Welcome to Ask the Church, our series where we seek to answer your questions about church worship, practice, and theology in around five minutes.
Today’s question is about confession—particularly about confessing our sins to others, and to a priest in particular—and the question was about why we should do this, and how to get started.
The Bible Assumes Confession in Community
I want to begin by noting that the Bible assumes, in a general sense, that we will confess our sins to one another.
It’s an assumption that runs throughout Scripture: confession is something that happens in community, to other people. Not that we have to list every specific little sin, but that we are held accountable through confessing to one another.
James writes, “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16).
You might say, “But God is the one who forgives me—so why do I need to actually confess to others? Why does the Bible assume that we’ll confess to others?”
Integrity and Honesty
Part of the answer has to do with our own integrity and honesty.
In his little book Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer talks about how when we hide from one another, in a certain sense we’re actually hiding from ourselves—and in the end, hiding from God.
He writes that the sins we only acknowledge before God, but are too afraid to speak before another person, may not actually be acknowledged before God at all. Our silence becomes a means of hiding.
Bonhoeffer says that when we go to our brother or sister in confession, we are actually going to God.
God works through the community of believers. There’s integrity, accountability, and honesty in confessing to others. To refuse to do so really is an act of hypocrisy—an act of hiding.
Assurance of Forgiveness
Another reason we confess to others is assurance.
Assurance is given to us that we are forgiven by God, but it often comes through other Christians. Someone might say, “Oh, but God forgave me!” And that’s true—but has there ever been a moment when you confessed to God and still struggled to believe you were forgiven?
That’s a normal experience for most of us. It’s often in those moments of crisis—when we wrestle with whether God has really forgiven us—that confessing to another person is so important.
When we confess to others, we receive assurance from the family of faith that God has indeed forgiven us.
So, we confess not because God needs it—His forgiveness is freely given through Jesus’ work on the cross—but because we need it.
We need it for our integrity, our honesty, and our assurance. We need it to live openly before God and others, receiving the full comfort of His forgiveness.
In other words: we confess not because our forgiveness depends on it, but because our assurance of forgiveness and the integrity of confession depend upon it.
Who Should We Confess To?
So then the question comes: “Who should I confess to? Anyone?”
In a broad sense, yes—confess your sins to one another, especially to those you’ve sinned against.
But in a more specific sense, there are times when we need someone who actually represents the Church—someone who has the authority of the Church behind him.
You might say, “My friend told me I’m forgiven—but what if they don’t know what they’re talking about?” Sometimes, we need to hear it from someone who can speak with the full weight of the Church’s authority: “Indeed, that one is also washed away by the blood of Christ.”
The Authority to Forgive
There’s a truth in the New Testament that’s often neglected by Protestants, and it’s this: the elders of the Church—those consecrated and ordained to represent Christ—are given Jesus’s own authority to forgive sins.
We actually see this in the same passage from James 5. Just two verses earlier, James writes, “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him” (James 5:14). The word “sick” here refers not only to physical illness but also to sickness of the soul—spiritual weakness or distress. It’s in that same context of calling the elders, whether for sickness of body or of soul, that James goes on to say, “Confess your sins to one another” (James 5:16).
James wasn’t making that up. Jesus Himself, after His resurrection, “breathed on” His disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld” (John 20:22–23).
In other words, Jesus delegated His own authority to forgive sins to the elders of the Church. It’s not that they have the forgiveness in themselves—that is Christ’s and Christ’s alone, but it has been given to them to offer authoritatively in His name.
Ordination and the Gift of the Holy Spirit
This is why, at the ordination of a priest in the Anglican church, these words are spoken over the new priest:
“Receive the Holy Spirit for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed to you by the imposition of our hands. If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”
In other words, the official authority of Christ—delegated to the Church—is passed on to each priest at ordination. And there are moments when we need that authoritative declaration: “These sins are forgiven.”
Don’t Be Afraid to Begin
Some of you may say, “Okay, I think I need that—for my own integrity, for my own assurance—but I’m terrified of beginning.”
To that, I’d point out that the prayer spoken over the priest begins with, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
I genuinely believe the Holy Spirit is given at ordination. And what I’ve experienced in my own ministry, is the Spirit’s gift to hear confessions without it changing my view of the person—to hear them and then to let them go, to forget them.
That’s not strange; it’s part of how God works through His Spirit. One of the gifts given at ordination is the ability to hear the sins of others and then let them go, pronouncing forgiveness.
So don’t be scared that you’re going to be judged. Every priest understands that fear. But I can promise you: you are unlikely to say anything your priest hasn’t already heard—and you’re unlikely to say anything they themselves also haven’t struggled with.
It’s also important for priests to confess to other priests, to keep all of us walking in integrity, honesty, and the assurance of Christ’s forgiveness.
I hope this answer helps.
As always, if you have other questions, feel free to send them to steven@incarnationrichmond.org.
And now, go in the grace of our Lord.