Must we confess all sins to be saved?

Recently I was told that in order to be saved, one "must confess all known sin in your life and with a sincere and rent heart ask God for forgiveness and confess that He [Christ] is Lord as He claimed in the Bible."

An important correction must be made to this statement, which I am dismayed to believe is very common. Namely, one does not have to confess all known sin in order to be saved. The thief on the cross certainly did not. He simply owned his sinfulness, and with faith looked to Christ's power to forgive and provide entry into the Kingdom. It is not that one must name every sin in particular, or even all those he can think of, or this would leave him always wondering if he had confessed enough. It suffices simply to own that we are sinful to a degree that we are quite unacceptable to God by anything we could ever do; that we cannot atone for ourselves even by a reformed life. In this way we confess not the particular extent our sins (for who could know it?) but the extent of Christ's power to save.

While it may be greatly beneficial to humble ourselves with exhaustive confessions, such practices cannot replace faith alone as the sole requirement for salvation.

What does this mean?
For by grace are ye saved through faith and not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

1.Grace means the power of God to empower you to live a live of holiness, and godlyness.
2.ye are saved. "saved from what" HELL or something else?, probably from the judgment of God. but through his empowerment we are saved from a life of SIN, and into a life resembling a betrothed bride in purity.
3.Through faith. meaning faithfullness to God and his faithfullness towards you to do what he said he would do.
4.not of yourselves: by his spirit he reveals his righteous requirements and empowers you to walk them out for his names sake.
5.its a gift of God> this power comes from HIM for him and his glory. we reap the benefits.
6.not of works... feeding the poor,building a wheelchair ramp, tithing or gifts and offerings would be conscidered works, yet we are to do them because we are commanded to do them from an obedient heart. Holiness and no longer sinning are not conscidered works.
7. lest any man should boast....we could boast about feeding the poor or how much we donated to building a church. but God gives us a power to conquer sin in our lives that we could never have done before, that is why we need him to help us, thus we can never boast about how holy we are due to the fact we know without his power in our lives we could never have conquered sin and the things that have kept us bound.
Note that if we continue to live a sinfull life we are not really saved, because it is painfully obvious he has not saved us, or is doing his sanctifying work in us. WE must confess and repent to be saved.

Thats the best I could do off the top of my head.
God bless.
:-) :-)

Before we are saved, the sin which separates us
from God is our unbelief. When we receive the
gospel of truth and welcome Christ in our hearts
as Saviour; He will forgive us all our sins and
cleanse us from unrighteousness!

Note that if we continue to live a sinfull life we are not really saved, because it is painfully obvious he has not saved us, or is doing his sanctifying work in us. WE must confess and repent to be saved.

I have been thinking a lot about this very concept the past 22 hours. I just learned that our neighbor's son died unexpectedly. When I tell others he died they are mortified because you see he was a homo. Then I also tell them if the rest of those respectable people are not right with the LORD they are just as lost and doomed for hell as their unrepentant brother.

Sobering. We categorize sins into classes of not-to-bad to abominations yet Bro. James informs us that if we are guilty of one, we are guilty of all...

Our lifestyle informs others who is our Master. That is all.

My thoughts...
ginnyrose

Amen, Reformer. We are justified at the first true act of faith, but our justification is revealed and confirmed before our eyes as we continue on in repentance. A faith without lasting change is profession only.

The Holy Spirit convicts sinners primarily of the fact that they are sinners. They are lost, and deserve to go to hell. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ took our place on the cross, bore our sin, and took the punishment and wrath of God upon Himself that should have fallen on us. It is not just that we have committed certain sins, but our whole nature is corrupt and defiled.

The Word of God says: "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." (Romans 10:9,10).

A person that is seeking salvation should repent of sin, but it would be impossible to confess all of their sins. After regeneration, the Holy Spirit will be faithful to bring up certain sins in the believers life that need to be confessed and repented of.

The following scripture in 1 John was given to Christians so that they could recover their fellowship with the Lord after falling into a particular sin. In this case repentance and confession of sin are neccessary so that fellowship can be restored.

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9).

Mike

From an earlier post:

Repentance is the hand releasing those filthy objects
it had previously clung to so tenaciously.
Faith is extending an empty hand to God to receive His gift of grace.

Repentance is a godly sorrow for sin.
Faith is receiving a sinner's Savior.

Repentance is a revulsion of the filth and pollution of sin.
Faith is a seeking of cleansing therefrom.

Repentance is the sinner covering his mouth and crying,
"Unclean, unclean!"

Faith is the leper coming to Christ and saying,
"Lord, if You will, You can make me clean."

A.W. Pink
Salvation From the Penalty of Sin

Personally, I am at odds on this issue as well. I'm not sure what to say.

I say baptism isn't a requirement for salvation because the thief wasn't baptized for salvation. Then if he didn't repent all his sin, wouldn't this mean that men shouldn't have to repent of all their sins as well?

But then I come across the verse Psalm 66:18

"If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened." (ESV)

If men still cherished sin, then He will not listen, and consequently still be lost.

To conclude, Should men repent of all sins in order to be saved? No, they must simply repent. Repentance is a change of heart regarding the sins you have done. If one truly repents than he will not cherish sin.

I hope this has helped, it surely has for me.

In Christ,
Totality