Over the past several years, I have taught courses to seminarians and pastoral interns on the theology and practice of worship in the Reformed tradition. Part of the syllabus requires students to interact with worship services posted online, evaluating the elements, coherence, and execution of the liturgy. Services are not prescreened, and we select churches with various worship styles around the PCA.
The assignment requires students to critically engage worship services, cultivating a conscious interaction with matters that frequently fly under the radar. After reviewing a significant number of services, several consistent liturgical themes have surfaced that deserve comment. Previously, I surveyed the role of the call to worship in PCA worship services. This essay explores the prayer of confession by examining the historical roots of the prayer in the Reformed tradition and reflecting on modern examples.
Historical Roots of the Prayer of Confession
In the liturgies of John Calvin and John Knox, corporate worship began with a recitation of Psalm 124:8 followed by a prayer of confession. After confession, the congregation engaged in a corporate act of praise and thanksgiving by singing a psalm. A similar structure is found in Martin Bucer’s “Church Practices” (1539) and Thomas Cranmer’s “Book of Common Prayer” (1552) for the services of morning and evening prayer.
This liturgical form, progressing from confession to thanksgiving, reflects dynamics found in Scripture itself. Consider how Psalm 32—a psalm focused upon repentance and forgiveness—concludes in verse 11: “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” The command to rejoice follows the good news of our deliverance in Jesus Christ.1 God’s grace induces gratitude expressed in the praises of God’s people.
Beyond the liturgical form captured in these orders of worship, it is important to reflect on the theological substance of these historical prayers of confession. In the 1552 “Book of Common Prayer,” Cranmer composed this classic confession of sin:
Almighty and most merciful Father,
we have erred and strayed from your ways, like lost sheep.
We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.
We have offended against your holy laws.
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done,
and we have done those things which we ought not to have done,
and there is no health in us.
But you, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.
Spare those, O God, who confess their faults.
Restore those who are repentant,
according to your promises declared to mankind, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake,
that we may from now on live a godly, righteous, and sober life,
to the glory of your holy name, Amen.
The confession of offenses against God’s holy laws, consisting in sins of omission and commission, builds up to a general acknowledgement of the sinful corruption that remains within regenerate believers through a liturgical adaptation of Psalm 38:3: “And there is no health in us.” This prayer of confession accords with Cranmer’s theology concerning original sin as outlined in Article 8 of the “42 Articles” (1553) where he explains that the infection of nature (theologically known as “concupiscence”) remains within the baptized and is of itself sin. Given this, Cranmer focuses the prayer of confession on the fruit and the root of sin.
In Calvin’s liturgy, the prayer of confession acknowledges that we are “poor sinners, conceived and born in iniquity and corruption; prone to do what is evil, incapable of any good; and that in our depravity, we endlessly transgress [God’s] holy commandments.”2
For Calvin, concupiscence is a disease that infects sinful humanity, polluting every faculty of the body and soul. When Adam disobeyed God’s Word, depravity infected every aspect of his nature and spread to all his descendants.3 In Calvin’s thought, “whatever is in man, from the understanding to the will, from the soul even to the flesh, has been defiled and crammed with this concupiscence.”4 The disease corrupts natural, God-given human desires by subjecting them to disorder and excess, making them evil.5
Though believers have been set free from bondage to sin in Jesus Christ, their liberty is not such that the sinful flesh does not continue to harass them. There remains in the regenerate “a smoldering cinder of evil” that tickles and incites them to sin.6 This disease—a judgment against sin, the cause of sin, and sin itself—remains in the believer until death.7 Given this, Calvin teaches that repentance begins with renouncing our own nature, acknowledging that we are conceived and born in sin.8
“The Directory for the Public Worship of God” follows Reformed precedent in its content.9 In three full paragraphs, the “Directory” instructs ministers to lead the congregation in a prayer that (1) acknowledges our sinfulness, (2) grieves our dull response to the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ, and (3) admits that we deserve God’s wrath.
Specifically, the opening paragraph instructs ministers to attribute our great sinfulness to two things: (1) original sin, which is the seed of all other sins; and (2) our actual sins, which involve breaking the holy, just, and good commandments of God by doing what is forbidden and not doing that which is enjoined. These instructions harmonize the liturgical practices of the “Directory” with the theology of the Westminster assembly by acknowledging the sinful corruption that remains within us and by confessing particular sins particularly (“Westminster Confession of Faith” 6.2-6; 13.2; 15.5-6).
Despite these historical precedents, the Westminster divines did not open the service with a prayer of confession or incorporate such a prayer as a separate liturgical element in the “Directory.” Rather, the “Directory” includes a lengthy guide for confession at the beginning of the pastoral intercession. This novel approach to the confession of sin in the Reformed tradition removes the confession from the liturgical form associated with Calvin and Knox. This omission is a substantive weakness in the “Directory” in that the congregation is denied the opportunity to plumb the depths of their sin in order to soar into the heights of thanksgiving through the liturgical form captured in Scripture.
Modern Prayers of Confession
Modern worship guides, such as those of Robert Rayburn10 and Tim Keller,11 include a prayer of confession in the liturgy as a separate element located near the front of the service. Many PCA churches follow suit. This is an improvement on the “Directory” which crams the confession into the pastoral intercession and dislocates it from the liturgical form of confession and thanksgiving. However, the theological substance of most modern prayers falls far short of the substance found in the “Directory” or the Reformed tradition. Many prayers exhibit a less profound acquaintance with sin by not reflecting on the Law of God (or Jesus’ summary of it) and the manner of our violation (sins of omission and commission).
However, the chief deficiency observed in modern prayer is a failure to incorporate reflection on our sinful corruption. Many PCA churches use confessions from modern editions of the “Book of Common Prayer” that update the historical versions. However, it is important to note that even when cast in traditional language, these modern editions scrub Cranmer’s teaching on concupiscence from the liturgy.12
While seemingly innocuous, this liturgical edit in modern prayer books demurs from Cranmer in deference to Roman Catholic notions of concupiscence. This departure is significant because concupiscence was a clear dividing line between Protestants and Roman Catholics during the Reformation due to the doctrine’s relationship to justification by faith. PCA ministers need to interact with liturgical resources with historical care and theological discernment.
In WCF 6.6, the Westminster divines clearly teach that “every sin—both original and actual—is a transgression of the righteous law of God and contrary to it.” In other words, the corruption of nature that remains within the regenerate is not neutral, or simply an inclination. Both “this corruption of nature and all its expressions are in fact really sin” (WCF 6.5).
That noted, the vast majority of liturgies reviewed fail to include a prayer of confession that addresses both original and actual sin. The general absence of the theme exhibits a failure among PCA churches to integrate liturgical practices with confessional standards. This omission, perhaps driven by liturgical and confessional ignorance, is not innocuous. Over time, it can be harmful.
The omission downplays sin which, in turn, diminishes the grace of the gospel and distorts the process of sanctification. At worst, the omission reflects the incursion of Roman Catholic notions of concupiscence (a germ that only becomes sin upon consent of the will) among Reformed churches which creates a backdoor for non-forensic accounts of justification. Whatever the case, we would do well to bring our liturgical practices into conformity with our confessional standards to avoid such errors.
Conclusion
Prayers of confession offer a rich liturgical moment for congregations to reflect on the root and fruit of their sinful depravity and to rejoice and give thanks for the tender mercies of our God in Jesus Christ. Let’s not stifle that spiritual exercise by cramming the prayer of confession into the pastoral intercession. More importantly, let’s not curb confession with prayers that do not reflect Scripture, our confessional standards, or theological tradition.
Human depravity deserves robust liturgical attention because the theological account of our sinful predicament has a direct bearing on our apprehension of the free grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Chuck Colson serves as senior pastor of Christ Church Presbyterian in Jacksonville, Florida, and also serves as guest lecturer at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.
1 See also Psalm 51:14; 107:1-43; Luke 17:11-19; Romans 7:24-25.
2 Mark Earngey and Jonathan Gibson (eds.), Reformation Worship (Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2018), 308.
3 Commentary on Genesis 3:6, Calvin Theological Society 1:151.
4 Institutes II.1.8.
5 Institutes III.3.12.
6 Institutes III.3.10, CO 2:441
7 Institutes III.3.10; III.3.13.
8 Institutes III.3.8.
9 Knox follows Calvin in his prayer of confession. See Earngey and Gibson, Reformation, 569-570.
10 Robert Rayburn, O Come, Let Us Worship: Corporate Worship in the Evangelical Church (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 187-190.
11 Timothy Keller, Reformed Worship in the Global City, in Worship by the Book ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 240-248.
12 See Daily Morning Prayer: Rite I in The Book of Common Prayer (1979).