Roel Flores asks if Christians will publicly confess sins at the final judgment, but the response clarifies that no public airing of "dirty laundry" occurs because believers enter a state of sinless perfection. Instead of humans informing an omniscient God, He privately reveals every commission and omission to each individual while simultaneously confirming Christ has fully paid the penalty. This private revelation replaces intercessory prayer with a universal spirit of humility among glorified saints who no longer require healing, fundamentally shifting the judgment from shame to restored relationship. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Confessing Sin to the Lord00:08:37
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Will we confess sins publicly in the final judgment and feel guilty in the final judgment?
Great question.
No.
All right, so first I'm going to say no, and then I'm going to say yes, and I'll distinguish between the two.
I don't think we're going to confess our sins publicly in the final judgment because what that implies, what's contained in that image, is that we're confessing our sins to men.
Now, we do have biblical commands in this life as a Christian church confess your sins one to another, not just to the Lord, but one to another, that you might pray for one another, that you might be healed.
But I think the reason why we confess our sins to men in this life, and we never confess our sins to fellow brothers and sisters in Christ at the expense or as a substitute.
To confessing to the Lord.
And real quick, just on the issue of confession itself, it's important that we recognize because some people are like, What do you mean confess to the Lord?
Why do we even need to confess to the Lord?
He's omniscient, He knows everything.
Well, this is why confession is not informing, it is not informing God of our sin.
It is acknowledging our sin and agreeing with God about what He says regarding the severity of our sin.
Let me say that again confessing your sin to the Lord is not informing the Lord of your sin.
He has no need of you informing him.
He is omniscient.
He knows everything.
Nothing is hidden from him.
All right.
So confessing your sin to the Lord does not mean that you're informing, merely informing the Lord of your sin.
It means that you are acknowledging and agreeing with God about what he says about your sin and the severity of your sin.
That's what it is to confess your sin to the Lord.
And that also, by way of implication, includes asking the Lord, petitioning the Lord for forgiveness, forgiveness and restoration, that he would.
Heal you.
All right, so that's what it is that we need to confess.
Everyone has to confess their sin to the Lord because even though He's omniscient, confession is much more than simply information, informing.
So, we first must confess our sins to the Lord, acknowledging our sin before God, agreeing with God and what He says in His word about our sin, petitioning, asking the Lord for forgiveness and healing, restoration.
All right, so confessing our sins one to another is not a substitute for confessing our sins to the Lord.
So, in this life, we must confess our sin to the Lord.
And there are times certain sins that we need to confess also, not only to the Lord, but in addition, not substitution, but in addition, we need to also confess those sins to fellow brothers and sisters in Christ so that there's a reason, so that they may pray for us so that we might be healed.
That we need the prayers of the saints.
We need not only our own petition for God to restore us, but we need intercession from other believers that they would also join us, agree with us in prayer, interceding on our behalf for God's.
Restoration.
So I think of certain habitual sins.
I think of certain sins that people are bound by, certain foothold type sins, right?
I think of not just addiction, substance abuse, those kinds of things, but I think of bitterness.
Be careful, brothers, the scripture says, that there not be found in any of you a rotten root of bitterness that would be a foothold, that would be a root that would spring up by which many would be defiled, that it wouldn't just hurt you, but it would hurt the whole church.
It would lend towards division and factions.
So, bitterness can be a kind of foothold type sin, stronghold type sin that has the potential of infecting and damaging the whole church.
And therefore, it makes sense to rally the troops, to rally people in the church to join you in praying for you that you might be delivered, not just forgiven of the bitterness, but freed from the sin of bitterness, that you would stop being, by God's grace, a bitter person.
So, we always confess our sin to the Lord.
We sometimes confess our sins one to another that we might be.
Pray for one another that we might be healed.
But again, here's the thing confession to one another, to our fellow man, is particular, I believe, biblically particular to this life because in this life we have not reached a state of sinless perfection.
So, why are we confessing our sins to people?
So that they might pray for us, so that we might be healed.
Well, here's the deal in heaven with the final judgment, we're all healed.
We have reached a state of sinless perfection.
First John talks about this when we see him.
Talking about Christ, we will be like him for we shall see him as he is.
We'll be like Jesus when we, and it's talking about when we go to heaven at the end of this life, when we stand before Christ and we actually see him.
It says that immediately, it's an immediate transformation.
We will be like him in what regard?
Not every regard.
He's divine.
We won't be divine.
We'll always be creatures.
We'll never be God.
But we will be like him in what way?
Sinless.
We will see him as he is, that he is the sinless one.
He is righteous.
And so we have in the gospel, in the finished work of Christ, we have the penalty of sin, the power of sin, and the presence of sin.
Christ, through his cross, he has paid the penalty of sin.
He is also, by virtue of his death and resurrection, he has broken the power of sin.
So there is freedom in this life, not a state of sinless perfection, but that doesn't mean that we're a hopeless cause.
We can gain real victory in sanctification in this life.
From the power of sin.
So the penalty is paid, the power is broken, but the presence of sin still remains as long as we're in this life, right?
Paul says, Romans chapter 7, sin still resides within the members of my body.
And then he says at the end of it, he doesn't say, Oh, what a wretched man I am.
Who will save my soul?
No, his soul has already been saved.
What he says is, Oh, what a wretched man I am.
Who will save me from this body of death?
He recognizes that the completion of his salvation involves not just justification for his soul, not just sanctification by the renewing of his mind, but also glorification.
The resurrection of his physical body so that sin would no longer reside within the members of his flesh.
That he would be saved, not just from the penalty of sin, the power of sin, but even the mere presence of sin.
So at the end of this life, we do reach a state of sinless perfection by virtue of having glorified bodies, our sanctification now complete, our glorification now complete, resurrected bodies, standing before Christ, seeing him as he is.
That he is sinless and therefore being like him.
And because we will therefore at that point be sinless, we no longer need to be prayed for so that we might be healed.
And therefore, I would argue that we no longer need to confess our sins one to another.
So, in judgment, in the final judgment, I don't believe, let's bring the question back up one more time.
Nathan, if you could bring the question up one more time.
Again, for those who are maybe just tuning in, this is a question from Roel Flores.
Roel Flores.
Some number, BR.
No, not numbers, but letters.
Roll Flores, BR.
He says, Will we confess sins publicly in the final judgment?
So I would say, No, we're not going to confess our sins publicly in the sense of them being out loud where other people can hear.
I do believe, though, there will be not so much us confessing our sins to God, but God rather letting us know, reminding us of our sins.
I think that it will be the moment where we are informed about our sin because here's the deal there are sins of commission, things we do that are wrong, and omission, things we don't do that we should, that are right.
And there are so many sins that we don't even know about.
Right now, if you're a Christian being sanctified, You are objectively being formed by the Spirit, working in conjunction with God's Word, objectively being conformed more into the image of Christ.
And yet, there are sins that you don't have victory over yet, and there are sins you don't have victory over that you don't even have knowledge about.
You don't even know.
Victory Over Hidden Sins00:01:41
You don't.
Part of sanctification is winning, gaining victory over sin, but part of sanctification is also being further and further informed by the Word of God and receiving the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
To where we recognize certain things as sin that previously we didn't even know were wrong.
There are certain things that I now see are sinful that I did not see as sinful just even a few years ago, even though I was still a Christian at that time.
And so I believe that the final judgment will be God informing us of our sin and also informing His law and therefore our sin, but also the gospel that our sin has been atoned for, the penalty has been paid in full by Christ.
Some kind of moment between us and God where God does inform us of all of our sins, but not so much publicly where everybody else knows.
I think there'll be a spirit, a universal spirit of humility among the saints in heaven.
And I don't think in order to achieve it, God will have to hang out our dirty laundry in front of all the hosts of heaven to see.
So I don't think it'll be a public confession where everyone else in heaven, people, will hear about all our dirty deeds on earth.
But we will hear about all our dirty deeds on earth from God Himself and then be reminded of the gospel of Jesus Christ that they've all been paid in full.
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