John 20:23-24

[Will_Pick]

In reading this verse we see Our Lord giving the power to forgive sins to the Apostles.
My question is Thomas was not there and Judas was dead and did not have a replacment yet,and I don’t think we had a Bishop at this time,so how did these two get the power to forgive sins.

 

[mercygate]

Will Pick:

In reading this verse we see Our Lord giving the power to forgive sins to the Apostles.
My question is Thomas was not there and Judas was dead and did not have a replacment yet,and I don’t think we had a Bishop at this time,so how did these two get the power to forgive sins.

Judas didn’t get it (nor would he need it).

It has been explained to me that Thomas received it via his fellowship with the other 10 and through his priesthood conferred at the last supper.

 

[Della]

Will Pick:

In reading this verse we see Our Lord giving the power to forgive sins to the Apostles.
My question is Thomas was not there and Judas was dead and did not have a replacment yet,and I don’t think we had a Bishop at this time,so how did these two get the power to forgive sins.

Oh but we did have bishops then–we had the Apostles to whom Jesus had just given the authority to do several things besides forgive sins, one of them being to confer holy orders on others. So, there is no difficulty here at all.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

Was Thomas avilable at Matthew 18:18?

 

[Todd_Easton]

The apostle Thomas probably received the Spirit and the authority to forgive sins in the same way the elders Eldad and Medad, two of the seventy elders, received the Spirit when the other elders did though they were not assembled with the other elders. See Numbers 11:16-30.