The Loss of True Confession

“While we deplore the fracturing of life, its robberies and rapes, its abuses and cruelties, its assaults and catastrophes, we can no longer measure its darkness in the presence of God. All we can do is weep. We cannot make confession. There is no one to whom to confess. We cannot bring our sin before God, because he is gone. In our failures, we are not able to penetrate the real character of our sin, because we cannot take its measure, see its nature, in relation to God. We cannot say, as did David after his adultery, ‘Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight, so that thou art justified in thy sentence and blameless in thy judgment’ (Ps. 51:4). All we can do is wipe each other’s noses.” [David Wells, Losing Our Virtue (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 181]