Church’s teaching concerning the sacrament of Repentance.
The sacrament of repentance and confession is one of the seven sacraments of the church. Although being rooted in the Old Testament, it became a rite that the apostles, their successors, and the priests of the New Testament performed. It is no longer restricted to the priests of the Old Testament.
In the different books of the Old and New Testament, the doctrine of the repentance is represented.
Depending on the historical conditions and sacred authors, we can find different degrees of fullness. The teaching about the salvation was evolving, but repentance was acquiring fullness in the meaning. According to Holy Scriptures, and its point of view, repentance is an overall change in human life – when person converts from sin to the Lord and confirming him a new way of life. So in this development of repentance, a number of characteristics can be marked out; that can be described both rationally and correctly. In speaking of form, we can distinguish internal and external, but we should not forget privet and public as well. These types are closely consistent and they serve as the external terms of the different stages of repentance, and the logical process.
When we realize the inhumanity of our life, when we understand our sins as definite transgressions of the commandment and when we capture the bitterness that drawn our souls, then this is what we categorize as the first logic stage of repentance. The second stage is “turning” – appealing to the Lord, begging for pardon and forgiveness. Third stage is “confession”. This is where we use in different ways to express our repentance by oral declamation. This oral declamation is our way of how we express our feelings of repentance and by doing this we believe that they are forgiven by the Lord. To the logic of repentance we can add stage of “purification”, but this purification is the mysterious effect of God’s grace on us. The Lord forgives our sins and gives us the power to do good deeds. At the end the last stage “remaining virtue” is our transformation from all former bad deeds in favor of striving for good.
From the beginning in the Old Testament, we can see that holy authors used two very ancient Hebrew expressions for “repentance”. In literal translation “regret, be sorry” and/or “turn back, return” depending on the context and it could bear different meaning.
In reading Pentateuch of Moses, we can find a remarkable mixture of eternal repentance resulting from the inner sorrow. From this we can see that, Lord thought that moral law was a principle of morality and He used Moses for this. The people of Judea were summoned to take part in public religious worship and to observe the rules of ritual purity and impurity – for that reason, these sacramental commitments and sacrifices became the external methods, expressing public or private repentance. Furthermore, in same Pentateuch we find “sacrifice” which was obligatory repentance. In further study of repentance in the “Law of Moses”, we can see that two out of four offerings were related directly to make Old Testament advocate feel repentance. In Lev 5, 17, for example – “the guilt offering” (the sins that someone commits which Yahweh has commanded no to be done); and in Lev 5, 14-16 – “in the holy things of Yahweh”; Ex 29. 14; Lev 4.21 and in many other we see “the sin offering” – this was offering when someone sinned spiritually or was inhuman. There were many more circumstances when the sin offering was to be made; they included any violations of religious and moral standards, and it was to be offered not only by specific persons (rulers, Lev 4. 22–26, common people, Lev 4. 27–35), but by the whole congregation of Israel (Lev 4. 13–21) as well. For this reason the sin offering not only reminded a person of his immorality, but also made him ashamed: in the Law of Moses a sinner is promised forgiveness after making sacrifices — Levi says about the repentant person making the offering: «and the priest shall make atonement for him, and he will be forgiven» (Lev 4. 31, 35).
In our further exploration of the repentance in the Old Testament, we can see that there were many other different types. For example we can see that, by the prescription of the Law in the Old Testament books; there were descriptions of widespread forms by which exterior repentance was express by the whole people and/or by individual. This is where we got “fasting”, the repentant acts in refusing food and drink. This example can be found in 1 Sam 7.1, where fast sustained the prayer of repentance of the people of Israel, (as manifested by Samuel after the people turned off from pagan cults of Baal and Astarte). In 2 Sam 12. 16, 21 and 22 we can find that David fasted after he had sinned with Bathsheba; he fasted while praying penitently for his new-born child to be healed. External forms were something like sitting or lying in ashes or sprinkling ashes on the head; tear one’s clothes and putting on sackcloth. From history we know that these forms were very widespread outside of the border of Palestine. Public confession of the sins to the Lord, were probably the most important expression of repentance. We see this in 1 Sam 7:6 where the whole people repented of idolatry; in Neh 9:2 we see that “people of Israel stood up and confessed their sins”.
In this short summary of “repentance” of the Old Testament, we should not forget many misfortunes of people of Israel. This could be found in the book of Judges and what is called monarchical period (1 Sam 7. 3; 1 Kings 13. 33; 2 Kings 17. 19–23 and etc.). We shall not forget the book of Job as well, where one can freely ask: what is the sinner remorseful about for in the face of God, for his/her specific misdeeds and/or for his/her potential ability to sin?
At the end, debating the “repentance” of the Old Testament, the most important Scripture text is in the 51st Psalm (for us Serbian Orthodox is 50th Psalm) written by David, after His famous sin with Bathsheba (2 Sam 11-12). This Psalm is significant because it is well known to any pious person due to its presence in the Orthodox Church’s liturgical practice.
In conclusion, we must not overlook the Old Testament prophets. The prophets had strong doctrine of repentance as a conversion to God that assumes new relations between the human being and the Lord, and which touches all scopes of human activity; in addition, they considered the different private and public occasions of sin (for instance, idolatry, prayer at the high places, political alliances with pagan nations, social injustice) as results of the particular spiritual state of people of Israel.
To interpret “repentance” in the New Testament it was important for us to touch terminological change that occurred in the Old Testament, or better yet Old Testament Church which came into Hellenistic culture.
Right from the beginning there was a problem of the word “repentance”, because the word is closely connected with Greek verb μετανοέω and its derivative noun μετάνοια, which in real translation means “change of mind” and/or “change of direction”; but since we are not talking about language here, we will not go into details what influence Greek-Hebrew translators’. What we can say is that verb and noun μετάνοια, the Septuagint translators’ interpreted as “to be sorry about something” and/or “to come back” and/or “to return”. At the beginning of the New Testament epoch, in the religious vocabulary of the Hellenistic Jews, the verb μετανοέω was a commonly used and even preferred equivalent to the main Hebrew term, repentance standing for «conversion». Now then let us start from the beginning.
The Lord established seven sacraments, as I said earlier, and one of them is the sacrament of Confession. This sacrament is in close relationship with “repentance” and it is clear throughout the New Testament. First we can see it in ministry of St John the Baptist, in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the ministry of our fathers the apostles after the ascension of the Lord Jesus to heaven.
Repentance is necessary for the entrance of the Eucharist, which is an Icon of the kingdom of God. “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” ( μετανοεῖτε· ἤγγικεν γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν . Mt 3. 1–2) tells us Apostle Matthew, of what St. John the Baptist was preaching in the wilderness of Judea. This, if you remember from explaining the “repentance” from the Old Testament, meant “turn to the Lord” and/or ‘change your way of life”. In another words, St. John the Baptist was preaching a baptism of “repentance” for remissions of sins. The God the Father, appointed St John before the Lord Jesus Christ. We find this in Mark 1:1-3: “Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight’.” This phase: “I send My messenger before Your face” is the expression of manner in which Father addresses the Son, and the words establish God’s plan to send a person to prepare the way before Christ (for further reading one can turn to Lk chapter 3 and Jn 1:29-34).
In Orthodox Church, this baptism of repentance of the sin is not separated from confessions, they were connected (Mk 1:4-5); the people were baptized confessing their sins. All this meant that people practiced repentance and confession along with the baptism, through St. John, who was the son of the Zacharias’ the priest, so this baptism was the initiation and the first step. So fallowing this formula, sins were forgiven, but we knew that people sinned again, and question came up: what to do with these people? The early Church had the problem with the people who have fallen from Eucharist assembly, sinned again after the baptism, so they needed to be brought back in, and that is why the service of confession was established. The Church realized that it had the right to forgive. The communal and not the private aspect were stressed as we see in 1 Cor. 12:26 “if one member struggles, the whole body is affected”. In addition, we can see this in parable of the prodigal son, who came to himself and did not confess just to God but rather thought that he needed to come back to his father and confess his sins to his father (another human being).
Speaking from psychological point of view, we need each other. Our sins, if we only confess them to God, are still in us, because sin is relational. The person with the sin, while falling down will pull others with him. Earlier I said that Church has power to forgive. Matthew 18:18 for example: “whatever you bind in the earth shall be bound in heaven” – therefore it was not individualistic thing, but the whole community. We see this communal aspect in other readings as well. In Matthew 18 15-18 we read that sinner was instructed to go to Church and confess if he refused to go to Church, listen the Church, then he was to be as a Gentile or a tax-collector. If the person left the community, according to early church documents, we can see that it was responsibility of the whole community to brig that person back. If he is not brought back then this person was excommunicated. Thus, it was the responsibility of the whole Church assembly to bring whoever has fallen, back. Clearly we can see here that this was the power of the Church to forgive, not the power of the individual, such as priest and/or Bishop.
Going back to baptism, we can say that it was paradoxical for Jews, as this rite was used for proselytes, i.e., those who wished to turn to Judaism from idolatry; but John the Baptist appeals to born Jews who have deviated from the Lord through their private sins and calls out: «turn to Him», «become Jews again»! In the Book of Acts we can see that link between baptism and confession is applied in service of our fathers the apostles when multitude who believed in Christ came to be baptized by them. To new believers exclamation was not only, ‘We believe’ but “…many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds.” (Acts 19:18). So the events that took place with St. John the Baptist continued with Apostles. John the Baptist was preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, and it is written that people were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. Consequently, on the day of Pentecost after the coming of the Holy Spirit, “…many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds” to the apostles (Acts 19:18).
Now if we compare the doctrine of repentance of John the Baptist with that of the Old Testament, there is an important difference: it is necessary to appeal to the Lord as His Kingdom is already at hand. But this Kingdom is the new, messianic one, founded by Christ. Evangelist Matthew new this and for that reason he said: “For this is he who was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight .”(Mt 3. 3). This symbolism is taken from the custom of repairing roads when they were to be used by Oriental Kings on their travels, and presumes that all the crooked ways will be made even, the low places will filled in and the hills brought down as the way is being prepared for a king, and thus made ideally even, level and plain. The spiritual sense intended by this presupposes that all stain, sin and intemperance, flaws in one’s way of life, are to be expelled from the human hearts of the people so that they may be able to meet with Lord.
Our Lord Jesus Christ begins His public ministry with the call to repentance. In Gospel according to Matthew (4.17) we see that our Lord is using the same words as John the Baptist: “repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”. According to evangelist Mark, in the Lord’s call to repentance there was also an explanation: to repent is necessary in order to come to believe in the Gospel: “repent and believe in the Good News” (Mk 1. 15). Lord chose immersion in water, baptism. But this baptism bears a crucially different, ontological character as it gives purification from sin and the grace of the Holy Spirit to those who believe in the Son of God (Mt 3. 11; Lk 3. 16; Acts 1. 5; 2. 38; 22. 16 and others). This is why John’s baptism is called a “baptism of repentance” (Acts 19. 4) by the Holy Apostle Paul. Christ’s baptism calls for repentance only as a preparatory stage, being itself the entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven and a joining with the Lord in Christ. What this meant is that the Lord expects all who would enter God’s kingdom a total change of his/her way of life. The Lord Christ requires repentance (like in the Old Testament “turn”) “unless one is born a new, he cannot see the Kingdom of God” (Jn 3.3); and in addition, Lord explains: “unless one is born of water and spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (Jn 3.5)
Regret for the sin committed was the practical aspect of doctrine of repentance. “Take heed to yourselves, Christ says; If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him” (Lk 17. 3–4). These words were given to first members of the Church, the Apostles, and as we see, the Lord gives practical guidance for ongoing life of the Church, but later we find the conflicts amongst its members.
Following the resurrection of our Lord, we find out that He grant them and gave them the authority to forgive human sin with the power of the Holy Spirit. “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit! Whoever’s sins you forgive, they are forgiven them. Whoever’s sins you retain, they have been retained” (John 20. 21–23; compare Mt.16:19) – said Lord to them. These words, not only meant that Lord granted them to baptize, but also as the foundation of the Sacrament of Repentance in the life of the Church.
Repentance as conversion was the preparatory stage for entering the Church. This was the Holy Apostles’ doctrine. In Acts 3 19-20 Holy Apostle Peter spoke: “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out), so that there may come times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Christ Jesus, who was appointed for you.” Here we see repentance as condition for the forgiveness of the sins and for entering the messianic kingdom. Repentance upon entering the Church sometimes went with confession, probably public, by those who turned from their sins (Acts 19. 18).
Confession means true repentance and that means true healing. Very early idea of the confession we can find in James 5: 16: “So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you will be healed.” So what form did this confession actually take? Perhaps there were public confessions in those days. From the history we know that there was a group of the bishops and presbyters who institute something like court. The people who were fallen would be judged whether or not they repented and then brought back into community. Again this was very early form of the confession. In 2 Thess. 3:6 Paul said: “we command you to withdraw from every brother who is disorderly and not according to our tradition…” and in 1 Cor. 5:13 “…he was automatically removed from among you.” One might ask how these people would come back to Church. To forgive: we see this in 2 Corinthians 5-9: “Someone has been the cause if pain; and the cause of pain not to me, but to some degree - not to overstate it – to all of you. The punishment already imposed by the majority on the man in question is enough; and the best thing now is to give him your forgiveness and encouragement, or he might break down from so much misery.” In the early Church, there were so many problems of public confessions, so the Church discontinued this practice and confession was given to the Bishop and priest. Bishop was behind the whole thing, behind the whole community because he was representative of the whole community. As I said earlier, confession was not just between you and God. As individual you hurt the whole body, so you go to the representative of the whole body and confess. The Bishop is the father of that community who binds and loses in the name of that community. We know that that power was given to Bishop from Apostles, meaning succession of the communities and not individual Apostles. Bishop on the other hand is spokesperson of the community, of the communion. “Anybody that you forgive, I forgive”. (2 Corinthians 2, 10); meaning in the name of the community. Today we see this when Bishop and/or priest hears the confession – they forgive in the name of the community. So the conclusion is, are we either in the Church or not in the Church? Today everything depends on our individualistic salvation, but we are doing this as community.
Being part of this “community”, Church, there was a necessity to tell people about repentance. Here we are talking about the Christians who were spiritually weak and/or committed the sins. From the New Testament, it has been clear that until the Lord’s final triumph, which will happen at the Second Coming, that even faithful Christians do bear some responsibility for sin. These sins are of different types of those who do not take away Christian of God’s grace. According to Apostle Paul: “For the good which I desire, I do not do; but the evil which I do not desire, that I practice… For I delight in God’s law after the inward man, but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members” (Rom 7. 19–20, 22–23); and Apostle James: “…in many things we all stumble” (James 3.2)
From all this we can see, that even faithful Christians wish to purify themselves, perhaps every day, so that they might appear before the Lord with clean soul and sober heart. In 2 Corinthians, Apostle Paul expects from Corinthian Christians to repent of their “uncleanness and sexual immorality and lustfulness” (2 Cor 12.21); Apostle Simon wished to gain the gift of the Holy Spirit, but Apostle Peter said to him: “Repent therefore of this, your wickedness, and ask God if perhaps the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.” (Acts 8.22).
In the Orthodox Church, baptism could not be performed a second time, as a result, external rite was established early on which by action and words had connection between repentance and sorrow for sins. Apostle and Evangelist John said: …”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 righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1. 9).
Our Lord instituted the Sacrament of Confession and Repentance so that we can battle our sins; and this Sacrament, which was handed down to Apostles, and then to Bishops, and to the priests, gave the authority to “bind” and “forgive” human sins. After our confession and repentance, we feel clean and that something was removed from us. We are renewed and enlightened.
This short essay is just a touch of patristic literature that is available to us on the subject of the foundation for the Christian ecclesiastical Sacrament of Repentance (Confession).