 |
| Author | Post |
|---|
crazy66coolie
Member
| Joined: | Mon Nov 5th, 2007 |
| Location: | Hove, United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 36 |
| First Name: | Neil | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Became a Christian in 1991; got baptised by total immersion ... |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Mon Nov 26th, 2007 10:38 pm |
|
Hi guys
I am in a bit of bother here about the confession to a priest. It's because of the way I was taught in my own church; I am a born-again Christian, who is considering becoming a Catholic.
I recall in my mind a verse from the Bible. 1 John 1:9 says, "If you confess your sins, God is faithful and He will forgive you your sins." Okay? I was taught that the Bible tells us to confess our sins to our God, then our sins will be forgiven, okay? But I just sometimes don't feel that I was being forgiven of my sins, when I prayed to the Lord.
Can I ask why we need to go to see our own priests for confession? I respect the Catholic teaching on this subject, of course. I am keen to convert to Catholicism, but I am a bit lost on this subject, because of the way I was taught this way for the past 25 years.
Am I right in assuming that confession before a priest is connecting to a verse somewhere in the Bible saying, "Confess to one another your sins"? Can you help me understand what the Catholic Church is trying to teach me about going to the Confession?
Can someone help?? Many thanks.
Love
Neil x
____________________
Jesus is Lord! Catholicism is awesome!
|
|
|
BodRod
Member
| Joined: | Mon Oct 2nd, 2006 |
| Location: | Apple Valley, California USA |
| Posts: | 720 |
| First Name: | Cliff | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Raised an SDA, then Generic Christian, finally at home with ... |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Mon Nov 26th, 2007 11:07 pm |
|
I believe Christ instituted the sacrament of Reconciliation on Easter Sunday evening. Earlier Jesus had to tell Mary to not delay Him so He could go the His Father in heaven and she could go tell the disciples that He was risen. The disciples were afraid and had locked themselves into a room when Jesus appeared to them and greeted them with, "Peace be with you." Later that night, He breathed on them and they received the Holy Spirit. At this time He said to them, among other things, "… Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained". (John 20:23-24) From that directive on, humans have had a way of securing forgiveness without killing doves, sheep, cattle, etc.
The Sacrament of Penance brings forgiveness for the sins a person has committed AFTER baptism and restores the gift of God’ grace which had been lost following a mortal sin. Penance restores the person to the status of Christian in good standing.
The sacrament is for all members. "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
Faith is required for the forgiveness of sin. Forgiveness is like any other request of God and that is we must believe to receive. (Matt. 9: 1-8) (Mark 2:5-12) Forgiveness does not come from knocking on doors, or riding bicycles, or spending hours and hours reading. It comes to us by our request and on faith.
Why do we go to a priest to confess?
God wants us to be a community of believers (1 Thess. 5:12-13), a family (1 Tim. 3:15)
We can go directly to God but that tends to diminish the feeling of togetherness with the Church body. It is something like a tree that has a dead limb and dead limbs can be harmful to the tree (Romans 11:20-22) It can take away the sense of belonging.
Still … the same question why to a priest? Christ sent His disciples out to proclaim the Gospel (Matt. 18:15-17), to govern His church in His absence (Luke 22:29-30) and to sanctify His Church through the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist (John 6: 54, 1 Corinthians 11:24-29) and confession (John 20:22-23, 2 Corinthians 2:10 & James 5: 14-16) Note, James was telling us to go to an elder or priest.
I can remember from my protestant days that I too, never felt that I really knew that I had forgiveness. After reading the texts relative to this subject, I have felt much better about the idea of confession to a priest and receiving forgiveness and reconciliation with my Church family. When I think about it, it makes sense to me. In the old Jewish days, they went to a priest. It is the same today except that Jesus made the sacrifice for me so I no longer need to kill something (spill blood) to show my sorrow for my sin and to make amends for it.
____________________
Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro.
|
|
|
DrDave
Member
| Joined: | Mon Nov 6th, 2006 |
| Location: | Mildura, Australia |
| Posts: | 211 |
| First Name: | Dave | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Cradle - Lapsed - Renewed Catholic |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Tue Nov 27th, 2007 04:36 pm |
|
Let's try and look at what the bible says starting with what you quoted 1 John 1:9 KJV
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So, the bible tells us here that if we confess our sins God will forgive. What this passage is silent on however is who to confess our sins to and how. That is to say that this passage by itself does not say "confess your sins directly to God and only to God"
So does the bible tell us who to confess to? James 5:16
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
In order to be good bible believing Christians we must confess our sins to other human beings not just directly to God. But lets face it, there are 6 billion people out there, do we just wander out into the street and pick one? Prudence suggests that we choose one that will keep what we say in confidence, and this is a good thing but even more important is that we seek out one given by God the authority on earth to forgive sins. Matt 9:6-8
6But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home." 7And the man got up and went home. 8When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men.
Did you catch the import of that last phrase? I doesn't say God had given such authority to a man (Jesus Christ), it says God gave such authority to men. And just to be clear which authority? The "authority on earth to forgive sins"
But this raises the question which men? John 20:21-23
21Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
22And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:
23Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.
So here we see the disciples being given authority to forgive sins both explicitly and implicitly. Explicitly Jesus says "whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them" yet some respond to this verse to say that Jesus is talking only about personal sin much like in the Our Father where we say "... as we forgive those who trespass against us". This argument cannot be used effectively against the implicit grant. Jesus says "as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." How did the Father send Jesus? As the passage from Matthew says above with "authority on earth to forgive sins."
The other thing that can be inferred from this last passage is that the disciples had the authority to pass on this gift. It follows that if Jesus could pass it to the disciples, that they in turn could pass it on also, since "as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you"
So all one has to do is find those who have the authority on earth to forgive sins, given by Christ and passed on through 2000 years of history, and confess your sins to them?
Just one last hint. There are very few groups in existence that claim such authority 
I hope this helps
Regards Dave
|
|
|
Dave Armstrong
Network Apologist
| Joined: | Fri Nov 2nd, 2007 |
| Location: | Melvindale, Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 1227 |
| First Name: | Dave | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Nominal Methodist / evangelical non-denom / "Bapticostal" / Catholic |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Tue Nov 27th, 2007 06:05 pm |
|
Criff and Dave have already offered excellent answers; here are a few additional observations on confession:
Karl Adam
The Catholic sacramental idea, the idea of real divine grace sacramentally conveyed, shows its power of moral renewal not only in Mass and the Holy Eucharist, but also and not least in Confession. The Catholic knows that the priest does not hear confessions in his own right but as the representative of God, and that whatever he binds or looses on earth in the name of Jesus will be bound and loosed in heaven also, and this knowledge gives confession its deep seriousness, its absolute truthfulness and its bracing power. In every good confession the holiest victories are won by the power of conscience, by love for purity and goodness, by desire of God and of peace of soul. Confession has given new courage and new confidence and a fresh start in life to millions of men. No less a person than Goethe praises the profound wisdom of Catholic confession, and laments that he was prevented in his youth from settling his strange religious scruples by recourse to it. (1) Harnack does not hesitate to say that Protestantism was guilty of "culpable folly" in "uprooting the whole tree of confession because some of its fruit had gone bad." (2) Yet the "tree" is no good, if it be not a living tree. And it gets this life from the Catholic doctrine that the absolution imparted in the sacrament of Confession is no mere expression of a hope, but is a consoling actuality.
(The Spirit of Catholicism, translated by Justin McCann, revised edition, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image, 1954 [originally 1924],199-200)
Notes:
1. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749-1832), Dichtung und Wahrheit, Part 2, Book 7.
2. Harnack, Adolf von, Reden und Aufsatze, (Giessen, 1906), vol. 2, 256.
* * *
G.K. Chesterton
When people ask me, or indeed anyone else, "Why did you join the Church of Rome?" the first essential answer, if it is partly an elliptical answer, is, "To get rid of my sins." For there is no other religious system that does really profess to get rid of people's sins. It is confirmed by the logic, which to many seems startling, by which the Church deduces that sin confessed and adequately repented is actually abolished; and that the sinner does really begin again as if he had never sinned . . .
When a Catholic comes from Confession, he does truly, by definition, step out again into that dawn of his own beginning and look with new eyes across the world . . . He believes that in that dim corner, and in that brief ritual, God has really remade him in His own image. He is now a new experiment of the Creator. He is as much a new experiment as he was when he was really only five years old . . .
The Sacrament of Penance gives a new life, and reconciles a man to all living, but it does not do it as the optimists and the hedonists and the heathen preachers of happiness do it. The gift is given at a price, and is conditioned by a confession. In other words, the name of the price is Truth, which may also be called Reality; but it is facing the reality about oneself. When the process is only applied to other people, it is called Realism.
(Autobiography, New York: Sheed & Ward, 1936, 340-342)
* * * * *
We also see the Apostle Paul in Holy Scripture, acting, in effect, as a confessor. “Binding” and “loosing” were rabbinical terms that had to do with authority to punish or pardon. The Apostle Paul, exercising these prerogatives with the Corinthians, “binds” in 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 (“imposing a penance”) and “looses” in 2 Corinthians 2:6-11. Paul forgives another man for a transgression that wasn’t personally committed against him, and instructs the Corinthians to do the same (the sin wasn’t committed against all of them, either). So both he and the Corinthians as a whole were acting as “God’s representatives” in the matter of forgiving sins (emphases added):
1 Corinthians 5:1-5: It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father's wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled, and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
2 Corinthians 2:6-11: For such a one this punishment by the majority is enough; so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. Any one whom you forgive, I also forgive. What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, to keep Satan from gaining the advantage over us; for we are not ignorant of his designs.
____________________
I'm happy to offer whatever theological & personal assistance I can. My blog, Biblical Evidence for Catholicism, contains 1900+ papers & web pages (absolutely free) & 16 apologetic books (for sale):
http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/
|
|
|
brian
Member
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Chicago South Burbs, Illinois USA |
| Posts: | 720 |
| First Name: | brian | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | methodist, evangelical, anglican, catholic |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 4th, 2007 01:45 am |
|
The important thing is that we do also believe our ins are forgiven directly by God and we can confess directly to Him. But confession is necessary for serious sins. It is extrmely helpful to hear and no without a shadow of doubt that the sin was confessed and forgiven. Bringing the sin to the light is such a huge part of dealing with it. There is extra motivation and accountability to sin no more. It is a sacrament and you will receive unique grace and specific advice to be medicine for your issues. You can work on obedience and growth as a Christian. The priest is supposed tobe an expert in the spiritual life helping you to avoid self deception.
So we do allow direct confession to God and hope for the imediate forgiveness. And I encourage anyone to spend time repemting of sins outside of confession as well as inside confession, but to not take for granted the great graces available in the sacrament.
I think it would also be a mistake to forget that as you confess to the priest you are confessing to God, and not necessarily asking the priest to ask God to forgive you, but I believe that the priest is hearing the confession and offering the forgiveness on God's behalf. But we know Jesus is present and listening to us.
Brian
|
|
|
Current time is 08:26 am | |
|
|
|
|
|
