the parables of the kingdom robert farrar capon

There is no recovery from sin that doesn’t involve complete and utter death.

To confess is to accept and affirm God’s description of my reality – dead. being really sorry, feeling really bad) makes confession into little more than how we manage our sin and our guilt. Any other reality in which we attempt confession (i.e. Death is the only reality in which one can receive forgiveness, resurrection, life, freedom. Confession is affirming that we are who God says we are. It is agreeing with God about who we really are.

Confession is not an apology – nor a feeling bad.

Confession is not a transaction, not a negotiation in order to secure forgiveness it is the after-the-last grasp of a corpse that finally can afford to admit it’s dead and accept resurrection. Forgiveness surrounds us, beats upon us all our lives we confess only to wake ourselves up to what we already have…We are not forgiven, therefore, because we made ourselves forgivable or even because we had faith we are forgiven solely because there is a Forgiver. ( Robert Farrar Capon Kingdom, Grace, Judgment, 296-297) And if we live again, it is not because the old parts of our life are jiggled back into line, but because without waiting for realignment, some wholly other life takes up residence in our death. Grace does not do things tit-for-tat it acts finally and fully from the start.Ĭonfession has nothing to do with getting ourselves forgiven. We could simply say that we were sorry about the recent unpleasantness, but that, thank God and the resilience of our better instincts, it is all over now….īut we never recover.

If we could recover – if we could say that beginning tomorrow or the week after next we would be well again – why then, all we would need to do would be apologize, not confess. The Prodigal Father and Two Lost Sons) is saying is first of all that, as far as Jesus is concerned, repentance involves not the admission of guilt or the acknowledgement of fault but the confession of death.Confession is not a medicine leading to recovery. Brilliant words on the act and reality of confession being at the heart of Christian spirituality: I came across this while reading up on Luke 15 (the three parables on lost things and what happens when they get found). In keeping with the new format of we are adding a second post every week on Wed-Thursdays by other/former pastors of Life on the Vine Christian Community and our church planting network.

The parables of the kingdom robert farrar capon