The Healing Power of Confession

Feb 25 2025 - Eric Buresh

In the last post, we contemplated the concept of delighting in confession (rather than viewing it solely as duty) because our Father has attached beautiful promises to our confession, including the healing promised in James 5:16: “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.” I’d like to scratch at this promise a little more deeply. 

We often think of sin as a matter of the soul alone—an issue between our hearts and God. But the Word of God reveals to us that sin affects us in body, spirit, and soul. Its impact is not confined merely to our eternal standing before God but ripples through every part of our being, causing spiritual, emotional, and even physical suffering. To understand the full benefit of confession, it is important to appreciate how confession, according to Scripture, has a profound healing effect on all these areas. 

David, in Psalm 32, gives us a vivid picture of the toll sin takes on our body when it is not confessed. He speaks of how his bones “waxed old” and how his body was weighed down by the guilt of unconfessed sin: “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my groaning all day long.” The weight of guilt becomes a physical burden. 

Have you ever felt the weight of unresolved sin upon you? Perhaps you’ve experienced the restlessness of a troubled conscience, or the heaviness of a soul burdened by unrepentant sin. David says that “day and night thy hand was heavy upon me.” Guilt can drain our vitality and saps our strength, manifesting itself in weariness, anxiety, and even physical illness. The very “moisture” of the soul—our peace, our energy—is turned into “the drought of summer,” as the psalmist describes. Sin brings separation from God, and this separation has physical consequences. It is not merely an abstract spiritual condition but a real, tangible experience that affects the body. In our modern world, we often neglect the connection between body and soul, but the Scriptures are clear that unresolved guilt can lead to both emotional and physical struggles. 

When we come before God with a broken and contrite heart, confessing our sin, He does not only forgive; He heals body and soul. When David confessed his sin, the burden lifted. His body found relief, and his soul was restored. This is the healing effect of confession. It restores our relationship with God and heals the emotional wounds of guilt and shame. It brings peace where there was turmoil and joy where there was sorrow. It is a complete spiritual renewal that also manifests in physical and emotional well-being.  

Why do we not often experience this healing in its fullness? Is it because we do not fully believe the promises of God in His Word and therefore do not lean into confession with our whole heart? We treat confession as a duty, a burden, something we must do rather than something God gives to us for our good, and a reluctant heart is not whole-hearted. Let us embrace confession and the healing God grants through it—physical, emotional, and spiritual!