by John T. Pless

Have you ever gone to your pastor for private confession and absolution?

"Isn't that Roman Catholic?" some might answer. "Didn't Luther and the Reformation do away with all that?"

There are other responses, too. The claim, "I can confess my sin directly to God," is used as justification for neglecting private confession. Or, the old Adam might claim that it is the height of arrogance for a pastor to say, "I forgive you your sins," because "only God can forgive sins."

The Lutheran Confessions, which set forth the teaching of Holy Scripture and explain what Lutherans believe, say otherwise.

"It is taught among us," says the Augsburg Confession, for example, "that private absolution should be retained and not allowed to fall into disuse."

Martin Luther was no less adamant in the Large Catechism: "If you are a Christian, you should be glad to run more than a hundred miles for confession, not under compulsion but rather coming and compelling us [pastors] to offer it . . . Therefore, when I urge you to go to confession, I am simply urging you to be a Christian."

Current wisdom says that people need affirmation, not absolution. David Wells, a prominent observer of contemporary church life, laments that churches have exchanged Biblical reality for "therapeutic models" that "tend to shy away from the concept of sin, or at least to tame it by calling it sickness instead."

Yet the Lutheran Confessions keep us from falling prey to a culture that denies the reality of sin, the need for repentance and the gift of forgiveness. Our Confessions will not let us forget that psychological therapy, for example, as helpful as it sometimes is, can never be a substitute for the Gospel. We are called back to the basics of sin and grace, repentance and faith, confession and absolution.

The Reformation can be charac-terized as a struggle over the doctrine of repentance. Luther recognized this early on. In the first of the Ninety-Five Theses, he writes, "When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said 'Repent' (Matt. 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance." Luther reacted against Rome's doctrine of repentance as an occasional activity in which Christians were required to participate from time to time. He taught that repentance was the natural rhythm of the Christian's life as the Christian daily returns to baptismal death and resurrection.

Repentance is more than "feeling sorry for your sins." According to the Augsburg Confession, "True repentance is nothing else than to have contrition and sorrow or terror, on account of sin, and yet at the same time to believe the Gospel or absolution (namely, that sin has been forgiven and grace has been obtained through Christ)." It continues, "and this faith will comfort the heart and again set it at rest. Amendment of life and the forsaking of sin should then follow, for these must be the fruits of repentance, as John says, 'Bear fruit that befits repentance' (Matt.3:8)."

With a perverted understanding of repentance, it is no wonder that Rome had also twisted private confession, making it a tool of terror rather than a gracious gift of the Gospel.

In the medieval Roman church, private confession was made a requirement of the faithful. Meeting in 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council legislated that "every believer of either gender, after he has arrived at the age of discretion, should himself confess all his sins faithfully at least once a year to his own priest."

As a young monk, Luther faithfully followed the Council's directive. He confessed his sins to his father confessor. But Luther was troubled with uncertainty. Had he sincerely confessed? Had he confessed all of his sins? He was left without the comfort and consolation of the forgiveness of sins.

As he came to know the Gospel, Luther saw Rome's use of private confession as a "slaughter of souls." The sheer gift of the forgiveness of sins in absolution had been replaced by an oppressive demand that sins be enumerated in detail. Confession was made a matter of law, not Gospel.

Confession exists for the sake of the absolution, the pronouncement of forgiveness. Thus, Luther writes in the Large Catechism, "We urge you, however, to confess and express your needs, not for the purpose of performing a work but to hear what God has to say to you. The Word or absolution, I say, is what you should concentrate on, magnifying and cherishing it as a great and wonderful treasure to be accepted with all praise and gratitude."

Private confession does not consist in enumerating all the sins one has committed. Psalm 19:12, "Who can discern his errors?," is quoted by the Augsburg Confession to demonstrate that recalling and naming all sins would be impossible. Neither do we come to private confession to wallow in self-pity, complain about our sins, or "to get something off my chest."

Rather, we come to confession that we might lay our sins before God and "receive absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the pastor as from God Himself, not doubting, but firmly believing that by it our sins are forgiven before God in heaven" (Small Catechism).

Absolution is nothing less than the very voice of God Himself. Article XXV expands article XII: "We also teach that God requires us to believe this absolution as much as if we heard God's voice from heaven, that we should joyfully comfort ourselves with absolution, and that we should know that through such faith we obtain forgiveness of sins."

Spoken from the human lips of a pastor, the absolution is the very Word of the Lord Himself. We see this from Jesus' words to His disciples in Luke 10:16, "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me."

On Easter evening, the Risen Lord breathed on His apostles, saying to them, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:21).

God puts His words on the lips of His pastors. And by these words, whether in private confession or after the general confession during the divine service, He bestows the forgiveness of sins won for the world by the Lamb of God in His suffering and death. More than mere "assurance," absolution is "the true voice of the Gospel."

There are signs that private confession is being restored to its rightful place as the ordinary means of pastoral care in many of our congregations. What's more, an increasing number of pastors are setting aside a specific time each week to hear confession and to absolve sinners of their sins. Accompanied by teaching and preaching that emphasize the benefits and blessings of holy absolution, this is drawing broken sinners to find God's peace and healing in this gift.

The goal of recovering the practice of private confession is that Christ Jesus receive all the glory due Him as our only Savior and that we poor sinners receive the full consolation of the forgiveness of sins. "For we also keep confession, especially because of the absolution, which is the word of God that the power of the keys proclaims to individuals by divine authority. It would therefore be wicked to remove private absolution from the church. And those who despise private absolution understand neither the forgiveness of sins nor the power of the keys" (Ap. of the Augsburg Confession, Article XII).

Confession and absolution extol the potency of God's Word and the blood of His Son over our sin.

"When ministers lay on their hands,
Absolved by Christ the sinner stands;
He who by grace the Word believes
The purchase of his blood receives"
--LW #235, v. 6