Confession is Good for the Soul

When we talk about confessing in a religious sense, what is the focus? Most of the time, it is on sin. Confess your sins. Catholics go to confession. When you hear many evangelistic messages or training, the focus is on a person realizing and confessing their sin. Many times, we focus very much on what we or others have done wrong and the need to detail that, focus on sin and being a sinner. "Confess, you sinners!"
BUT...
What does the Bible really say about confession, especially as it pertains to salvation? I did a little quick word study and found some interesting results.
The number of times that confession is spoken of concerning sin: 7,   plus 5 if you include corporate sins (like all of Israel) **corporate confession is not about individual salvation** You can add 2 more references if you include where the law refers to confessing sin for the blood sacrifice (which is now done/finished in Christ)
So, if you include verses that don't really connect confession with personal salvation, you are up to 14, but really, 7 verses telling people to confess sin. Now we can add 3 more. Three verses refer to confessing sins to each other. This is about human reconciliation and accountability. Ok, So we see that there are some verses concerning confessing sin, but now one last category.
The number of times that the confession is of Christ/God: 22.

Isn't that interesting.  The number one thing we are to confess is Christ.  Now in truly coming to Christ, you acknowledge that you need Him and His salvation.  Only sinners need Christ.  It is important to identify and turn away from that which is not Christ (sin).  BUT...the focus is not supposed to be on what we have done but on what He has done and who He is.  Confession should be primarily about confessing Christ, embracing Him and His work on the cross, not focusing on our filth.

One more fun exercise to illustrate this.

• Thief on the cross.  Knew he was a sinner Lk.23:41 but His confession focused on Christ, "remember me".
• Zaccheus focuses on new behavior and a way forward to which Jesus responds, "salvation has come to this house."
• When the keeper of the prison asked Paul & Silas what he needed to do to be saved, they never mentioned sin, but instead told him to confess Christ.

So, here we see people not led through an exercise of rehearsing their pasts.  They already knew they were sinners and their focus was to be on Christ, not on what they had done.

As we talk to people, we need to remember that if someone doesn't understand that they are a sinner, that they need to understand that all have sinned and fallen short of what God is (Rom 3:23).  For those who have come to understand their need for a Savior, their confession needs to focus not on a recitation of what they have done, but a confession of who they are trusting, the living Christ, Jesus!  Let us not put so much focus on what man has done, but focus on confessing Christ!