Confession and Community: The Surprising Freedom of Being a Sinner

The Bible challenges us with a profound, yet often-avoided command: “Confess your sins to one another” (James 5:16).

Why is this so difficult? Because for many Christians, community only feels safe when everyone wears a mask of piety. We are comfortable being believers together, but terrifyingly uncomfortable being sinners together.

The result is a devastating loneliness. We hide our deepest struggles, trapped in hypocrisy and isolation, even while surrounded by others in worship or service. The final breakthrough to true community is blocked because the “pious community permits no one to be a sinner.” We remain alone with our evil, and the destructive power of sin only grows in the darkness of what is left unsaid.

💡 The Liberation of Truth: God Wants You As You Are

This is where the radical, incomprehensible grace of the gospel breaks through.

The Gospel confronts the lie of self-sufficiency. It says: “You are a sinner, a great, unholy sinner. Now come, as the sinner that you are, to your God who loves you.”

God doesn’t desire a sacrifice, a performance, or a good deed from you—He desires you alone. You cannot hide. The mask you wear for others is useless before God. He wants to see you as you are so He can be gracious to you.

You are allowed to be a sinner. Thank God for that! He loves the sinner but hates the sin.

The Christian: Grace for One Another

Christ became our brother in the flesh, and in His presence, all pretenses came to an end. This was the truth of the Gospel: the misery of the sinner and the mercy of God.

The community of faith is meant to live in this truth. This is why Jesus gave His followers the authority to hear confession and forgive sin in His name.

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23).

Christ has made the other Christian to be grace for us. In the presence of a fellow believer, we no longer need to pretend. That Christian stands in Christ’s place, offering a space where truth and mercy rule. When you confess to another believer, you are going to God, and you find the forgiveness of all your sin in the community of Jesus Christ.

Four Breakthroughs in Confession

Mutual confession and forgiveness is a call to the great grace of God, leading to profound change.

1. Breakthrough to Community

Sin thrives in isolation. When we confess, we bring sin into the light, and its power is broken. Sin that is spoken and confessed has lost its power to tear the community apart. We are no longer alone with our evil. We can admit our sins and, in this very act, find true community—the community of sinners who live by the grace of God in the cross of Jesus Christ.

2. Breakthrough to the Cross

The root of all sin is pride (superbia). Confession in the presence of another believer is the most profound kind of humiliation, it is an almost unbearable disgrace to one’s pride.

But this humiliation is a glorious disgrace! It is the painful, humiliating death of the old self. We are sharing in the cross of Jesus Christ, who suffered the shameful death of a sinner in our place. The cross shatters all pride. In confession, we affirm our cross, experiencing the cross of Jesus as our deliverance and salvation. The old dies, and God triumphs.

3. Breakthrough to New Life

Confession is conversion. It is the break with the past, the hatred, confession, and forgiveness of sin that leads to new life. “Everything old has passed away… Everything has become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Confession is an act of following Christ (Nachfolge), where we renounce our sins and the power of sin is broken. It is the renewal of the joy of baptism—a deliverance from darkness into the rule of Jesus Christ.

4. Breakthrough to Assurance

Why is it easier to confess to God than to a fellow, sinful Christian? Often, it’s because we’ve been confessing to ourselves and forgiving ourselves—a self-deception that can never lead to a real break with sin.

God gives us assurance through one another. The other believer breaks the circle of self-deception. The promise of forgiveness becomes fully certain only when it is spoken by another believer, as God’s command and in God’s name. This grace spares us the terrors of the final judgment.

For this assurance, we must admit concrete sins. General acknowledgments are often a form of self-justification. Like Jesus with Bartimaeus, we must have a clear answer to the question: “What do you want me to do for you?” In confessing specific, concrete sins, we receive the forgiveness of all our sins—both known and unknown.

Confession: An Offer of Divine Help

Confession to one another is not a divine law, but an offer of divine help for the sinner.

The call to mutual confession and forgiveness is for all who, despite their best efforts, struggle to find the great joy of community, the assurance of forgiveness, and the power of new life. It is an act of humility, love, and obedience that leads directly into the light of God’s grace.

Who can hear your confession? Whoever lives beneath the cross of Jesus. It is not psychological experience, but experience of the cross—a knowledge of their own total lostness in sin and their acceptance in grace—that qualifies a believer to hear confession. In the presence of a Christian under the cross, you are permitted to be a sinner, where you will be healed only by forgiveness.

Is this a path you are willing to explore for true Christian community and profound assurance of forgiveness?