Confessions of a confession addict

I answered a question on Yahoo! Answers and decided it was a topic that I needed to address further. The asker was scared that if he didn't confess his sins enough, then he might die with unconfessed sin and end up in Hell. For some reason, a lot of people (including myself at one point in time), think that if you don't confess your sins, then they are still "on" you and they will drag you down into the eternal pit of fire. Here's my response:

"The blood of Jesus is stronger than that. What makes you think that if you don't confess your sins you will end up in Hell? Is it because of 1Jn1:9? "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (NIV). If it is, let me release you from fear. This is just my two cents, please do further research on your own. I don't believe the author was talking to Christians here. He was most likely talking to a group of wannabes called the gnostics. The letter was written to the church, but the first part was concerning this particular problematic group that was spreading heresy within the ranks. They taught that Jesus didn't really come in the flesh, because they thought that all things physical were evil (made by the evil god demurge) and all things spiritual were good (made by the logos, or the "good God"). So a spiritual Messiah would never wrap Himself in sinful flesh, would he? Futhermore, they also taught that sin itself was also just an illusion. Please consider a few things:

1) Verse three says, "We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us" (NIV). Weren't these people already supposed to have fellowship with the apostles?? And he is re-iterating that they had seen and heard the Christ - in the flesh.

2) The author begins chapter 2 with "My dear children," which is a greeting. When was the last time you started a greeting after the first paragraph or two of a letter?

3) It says that the blood of Christ purifies us from ALL sin. It's not our confession. If it was, is Jesus' blood really strong to save? Remember the song, "There's power in the blood." Furthermore, where do we get this idea that Jesus' blood saves you once, but after "salvation" it's now up to you to keep being saved by your confession? Think about it. When did Jesus die for you? Two-thousand years ago! You were not even close to being born then. So he forgave ALL your sins: past, present, and future, without you having to do a single thing!

I've found that John was addressing the gnostics. He was saying to THEM that if they confess their sins (in other words, to confess that they are indeed sinners), God will forgive all of them. Why did they have to? Because they weren't really believers. Please refer to the link I have provided - very good article talking about this very thing. I hope this helps you out."

Just to let you know, I don't think I got 'best answer.' You know what? I couldn't care less. To some people, this is all new, and so they feel like this couldn't be the answer. They just can't believe it could be this simple, or easy, and they feel like they have to "pitch-in" or "do" something in order to remain "saved" (sorry in advance for the overuse of quotation marks). I don't believe that we need to confess every sin. I believe it's completely unnecessary, and actually puts more stress in the relationship with God on top of the fact that it may actually cheapen Grace.

If you want further research, I got the information for this here and from a book from Joseph Prince (although, I can't remember which one).