"God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin."
St. John the Beloved
The reason we do not experience transformation is because we do not have true fellowship with Jesus through the Gospel. There is no room for self-justification in fellowship with the One who freely justified the sinner by his costly sacrifice. It is trust that is the foundation for fellowship. For trust moves a person out of hiding and into the light. It is imperative that the individual trust in the loving embrace of Christ, because trust is the mechanism that enables a heart to receive the unbound love and grace of God. If you do not trust me, it does not matter how much I love you, because you cannot receive it. Trust is the door through which love must pass.
Darkness is the heart hidden from God; there self-justification prevails as sin remains unresolved. Grace is the means by which a person possesses fellowship with a God who resolves sin through forgiveness. Fear is the enemy of grace. John the Beloved knew that it is only love experienced in fellowship that can transform a self-justifying heart when he warned, "The one who fears is not made perfect in love" (4:18). Fear is conjured by performance, and no person can be in intimacy with Christ through merit. The goal of grace is intimacy. It is a a relational environment through which we interact with God, not a doctrine or a principle. In the form of a principle, grace justifies sin but it does not justify the sinner.
If it is easier to confess our sin, reveal our weaknesses, and layout our evil thoughts to God, who is perfect and holy, sinless and just, than to confess to my brother or sister who is a sinner like me; then, we must ask ourselves why this is true. The reason is this: we live in darkness wherein self-justification thrives. We are not truly confessing to God. We are confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution (Bonhoeffer). It is confession to another that breaks the chains of self-justification.
A self-justifying man can never be known by others. He must protect his belief that he is strong, worthy, necessary. Above all, he must protect his belief that his sin is less than others. A psychic power struggle exists between individuals as each person attempts to position himself where he can obtain from others acknowledgment that he has made himself something. Confession is the destruction of pride by making sin in the form of abstraction into a concrete reality; it makes the principle of sin into the reality of my being.
"A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of another person."The journey out of isolation and into fellowship is through the grace in which we must trust. In the fellowship of Jesus, self-justification loses its hold as a person trusts in the truth of grace which demands that he reveal himself in vulnerability to the world. Only in trust, can a person receive the purifying love of Jesus. Only in the purifying love of Jesus can a person put his trust.Dietrich Bonhoeffer
It is not the knowledge of Jesus' grace that transforms.
You must trust in the grace of Jesus.
When you trust in the grace of Jesus, you will experience fellowship.
When you experience fellowship, you will be perfected through his Love.
5 comments:
"A self-justifying man can never be known by others. He must protect his belief that he is strong, worthy, necessary and above all, he must protect his belief that his sin is less than others. A psychic power struggle exists between individuals as each person attempts to position himself where he can obtain from others acknowledgment that he has made himself something. Confession is the destruction of pride by making sin the abstraction; sin the principle into sin the concrete; sin the reality of my being."
i have a love/hate relationship with this paragraph. the former due to your ability to hit the nail on the head and adequately diagnose one of the biggest pitfalls in Christianity, not least amongst its leadership. The latter because of the tugs of my own conscience as I read your words. i love bonhoeffer's position on confession.
my only question is...why is the presence of God in my own life not sufficient to overcome the tendency to self-vindicate? don't get me wrong. I am on board with dietrich, and I am all for the idea of community and relationships encouraging transformation. but if my relationship with Jesus is one of grace, trust and one where true fellowship is enjoyed, why is that not enough? perhaps i am asking the wrong question, and perhaps what bonhoeffer is getting at is the fall of pride and the acceptance of the grace of God induces a transformation that has at its core a true view of self.
thoughts?
What if true confession to a brother is not what brings the grace, but is a sign of the grace that has been fully and purely and truly embraced through Jesus Christ? If that is the case, then true community is both the realization AND celebration of grace- not just the route to it.
This is great, J- I can't believe it took me 5 months to read it.
Wasson, I think that is a great question. You clearly see some serious implications attached to riding the bonhoeffer train.
I do not think I can really answer your question, but I will speculate nonetheless.
I think you are asking a question from a faith tradition (the one that I share) that has some very individualistic assumptions about faith. I think Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans would disagree with the idea that a Christian can do faith alone. Bonhoeffer would say that "right solitude comes from right fellowship; right fellowship comes from right solitude." It is impossible to have one without the other.
I have been thinking about faith as something that is only actualized through the life of the Church in which Christ becomes very real. It is kind of scary for me.
On a tangential line of thought, I think St. Paul would agree with the existentialists that man is condemned to endanger himself by self-deception. Barth would argue that if a human were alone he would cease to be human. humanity is defined by being in relationship with others. I think that is relevant to this thought that I have been thinking: A person cannot meet or follow Jesus alone. I do not know in what sense that is true and/or false.
sorry for the 6 month delay in my response. that question has probably ceased to exist. again, a very provocative question.
I love this thought:
"true community is both the realization AND celebration of grace."
I would even say that this is descriptive of confession. You are right that the rite of confession does not "bring" grace. Grace came freely through Jesus as it cost him his life. However, grace will cost us our life to receive it (Mark 8:34-37, Matt. 19:16-30). Confession serves as a means by which a person assumes the humble posture necessary to truly embrace grace. This is in part, why it is costly to follow Jesus. Luther says for this reason that "all of life is repentance."
Confession brings ownership and personalization of sin & grace. The possessive pronoun "My" is attached to the concept sin and "mine" to the idea of grace. If I do not confess something, then although it is true that God has forgiven me and that his grace has covered that sin, I cannot realize that this is true; I cannot embrace the grace that is already there. In that sense it is a realization- a transformative realty.
To be most clear: Confession has a salvific nature in two senses: 1. Soteriological-Receiving the forgiveness of sin through Christ's atoning sacrifice making it possible to be adopted into God's family by his grace alone.
2. Sancfication- A progression where one embraces the gift of Christ more and more deeply, and in doing so, becomes less self-centered and more Gospel-centered in which the fruit of the Spirit (Christlikeness) is produced. I think this process is in many ways the repetition of the first act as a way of living- "all of life is repentance."
Good thoughts. You helped me more deeply about this- even to the point of rambling.
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