LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 226

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226

II. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

we assume every pastor will keep sacred the “confessional seal,” that is, “never to divulge the sins confessed
to [him]”107 and to carry out the office entrusted to him
with an integrity wrought by the Holy Spirit.
What are some important qualities and characteristics to consider? Certainly, there will be in his circle
brother pastors who demonstrate an obvious measure of
theological insight and maturity, men who understand
the dark internal storms of sinner/saints, who know the
crosses Christians bear and are familiar with the schemes
and temptations of the devil. An experienced Seelsorger108 will know how to help the penitent pastor give up
any evasions or rationalizations for his sins. Instead, such
a man will faithfully encourage true repentance, applying
appropriate Law and Gospel. Such pastors, in hearing
confessions, will avoid pious platitudes but will bring
clear words of absolution for him as penitent. Simply put,
he should be confident that his fellow pastor will keep his
ordination vow — that he will enter his storm and walk
with him to love him, to guide him with the Word of
God, and to speak full and free forgiveness in the name
of Christ.109

In His gracious provision — despite our fears, despite
church politics and despite all human sin — our Lord
still prepares faithful undershepherds, so every pastor
ought to be confident of finding a trustworthy confessor
and a wise and gentle shepherd. God is faithful.110

CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION
Part Three:
Extending the Gift to the Congregation

The General Need

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It may be that a particular pastor will come to mind
who might serve in this way. Or it may be that a pastor
will need, through the mutual conversation and consolation of the brothers, to inquire who might serve best for
him. In any case, he will want to commit the matter to
prayer, trusting God to hear and to provide. We observe
that one of the greatest obstacles to the pastor’s use of individual confession and absolution may be his fear of being exposed before one of his peers. But our Lord Christ
speaks to our fears: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your
Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke
12:32). The honest confessor will admit to his own fears
and will point the penitent to the One who casts out fear.

hereas we have addressed the particular
need and value of private confession for the
pastor, it is also evident that this practice
addresses needs for every individual Christian. We
may then briefly consider how the practice of private
confession and absolution might be presented to the
congregation as a whole.
However, one caveat is necessary. This document suggests that, in implementing private confession, the pastor
is helped first and then the congregation is served. Korby
emphasizes this order rather aggressively:

108
Seelsorger is a German term for a pastor that may be translated as
“career of souls.” The value of someone experienced, learned, wise and
proven trustworthy may be especially important. Yet only the Lord who
called him can sustain the pastor in this calling.

Often, people may assume that the district president will be the “pastor to the pastors” of his district. While district presidents are called to
carry out their responsibilities in a caring and pastoral manner, because
they are also ecclesiastical supervisors who may have to discipline
pastors, this can be an impediment to the district president serving as
a “father confessor.” For this reason, district presidents may refuse to
hear a pastor’s confession “under the seal.” At the very least, if he does
hear a confession, he will warn the pastor beforehand of his dual role.
Of course, district presidents must be pastors, but they also carry out a
supervisory function. This is why in most cases it is wise to seek out a
pastor who is not a district president.

CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION

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It is important to say, with our Confessions, that, “in an emergency
even a layperson grants absolution and becomes the minister or pastor
of another” (Tr 68, KW 341). Albrecht Peters suggests that Luther
himself opened the door for a Christian, other than a pastor, to serve
as a confessor. See Commentary on Luther’s Catechisms: Confession and
Christian Life, trans. Thomas H. Trapp (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 2013): 10. The practice of confession before a pastor, however,
is not only a matter of good order, but it is also proper because a pastor
is uniquely prepared to hear confession by his theological and practical
training. Moreover, in his call and his ordination vow, he is committed
to confidentiality in a way that no layman is.
110

PART TWO: HELPING THE PASTOR

Therefore, we must never mandate private confession
and absolution, but neither should we lose it from neglect. We receive individual confession because of need,
not demand. As Bonhoeffer says:
As long as I am by myself in the confession of my
sins everything remains in the dark, but in the
presence of a brother the sin has to be brought
into the light. But since the sin must come to
light some time, it is better that it happens today
between me and my brother, rather than on the
last day in the piercing light of the final judgment.
It is a mercy that we can confess our sins to a
brother. Such grace spares us the terrors of the last
judgment.114

The Great Benefit for Pastor and
People
Wherever it is employed in ministry, private confession
and absolution can strengthen the pastor and also be a
blessing to the Lord’s people he serves. Private confession
is an effective way (1) for God’s people to face that which
they sometimes need to name in confession; (2) to reinforce that the Gospel is personally received and personally believed in; and finally, (3) to help the pastor grow
closer to and know even better the flock he shepherds.

it in His fatherly heart.117
It is easy to reduce sin to a general state while avoiding private confession, which names that which has
become a stumbling block. An over-generalization of sin
enables us to avoid dealing with its specific manifestation: “Confession helps to make sin concrete for the penitent, and delivers him from this futile imagination of not
being able to put his finger on anything particular. Such
vagueness about sin makes for weakness of humility and
faith, strength of indifference and self-deception.”118
For the precise reason that particular sin attacks the
conscience and causes distress, Luther said confession
“is a cure without equal for distressed consciences.”119 He
adds, “Yea, the devil would have slain me long ago, if the
confession had not sustained me.”120
As beneficial as the general confession is in the liturgy, Ted Kober identifies what might occur in respect to
it: “When we recite these familiar words often enough, it
is easy to rattle them off without examining our hearts or
being disgusted about the ugly truth of our sinful condition.”121 Why would we settle for this and avoid individual confession? Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave this answer:
Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess
our sins to God than to a brother? … Why should
we not find it easier to go to a brother than to
the holy God? But if we do [find it easier to go
to God], we must ask ourselves whether we have
not often been deceiving ourselves with our
confession of sin to God, whether we have not
rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and
also granting ourselves absolution. And is not the
reason perhaps for our countless relapses and the
feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found
precisely in the fact that we are living on self-forgiveness and not a real forgiveness? Self-forgiveness can never lead to a breach with sin; this can
be accomplished only by the judging and pardoning Word of God itself.122

Facing sin directly
As noted, our Confessions reject the enumeration
of sins as an unnecessary and impossible burden on
consciences.115 There are, however, some sins that
plague the conscience. Luther says, “For since it [the
conscience] cannot change a sin committed in the past
and in any way avoid the future wrath, it cannot escape
being distressed and troubled, no matter where
it turns.”116 Sins which distress and trouble the
conscience are the ones that we are wise to address.
Löhe explains how the anxious heart may be comforted
by individual confession:
How many a Christian heart has some secret anxiety, or is pitifully tormented by the remembrance
of particular sins and does not know which way to
turn. For such God has ordained His servants as a
comfort, into whose lap we should in confidence
throw all our anxieties and regard it as though we
had personally uncovered it to God alone and laid

23

Korby, “Suggested Program,” 13.

119

AE 36:86.

120

AE 51:98.

121
Ted Kober, Confession & Forgiveness: Professing Faith as Ambassadors
of Reconciliation (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2002), 94.

115

AC XXV 7, KW 73.

116

AE 29:209.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1954), 115–116.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1954), 116.

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PART THREE: EXTENDING THE GIFT TO THE CONGREGATION

2019 Convention Workbook

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Does this mean that confession is a divine law?
No! Confession is not a law, it is an offer of divine
help for the sinner! Mutual brotherly confession,
or confession to our pastor-priest, is given to us
by God in order that we may be sure of the divine
forgiveness. Therefore no one is to be forced to
make confession.113
112

AE 36:86.

113

Korby, “Suggested Program,” 13.

PART THREE: EXTENDING THE GIFT TO THE CONGREGATION

Rather than some counterfeit “self-forgiveness,” individual confession and absolution pin-points exact sins.
This admission of the “concrete reality” of sins prepares
us for the “concrete reality” of their absolution.
Clearly, then, individual confession and absolution is
a Means of Grace. As He does also in Baptism and the
Supper, Christ directly applies His saving work to individuals in holy absolution, promising them forgiveness,
life and salvation — a promise the individual receives
by faith. Christ is direct in describing absolution’s power
in Matthew 16, Matthew 18 and John 20 as discussed
above. In the words of the one who speaks in the stead
of Christ, the sins that are loosed and forgiven on earth
are loosed and forgiven in heaven. In Luke 10:16, Christ
assures us: “The one who hears you hears me.” Thus, Luther affirms in the Small Catechism that when we receive
this absolution, it is not a forgiveness from man, but
“from God Himself.”123 And in the individual absolution,
there is no mistaking the one for whom Christ’s forgiveness is intended. As is the case in Baptism — “I baptize
you” — and in the Supper — “Given for you” — so also
in individual absolution, the pastor lays his hands on
your head, etches the sign of the holy cross upon your
forehead and pronounces the absolution of God directly
to you.

123
SC, “Holy Baptism” (How simple people are to be taught to confess),
KW 360.16.
124
Curtis C. Stephan, “The Office of the Keys,” in The Abiding Word: An
Anthology of Doctrinal Essays for the Year 1945, Vol. 1, ed. Theodore
Laetsch (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1958), 352–353.

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the Gospel. Private absolution gains distinction in that it
addresses specific sins that weigh a Christian down. As
the Formula of Concord says:
Accordingly, Christ offers the promises of the
gospel not only in general but also through the
sacraments, which he has attached as a seal of the
promise and by which he confirms the promise
individually to each and every believer.125

Personal reception of the Gospel

This same absolution and justification is given
through all the Means of Grace and every application of

114

Korby distinguishes Law and Gospel in this matter:

It may also seem that introducing private confession
Kenneth Korby, “A Suggested Program for the Reintroduction of
Private Confession and Absolution in Our Parishes” (A paper delivered
to the English District Pastoral Conference of Greater Detroit, April 19,
1966), 17–18.

Private absolution does not confer upon the
sinner a better or more powerful or another kind
of forgiveness than that given by the preaching of
the Word, but it makes a special application of the
Gospel to men, and it gives the individual a greater comfort and certainty that forgiveness has been
conferred upon him personally. … By believing in
Christ a person obtains forgiveness of sins (Acts
10:43), but absolution gives a person reassurance
and renewal and repetition of forgiveness.124

Wilhelm Löhe, “The Sacrament of Repentance,” Una Sancta 10:2
(1951): 7–8.

118

As to the current practice of private confession, I
am heartily in favor of it, even though it cannot be
proved from the Scriptures. It is useful, even necessary, and I would not have it abolished. Indeed, I
rejoice that it exists in the church of Christ, for it is
a cure without equal for distressed consciences.112

111

We should not think, however, that absolution (any
more than Baptism or the Supper) conveys a different
forgiveness. There is but one Gospel. The difference
lies only in application of that one Gospel of life and
salvation in Christ Jesus.

117

Luther rejoices in this gracious gift of God’s love:

[The pastor] who does not make confession dare
not be trusted to hear confession. He cannot be
trusted with this delicate assignment of a raw soul
before him. He will either be shocked or sentimental; or he will be reminded of his own similar
sin and spend all his time listening to his own
inner accusations — paying only partial attention
to the penitent. Or some may be so pressured and
burdened by the things they hear that they have to
let out what they have taken in.111

107
Ordination Rite, Lutheran Service Book: Agenda (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006), 166. Never means never, without
exception. Only Jesus can enable a pastor to carry this burden.

109

and absolution to a congregation is too daunting a task,
especially since, as we noted, Scripture does not demand
the practice. But this is to risk taking God’s generosity
too lightly. He knows how much we struggle in our sin
and how much and how often we need to receive the
forgiveness of sins. One who questions the value of private confession may just as well question how often and
in how many different ways a husband and wife should
express their love. Poor sinners cannot receive the Lord’s
comfort and aid too often.

Increasing the bond between pastor and
people
As noted, it may be a challenge to introduce the practice of
private confession. Nevertheless, its benefits make the challenge worthwhile. Another beneficial aspect of individual
confession and absolution in pastoral ministry is that it can
increase the closeness of the pastor and his congregation.
A warning is in order, however. It is necessary to
point out that the pastor never proceeds in the restoration of individual confession out of a warped sense of
curiosity. When it comes to private confession, he must
live in strict accord with his ordination vows. His ears
are to be the tomb where the sins confessed are buried
and forgotten. The pastor develops the attitude of not
making any kind of effort to remember what is confessed,
much less ever to recount it to another or let it become
an “illustration” for a sermon. At the same time, when
the shepherd hears the hurts and sins of one of his sheep,
this enables him to become more prayerful over their
temptations and more encouraging in making the most
of the penitent’s gifts. As he retains silence and exercises
pastoral sensitivity toward the penitent, trust and appreciation for his ministry will grow.
This involves a paradoxical duality (no surprise for
Lutheran theology!): The pastor is to forget and remember
at the same time. That which is confessed, together with
the Law’s threats and condemnation, is dead; buried in the
absolution. However, knowing the particular needs and
weaknesses of penitents, the Seelsorger is better equipped
to serve them. Rightly distinguished, this dynamic does
not estrange the pastor from his parishioner. Rather, it
endears him because “My pastor knows all about me, and
he loves me more than ever before.” Thus, Löhe: “If he
[the pastor] is to care for and guard the souls of the flock
entrusted to him, yes, even to give account according to
Heb. 13:17, then he must know them, that is, I dare say,
especially their sins, weaknesses and temptations.”126
125

FC SD XI 37, KW 647.

Wilhelm Löhe, “The Sacrament of Repentance,” Una Sancta 10:2
(1951): 4.

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