Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Necessary Help

It is possible that by God's grace a person may break through to assurance, new life, the cross, and community without benefit of confession to another believer. It is certainly possible that a person may never come to know what it means to doubt one's own forgiveness and question one's own confession of sin, that one may be given everything in one's solitary confession in the presence of God. We have spoken here for those who cannot say that about themselves. Luther himself was one of those for whom the Christian life was unthinkable without confession to one another. In The Large Catechism he said, "Theefore when I urge you to go confession, I am urging you to be a Christian." The divine offer that is made to us in the form of confession to one another should be shown to all those who, despite all their searching and struggling, cannot find the great joy of community, the cross, the new life, and assurance. Confession stands in the realm of the freedom of the Christian. But who could, without suffering harm, turn down the help which God considered is necessary to offer?

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Life Together 114
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