about you but I would not want to call God a liar.

Speaking of lies, you know what’s worse than a lie? Truth mingled with untruth. I find it very distressing to hear people who claim to be Christians preach the Word mixed with unbiblical teaching. At best it causes confusion in the body of Christ; at worst, it can damn people to a Christless eternity.

Don’t deny your sins or think that God finds them trivial. We ought to cultivate an attitude of submission to Christ that includes bringing our daily sin to him and asking Him to forgive and cleanse us. Remember, it’s not our eternal standing before God that is at stake; He settled that once and for all when you repented of sin and gave your life to Him as Lord and Savior. You ARE clean. Rather it is our fellowship with Him that is at stake, that daily communion where we enjoy His presence and power in our lives.

If we refuse to acknowledge our sins, like David after the Bathsheba debacle our fellowship with God will be marred and we risk experiencing a less fruitful walk. Indeed, it can get painful, as God makes it clear that he will always discipline His erring children (Hebrews 12:4-11).

The comforting thing is God is in the cleansing and restoration business (1 John 1:9) and disciplines us because He loves us.

Be on guard against false doctrine that tickles the ears and seduces the heart. Test all novel teaching to see if it matches the pure meat of the Word which is able to truly satisfy and nourish our souls.

Don’t settle for tofu.