They Called Jesus a Heretic, too.

             I remember the first time I ever consciously did something 'bad'.  I was five years old, living in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.  Even then I had a vivid imagination as well as a unique ability to cause mischief with or without knowing it in the process.  Whatever I was pretending at that moment isn't necessarily important, but it did include a small baseball bat and my parents car parked in the garage.  This was nearly 25 years ago, so the most I can remember is taking a swing at the headlight several times before the crash made me jump out of my skin and run into the kitchen like a silly cartoon character.  My mother was there to greet me with a puzzled look on her face.  Then my eyes swelled up and I cracked under the pressure of my mom's confusion.  "I....I...I broke your car!!!"   This was it, I thought it was over for me and my mothers' disappointment would be insurmountable.  I don't remember much afterward, but I can imagine it went a little like this.

Mom- (If you haven't met my mother, she loves us kids unconditionally and found it incredibly difficult to be angry at a 5 year old, incredibly adorable me.....and it's still true today.) "Aww, sweetie.  Do you think that was good idea or a bad idea?"
Mini Grant- "Bad idea....."
Mom- "And we're going to try not to swing the baseball bat around breakable things anymore.  Okay?"
Mini Grant- "Okay mommy.  I'm sorry."
Mom- "It's okay. We'll get it fixed. Love you."
Mini Grant- "I love you, too."  I nodded in agreement.

Agreement.  That's what it came down to.  Because of my mother's love for me, an innocent 5 year old boy wearing suspenders and a mickey mouse shirt, she forgave me right away.  I agreed with her, because she was kind enough to express that forgiveness, that I shouldn't make a particularly stupid decisions with baseball bats.  All of this agreement, love, grace, understanding, and nurturing wouldn't have been possible without the idea of the what triggered it all.  My confession.  "Mom....I broke your car with the baseball bat."  Too bad parents aren't to forgiving these days.  Now they just call them A.D.H.D for merely acting like children, dope them up on 'attention deficit' medications, and make them act like zombies.  Another blog, another time.

Back to the point.  Two blogs ago I briefly spoke of confession.  I quote myself: "Confession doesn't mean to cast doubt on yourself, but to cast everything you are, good or bad, into the sight of something perfect."  I wrote this well over a month ago and now the idea of confession sticks out to me again.  A wonderful, hard working mentor of mine, Paul Donnan, recently gave a sermon regarding True Confessions.  Paul Donnan, in case you don't know him, is bold.  He's smart.  He's unafraid, a true Apostle spreading the message of the actual good news.  Not the man made, legalistic ideals that many congregations have added to their 'ways' over the last 2000 years.

"Confession to be forgiven seems right, but it's a work of the flesh.  As if Jesus wasn't completely finished...."

And my favorite quote of the whole entire sermon.....

 "Confession to be forgiven is an extra-Biblical church tradition.  Nowhere in the New Covenant do you find a believer confessing their sin to be or maintain forgiveness.  It's not in there."

Bold.  And true.  Before any of the Pharisee Freds start screaming 'heresy!', allow me to use an example from Paul's sermon and a couple illustrations of my own to explain wonderful phenomenon called Confession and Forgiveness.  What it meant back then, and what it means now.  Prepare for contextual clarification.  Your mind will be blown.....

Pastor Paul reminds us of Christ hanging on a tree with two men.  One on each side.  First one will challenge Him.  "If you're as powerful as you say you are, then free us from this tree...."  Then the other says something to the other criminal.  Paraphrased..."Don't you fear God?  We deserve this punishment because what we did.  This man is innocent."  Then he says to Jesus, "Remember me, Lord!  In your Kingdom!"  To me, this guy didn't even expect to get to heaven.  He didn't expect salvation.  He didn't expect the way Jesus would respond.  He didn't even confess to Jesus, He confessed to the other guy.

"Today....you will be with me in Paradise."

Woah.  Keep this in mind as well, a few moments before this took place I do recall the Lord had also stated, "Forgive them Father, for they do not know what they do..."  Interesting.  He asked the Father to forgive them as they were STILL mocking Him.  Nobody had confessed.  Nobody had recited 'the Lord's prayer to salvation' (which is also NOT found in the Bible, but I'll touch on that later.  Keep reading.) and He was STILL forgiving.  This is Love.  Do we see the light, yet?

Let's look at some parables and New Convenant stories:
The Adulteress in the Gospel of John - No Confession.  He asked, "Where are the ones that persecute them?  Now go and sin no more."
The Prodigal son - There was a confession, but you would notice right away that the Father in the parable never asked for it.  He never asked his son to confess.  In fact, the Father's heart was filled with compassion when the son was still far away.  When the prodigal son says, "I'm sorry..." the father was too busy telling his servants to start throwing a party to even listen to his son's confession.
Even the lost sheep in Luke 15 it says that even if one were to go astray, the Shephard will search that sheep out.  Do you really believe that the sheep will have to ask for forgiveness before the Shephard puts it over His shoulders and takes it back to the other sheep?  Don't you think He's busy rejoicing that He found you?  This is love.

I like this one. You have a child learning to ride a bike.  They promise you that they're ready to do it on their own and they won't fall.  You let go and let them independently pedal as far as they can.  Then they fall over.  As a parent, what do you do?  Do you run over right away for the sake of the child's safety and security?  Or do you wait for them to confess and say that they are sorry they fell off the bike even though they promised they wouldn't?

Many congregations don't even realize the true context of the word 'confession'.  Confession, as written in the original Greek writings, was  'Homologio'.  Literally, this means 'to profess the same thing as another.'  

....to agree.  

 Let's go through 'Confession' in the New Testament.

Luke 12:8-9 "Everyone who confesses (agrees) me before men, so The Son of man shall confess (agree)...."

Romans 10:9-10 "If you confess (agree) with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart....you shall be saved."  (Nothing about sin.)

1 Timothy 6:12 "Timothy made the good confession (Agreement with the Holy Spirit) in the presence of many witnesses..."

Romans 14:11 "Every tongue will confess (agree) that Jesus Christ is Lord."

James 5:16 "Confess (agree) your faults to one another."

Acts 19:18-19 "Many of those who had believed kept coming, confessing (agreeing on), and disclosing their evil practices."

NONE of these verses say anything about sin, but everything about the identity of God.  Except for one....

1 John 1:8-10  "And if we confess (agree) our sins, God is just to forgive us."

     1 John is an amazing book.  It's also one of the most mysterious.  There is a lot of debate as to who this book is addressed to.  This is the tricky thing about the Bible.  It's written to many different types of people.  Not just believers.  Many scholars would say the first two chapters of 1 John were written to a Gnostic church developing in Asia.  The more I learn about the Gnostic belief system, the less mysterious 1 John becomes. Chapter 2 opens with "My children..."  Why would John call gnostics 'children'?  Well, I'm pretty sure even today an atheists unbelief isn't powerful enough to exempt him from being a child of God.  God is faithful to that which He created.  Despite who anybody is, or what anybody is, the Breath of God is in their creation, not just the 'nice people' that go to church every Sunday.  We are all Children of God.  John knew it, too.  What a loving guy.

We can also justify this by the opening of the chapter when John states, (v3, 4) "...and which we have seen and heard declare we to you, that ye ALSO may have fellowship with the Father and His son Jesus Christ; and these things we write to you so that your joy may be full.." (Young's literal translation)  And then in 1 John 2:20 it's directed back to believers when it says, "but you who have the anointing of the Holy One..."  Dig deeper into what the early Gnostics believed then read 1 John.  It will definitely make a difference in 1 John.

We could also reiterate the meaning of the word sin in 1 John 1:9 as well as a verse in James that's been brought to the attention of this blogger.  James 5:19-20 encourages Christians to retrieve turned away *sinning* Christians and to save their souls.  Paul even considers himself 'chief of sinners'.  So can a Christian still have 'sin' in their life or can't they?  Depends on the context of the word 'sin' in the particular verse.

I could go through all of the definitions of sin, (9 Hebrew/6 Greek translations and definitions) and the context of each one, but this blog is long enough.  I can save that subject for another blog, as well.  Until then, whether aimed at Gnostics or believers, the context of sin in 1 John 1:9 is translated to 'missing the mark'.  To me, that translates to 'not living to your potential in who you are in Christ.  Christ in you can do greater things than this'.  Which, if I was told that by a church leader, I would feel encouraged.  I would be in 'agreement' with God that I'm better then this.  There's no condemnation in that verse.  No implication of Confession, so I return to the point.  Confession is not necessary for salvation.  It's just not in there. 

Then we can bring the Lord's Prayer into this.  "Forgive us our sin as we forgive those who sinned against us." This is also an incorrect context of the verse.  The original greek translation, (Not the King James version, which was modified for the purpose of controlling society back in the day) says 'forgive us our DEBTS as we forgive our DEBTORS.'  Once again, nothing regarding sin.  Debt was translated from the greek term 'opheile' which mean "That which is owed..."  Nothing concerning salvation, or confession.

  Dear reader, please don't get me twisted.  I love confession.  Confession is a GOOD THING.  We should confess (or agree) with God on what He says about us.  We are justified (Romans 5:1),   So the Grace of God is poured out in the truth of what He says, not what the legalistic church community says.  It's not about how 'bad' I am, it's about how good God is in me.  When the Holy Spirit convicts, He convicts you not of your sin which was taken care of 2000 years ago, but your identity of righteousness living in you.  Christ in you.

Last but not least....I'm going to share my feelings with "The Prayer to Salvation."  I'm sorry, but this has always left a bad taste in my mouth.  Even since I was a 15 year old kid on his knees in a Baptist church in Wiggins, Ms reciting it for the first time.  Thank GOD for feeding me the meet of the actual Gospel.  I always wondered why, when Jesus told Peter "Follow Me!" he never said, "But first tell me everything you've done wrong and then we can go..."

  The prayer of salvation is legalistic crap developed by Billy Graham in the 50's and it needs serious modification.  I've NEVER led someone in the Lord's prayer because it never felt correct.  I use to be ashamed, but because of the knowledge I've gained by careful study, I'm glad.  When someone is told to pray this prayer, they are left with a curse that opens up the potential to second guess themselves.  "What if I wasn't sincere?" or "What if I was never saved?"  It opens a door of control between the leader and the led.  It's manipulative and it's mind control.

  We are to confess (agree) that Jesus is Lord, to believe what He did for us in our hearts, then we will be saved.  Then we are commanded to Love our God with our whole heart, mind, and soul.  Avoiding sin, or bad decisions, or mischief, or missing the mark, or whatever you want to call it, is a natural reaction to that belief, that love, and that understanding of the cross.  Knowing that IT IS FINISHED, and there's no to do list to maintain your salvation.  Metanoia (repentance) will occur as a result of your love for God.  It is FINSHED really means, it is finished. 

Anyway....I'm going to go build a snowman.  PEACE!