Kemi had a card taped to the corner of her bathroom mirror. She had printed it herself after a conference on the believer’s identity, and the edges had gone soft from three years of steam. It read: I am the righteousness of God in Christ. I am redeemed from the curse. I am accepted in the Beloved. I am more than a conqueror. Every morning, while she tied her headwrap, she said the words aloud. Her husband teased her about it. Her teenage son had memorised it without meaning to.
She was also the treasurer of the women’s fellowship at her church. She had held the post for five years, and she was good at it. Her records were neat, her receipts were filed, and the account always balanced at the end of the year.
Except that this year it would not. Eight months earlier, her son’s school fees had come due in the same week that her salary was delayed. The school had threatened to send him home from his final-year examinations. Kemi had moved ₦180,000 from the fellowship account into her own, intending to replace it the moment her end-of-year bonus came. Then the company announced that there would be no bonuses that year.
She did not lie to anyone. Nobody asked. She simply did not say. And she noticed something strange happening at the bathroom mirror. The worse she felt about the fellowship account, the louder she said the words on the card. I am the righteousness of God in Christ. Some mornings she was almost shouting.
Two weeks before the annual audit, she came to see me after a midweek service. She sat down, opened her handbag, took out the card, and put it on the table between us. “Pastor,” she said, “I have been confessing who I am in Christ every morning for three years. I believe every word of it. But there is something I have not been able to confess, and I think it is making all the rest of it a noise.”
PunchlineKemi had stumbled onto something that many believers miss. In the New Testament, confessing who we are in Christ and confessing our sins are not two opposite activities. They are the same act. Both are a matter of agreeing with God.
Saying the same thing as God
The Greek word most often translated confess in the New Testament is homologeo. It is a compound of two simpler words: homo, meaning “same,” and logeo, from the word for “speak” or “word.” To confess is literally to say the same thing. It means to agree, to acknowledge, to speak in line with another.
That one idea runs through every kind of confession the New Testament describes. When we confess Jesus as Lord, we are saying the same thing about Him that the Father has said. When we confess our faith, we are agreeing with what God has revealed. And when we confess our sins, we are saying the same thing about them that God says. In each case the confession does not create the reality. It agrees with a reality that God has already declared.
The letter to the Hebrews uses the related noun homologia, which the King James Version translates “profession.” “Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus” (Hebrews 3:1). “Let us hold fast our profession” (Hebrews 4:14). “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)” (Hebrews 10:23). Notice the reason that last verse gives for holding fast: he is faithful that promised. The stability of our confession rests on God’s faithfulness, not on the strength of our voice or the steadiness of our feelings.
Jesus Himself uses the word when He speaks about public allegiance to Him:
Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.
The confession Jesus describes here is a public agreement. To confess Him “before men” is to stand with Him, to acknowledge openly that you belong to Him. And He promises to do the same for you before His Father. Notice the symmetry. Confession is two-way. When you say the same thing as heaven about Jesus, Jesus says the same thing about you in heaven.
This gives us the key to the whole subject. Confession in the New Covenant is the believer’s mouth coming into agreement with what God has already said: about His Son, about our sin, about our salvation, and about who we now are.
Confessing Jesus as Lord
The most foundational confession is about Jesus. Paul writes, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9). John says, “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God” (1 John 4:15). And one day, Paul tells us, “every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:11).
In the first century, “Jesus is Lord” was a dangerous sentence. Citizens of the Roman empire were increasingly expected to acknowledge Caesar as lord. To give that title to a crucified Jewish teacher was to declare where your ultimate allegiance lay. It could cost you your livelihood, your family’s approval, or your life. Believers in many parts of the world still know that cost today.
Simon Peter shows us both sides of this confession. At Caesarea Philippi he made the great statement: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). He was saying exactly what the Father had revealed. Yet a short time later, in the courtyard of the high priest, the same Peter said the opposite. “I do not know the man” (Matthew 26:72). The second time he said it, he swore an oath. The third time, he cursed. And the rooster crowed.
What happened next is a picture of grace. After the resurrection, by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus asked Peter three times, “Lovest thou me?” Three denials were answered by three confessions. “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee” (John 21:17). Jesus did not shame Peter for his failure. He gave him the opportunity to say the same thing again, and then He gave him a task: “Feed my sheep.”
That tells us something important. A confession spoiled by failure can be renewed. Many believers have, in some moment of pressure, denied Jesus by their silence or their conduct. The way back is to come to Him and say the same thing again.
It also tells us that the saving confession does not depend on polished words. A trembling new believer who whispers, “Jesus, You are Lord, and I trust You,” has made the same confession as an apostle. The weight of salvation rests on Christ, not on the speaker’s ability to reproduce a formula.
Saying what God says about you
Because confession means agreeing with God, it naturally includes agreeing with what He says about those who belong to Christ. Peter, the restored denier, writes this to scattered believers:
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
Look at the identity statements. A chosen generation. A royal priesthood. An holy nation. A peculiar people, which in the older English means a people belonging to God as His own special possession. Then comes the before and after: once not a people, now the people of God; once without mercy, now having obtained mercy.
Every one of these phrases describes what God has already made His people. None of them is a goal still to be reached. Paul writes in the same way to the Corinthians, after listing a catalogue of sins: “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Were and are. The past is real. So is the present.
When you say, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ,” you are agreeing with 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” When you say, “I have been delivered from darkness,” you are agreeing with Colossians 1:13. You are saying the same thing as God.
Paul prays for his friend Philemon “That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus” (Philemon 1:6). The word acknowledging there carries the idea of full knowledge or recognition. Faith becomes active and effective as believers recognise what God has placed in them through Christ. This is the healthy place of identity confession. It helps us see ourselves rightly, and seeing ourselves rightly changes how we live.
But notice the source of the truth. The confession does not make you righteous. You are righteous because of what Christ did. You speak it because it is true, and speaking it helps your mind and heart catch up with the reality. If a believer begins to think that saying the words is what produces the reality, the confession has quietly shifted from agreement to manipulation. And as Kemi discovered, it can also become a way of drowning out the voice of conscience rather than listening to it.
NuggetConfession never creates reality. It is the believer’s mouth coming into agreement with what God has already said, about Christ, about our sin, and about who we are in Him.
The same word for sin
Here is where many teachings on confession divide what the Bible keeps together. John writes to believers, people he will shortly call “my little children,” about walking in fellowship with God:
This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
“If we confess our sins.” The word is homologeo, the very same word Jesus used for confessing Him before men and Paul used for confessing Jesus as Lord. To confess sin is to say the same thing about it that God says.
That means more than admitting in general terms that we are imperfect. It means calling the sin by the name God calls it. Kemi had not been saying to herself, “I stole from the fellowship.” She had been saying, “I borrowed some money that I will soon return.” Those two sentences describe the same transaction, but only one of them says the same thing as God. We are all experts at renaming our sins. Lying becomes “managing the situation.” Lust becomes “admiring.” Bitterness becomes “being realistic about people.” Gossip becomes “sharing a prayer request.” Confession sets the euphemisms aside and agrees with God.
Look at the three false statements John warns against. “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie.” “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar.” Each one is a disagreement with God. And each one has consequences: we lie, we deceive ourselves, the truth is not in us, His word is not in us.
Some believers fear that admitting sin contradicts their identity in Christ. They think that if they say, “I did wrong,” they are undoing the confession, “I am righteous.” John gives no support to that fear. In fact, he places honest confession of sin right at the heart of fellowship with the God who is light. The person who has been made righteous in Christ is precisely the person who can afford to be honest about sin, because their standing no longer depends on appearing sinless.
Notice too what John promises. “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Faithful, because He has promised. Just, because the penalty has already been paid by Christ. When God forgives a confessing believer, He is being righteous, because justice has already been satisfied at the cross.
Two ways to disagree with God
PunchlineIt helps to see that a believer can disagree with God in two opposite directions, and both damage fellowship.
The first is to say less than God says about your identity. Some believers are so aware of their failures that they will not agree with what God says about them in Christ. They pray as though they were still under condemnation, describing themselves in terms God no longer uses. That posture can look humble. But it is actually a refusal to agree with God’s verdict. If God says you are washed, sanctified and justified, insisting that you are still filthy is not humility. It is disagreement.
The second is to say less than God says about your sin. Some believers are so attached to their identity confession that they will not admit when they have done wrong. They speak of being righteous while living in deception, and they treat every mention of sin as an attack on grace. That posture can look like faith. But it is also disagreement with God.
Kemi had been doing the second, and it had begun to empty the first of its joy. The words on the card were true. She was the righteousness of God in Christ. But by refusing to say the same thing as God about the fellowship account, she had made the true words into a kind of shield. They were protecting her from her own conscience.
The New Covenant answer is to agree with God in both directions. Yes, I am righteous in Christ. Yes, I did this, and it was wrong. The two statements do not cancel each other out. Each of them is true, and the first is what makes it safe to say the second.
The Advocate and godly sorrow
John immediately continues with the provision God has made:
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.” The aim is clear. God’s purpose is that His children do not sin. Grace does not lower that standard. “And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” The word translated advocate is parakletos, one called alongside to help, a defence counsel who stands with the accused. And this Advocate is uniquely qualified, because He is also “the propitiation for our sins,” the sacrifice that turned away God’s righteous wrath.
So when a believer confesses, they are not appearing before a hostile court. They are speaking to their Father with their Advocate beside them, an Advocate who has already paid the penalty in full. Christ has already purchased their forgiveness. Confession is the believer coming into agreement with God about the sin and receiving the cleansing that Christ’s sacrifice has provided.
This also helps us distinguish true confession from self-punishment. Some believers confess and then keep punishing themselves for days, as though their misery were an extra payment. Paul describes the difference:
Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.
“Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” Godly sorrow is real grief over sin, but it moves toward God and toward change. Look at what it produced in the Corinthians: carefulness, a desire to clear the matter, indignation at the wrong, zeal to put things right. Worldly sorrow is self-focused. It feels terrible, but it produces nothing except despair, and it keeps the person turned in on themselves.
Once you have agreed with God about a sin and taken whatever practical steps are needed, you do not need to keep rehearsing the accusation. “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth” (Romans 8:33). Receive the mercy. Give your attention to the change now required.
When I kept silence
David knew what it was to hide a sin, and he knew what it was to stop hiding. Many readers connect Psalm 32 with the long months after his sin with Bathsheba, when he concealed adultery and murder while carrying on as king:
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD ; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
The psalm begins with the blessing. “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” Paul quotes these very words in Romans 4 as a description of justification by faith. Then David describes what silence did to him. “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.” Hidden sin dried him out. It affected his body, his sleep and his strength.
Then the turning point: “I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” Notice how quickly the forgiveness follows the confession. There is no long probation. He said, I will confess, and God forgave.
Kemi told me later that the months of silence had felt exactly like that. She slept badly. She had headaches. She found it harder and harder to sing in church. “I kept saying I was more than a conqueror,” she said, “and I felt like I was drying up from the inside.” Proverbs puts it plainly: “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). Notice the two verbs: confesseth and forsaketh. Agreement with God about a sin naturally leads to turning from it.
Confession that reaches people
Confession to God is the foundation. But some sins also require confession to people. “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed” (James 5:16). When Zacchaeus met Jesus, his confession took the form of restitution: “if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold” (Luke 19:8). He did not merely feel forgiven. He went back to the people he had cheated.
Where a sin has harmed another person, saying the same thing as God includes saying it to them. An apology that names the wrong honestly, without excuses, is a form of confession. Where money has been taken, it should be returned. Where a false impression has been given, the record should be corrected. A believer who says, “I am a new creation,” while refusing to correct a lie they told about a colleague has misunderstood what new creation means.
This calls for wisdom. Confession to people does not mean broadcasting every private struggle to the whole congregation. Many sins are best confessed to God and to one trusted, mature believer who can pray and help. Sins that have harmed specific people should usually be confessed to those people, with care for their wellbeing. Where there has been abuse or any matter that involves the law or the safety of others, confession must include proper reporting, and the church must never use the language of forgiveness to hide wrongdoing or rush a victim past the protection and care they need.
And confession to people does not automatically restore trust. Forgiveness from God is immediate. Rebuilding trust with people takes time, and that is right. A person who has broken trust should accept the process with humility, not demand that others feel safe immediately because God has forgiven them.
Finally, the habit of saying the same thing as God should shape all our speech, not only our prayers. “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another” (Ephesians 4:25). A believer who confesses grand truths in church and then exaggerates on a CV, shades the truth in a business deal, or misrepresents a family quarrel has split their speech in two. The Spirit wants to join it back together, so that the voice we use with God and the voice we use with people both say the same thing as Him.
Kemi did not wait for the audit. That same week, with her husband beside her, she went to the president of the women’s fellowship and told her everything. She did not say “borrowed.” She said, “I took money that was not mine to take.” She brought a written plan to repay the whole amount over six months, and she offered to step down as treasurer.
The president was quiet for a long time. Then she took Kemi’s hand and said, “Thank you for telling me before the auditors did.” The executive accepted her resignation as treasurer and accepted her repayment plan. Another woman took over the books. Some of the women were cool towards her for a while, and Kemi said she understood. Trust takes time. But nobody threw her out, and several of them came to pray with her. The final instalment was paid two months early.
She still has the card on her mirror. When I visited her home some time later, I noticed that she had added a line at the bottom in her own handwriting. It says: 1 John 1:9. Faithful and just.
“I used to shout the words on that card,” she told me, “because I was trying to drown out what I knew. Now I say them quietly. They are true, and there is nothing behind them that I am hiding.” She smiled. “It turns out the confession works better when you are confessing everything.”
That is the New Covenant way of speaking. Say the same thing as God about Jesus: He is Lord. Say the same thing as God about who you are in Him: washed, sanctified, justified, chosen, a royal priesthood. And say the same thing as God about your sin, plainly, without euphemism, to the Father who is faithful and just to forgive. You do not have to choose between the card on the mirror and the truth about the account. In Christ, you can afford to agree with God about everything.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What does it mean to you that the word confess literally means “to say the same thing”? How does that change your understanding of confession?
- Which identity statements from Scripture do you find hardest to agree with? Why?
- Are there sins that you have been describing with softer names than God uses? What would it mean to call them what He calls them?
- Which of the two ways of disagreeing with God, saying less than He says about your identity or saying less than He says about your sin, are you more prone to?
- Is there anyone to whom you owe a confession, an apology or restitution? What would be a wise first step?
This Week
Write two short lists this week. On the first, write three statements of who you are in Christ, each with the verse it comes from (for example, 1 Peter 2:9, 1 Corinthians 6:11, 2 Corinthians 5:21). Read them aloud each morning, slowly, as agreement with God. On the second, each evening, ask the Holy Spirit to show you anything from that day that you need to confess. Name it honestly in one sentence, using the words God would use. Then read 1 John 1:9 and 2:1-2 aloud, and thank Him for His forgiveness. If anything on your evening list involves another person, decide by the end of the week what step you will take to put it right.
A Prayer
Father, thank You that You have spoken the truth about Jesus, about my sin and about who I am in Him. I confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. I agree with You that I am washed, sanctified and justified in His name, a member of Your chosen people and royal priesthood. I also agree with You about my sin. I will not rename it or hide it. Thank You that You are faithful and just to forgive me and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness, and that Jesus is my Advocate with You. Give me the courage to make things right with the people I have wronged. Let my mouth say the same thing as You, in prayer, in church, at home and at work. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.