‘We Have Sinned’

Corporate prayer and inclusive confession:

Christians often will do individual confession of sin, or will pray for the sins of others, asking God to judge their evil. But a third scenario is when a godly person asks God to forgive a sinful people or nation, but he also includes himself in the mix.

I just read another example of this today with the prayer of Daniel for his people as found in Daniel 9:3-19. The first three verses go like this:

Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

Of interest is how often we find Daniel using the words “us” and “we” and “our” in these 17 verses. He is not pointing the finger at ‘them’ but at everyone, himself included. That is real humility. That is real identification with the people. That is having a godly heart and a willingness to fully relate to the people.

There are other prayers like this found in Scripture. If you simply type in the phrase “we have sinned” into an online Bible site such as BibleGateway, you will find 26 results (using the ESV). Here are just some of them:

Aaron – “And Aaron said to Moses, ‘Oh, my lord, do not punish us because we have done foolishly and have sinned’.” Numbers 12:11

Nehemiah – “And I said, ‘O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses’.” Nehemiah 1:5-7

David (?) – “Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness.” Psalm 106:6

Jeremiah – “We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord, and the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against you.” Jeremiah 14:20

And other examples – using different wording – can also be mentioned.  Just one is this:

Ezra – “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. From the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt. And for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as it is today.” Ezra 9:6-7

As can be seen, so many of the great biblical characters found in the Old Testament had this sense of identifying with the people in the confession of sin. Was a Nehemiah or a Jeremah really as wicked and evil as most of the people? Probably not, but they still felt one with them and included themselves in these corporate prayers of repentance.

In Daniel 9:20 we see clearly this identification: “While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before the Lord my God for the holy hill of my God…” Here he specifically mentions his own sin. He was not just accusing others, but involving himself.

Application for today

James Montgomery Boice says this about Daniel’s prayer:

When Daniel prayed for his people, confessing the sin that caused God to punish them by the deportation, he did not distance himself from his people but rather identi­fied himself intimately with them in his confession. Notice how he uses the first person plural pronoun…

 

When we confess sin, we have a tendency to confess the sins of other peo­ple, or if we do not do that, we confess sin in a manner meant to excuse our­selves. Daniel was not like this. If anyone could have done this, he could have. Nothing bad is said about Daniel in all the Bible. He was only a youth at the time of the fall of Jerusalem, and he had led an exemplary life in the wicked city of Babylon for sixty-seven years. Daniel could have pleaded his innocence. Yet he took the part of his people and confessed his own sin with theirs, saying, “we … we … we … we.”

 

That is the kind of prayer God honors. Daniel prayed with a highly emo­tional and moving cry, “O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your peo­ple bear your Name.” It is no wonder, then, that God sent Gabriel with the revelation with which the chapter ends.

Is all this to say that we can somehow repent for other people’s sins? No. Some years ago Sam Storms wrote a piece titled “Is it Possible to Repent for the Sins of Others?” In it he says this:

Note carefully that nowhere do either Daniel or Nehemiah “repent” for other people. They identify the sins of others. They declare that they and others in Israel have transgressed. They make no excuse for their sins. They both ask God to have mercy on themselves and the people of Israel. But that is not the same as “repenting” for the sins of others. They undoubtedly repented for their own sins by resolving to forsake their sinful ways and to obey God’s revealed will. But one person can’t do that in the place of another. Each individual must do this for himself/herself.

 

In a similar vein, I might confess to God that “we” at Bridgeway Church here in OKC have in some manner turned away from God and that “we” are rightly under his discipline. I can declare the truth regarding our transgressions, renounce them, and cry out to God on behalf of the people as a whole. But I cannot “repent” for what anyone else has done, but only for what I have done and then pray that God’s Spirit would awaken others to likewise repent of their own sins. https://www.samstorms.org/enjoying-god-blog/post/is-it-possible-to-repent-for-the-sins-of-others

Or as Bryan Chapell put it in The Gospel According to Daniel:

“I am not saying that we bear personal culpability for all the sins in our family or community. Looking forward, Jeremiah speaks of the new covenant that now embraces us, saying, “In those days they shall no longer say: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ But everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge” (Jer. 31:29-30). We go to Christ to ask for forgiveness for our own sin. I do not have to know and confess all the sins of my predecessors to be free of their guilt. But do these words eliminate any consideration of the corporate aspects of evil?

 

Let us be clear about this. Grace certainly frees individual believers from the guilt of national, familial, and personal sin. The sins of our history and context do not keep us from individually enjoying the benefits of grace. And yet the benefits of grace should not keep individuals from confessing corporate responsibility for the sins of our families and culture….

In sum, having a humble heart attitude, realising that there are corporate dimensions to sin, and knowing that we are ALL lost sinners in need of God’s grace is how we must proceed here. Christian leaders especially must keep these spiritual truths in mind.

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