John 20:22-23
“And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’”
Protestants believe that Christians should confess their sins privately to God, and not to a priest. Why, then, does Jesus give the apostles the authority to forgive and retain sins? Because, unlike the Protestant belief, Jesus believed that Christians could best grow in holiness by confessing their sins to His priests and receiving absolution in the sacrament of confession. Confession is thus the normative way in which God forgives us our sins.
This passage is very powerful and troubling to the Protestant position. First, we see that Jesus breathes on His apostles in the upper room. The only other time God breathed on man was when He created him and breathed life into his body. Genesis 2:7. When God breathes on man, a transformation takes place. Here, the apostles were transformed into “other Christs,” filled with the Holy Spirit and endowed with Jesus’ divine authority to forgive sins. Thus, Matthew writes that God gave the authority to forgive sins “to men.” Matt. 9:8. We also note that Jesus makes no distinction between very serious sin (called “mortal sin”) and lesser sins (called “venial sin”). See 1 John 5:16-17. By virtue of God’s mercy, the apostles are able to forgive all sins.
We also note that the apostles were not only given the authority to forgive sin, but to retain sin as well. What does this mean? This means that the apostles were given the gift of rendering judgment on the sincerity of the penitent, and binding the penitent to works of penance in order for him to be forgiven of his sin. If, in the apostles’ judgment, the penitent was not sincere, or should be required to perform acts of penance in reparation for his sins, the apostles could retain the sin (withhold forgiveness) until their conditions were satisfied. While such authority is reserved to God alone, Christ shared this authority with the apostles.
The power to retain sin is extremely important because it gives priests the authority, not only to forgive sin, but to remove the temporal punishments due to sin (the Church calls the removal of temporal punishments due to sin already forgiven an “indulgence”). Certainly, if a priest can forgive a mortal sin (which, if unforgiven, would have sent the person to hell), the priest can certainly remove the temporal punishments due to venial sin. This is part of the priests’ binding authority (retaining sin and imposing penance) and loosing authority (forgiving sin and removing punishment due to sin).
Of course, Jesus’ gift of authority described in John 20:22-23 only makes sense if the penitent orally confesses the sins to the apostles. The apostles were not given the gift of mind reading, and, even if they were, forgiveness of sin would still depend on the sinner’s desire to be forgiven (the sinner would express that desire by confessing his sins to the priest). If oral confession were not required, the way that Jesus granted the gift to the apostles would not make any sense.
Finally, for the small group of Protestants who do acknowledge that the apostles had the authority to forgive and retain sins, they can only disregard John 20:22-23 by arguing that this authority terminated at their death. The problem with their argument is that it cannot be proven from Scripture (there is no place in Scripture that teaches the apostles’ binding and loosing authority terminated at death). Neither can the argument be proven from any historical record (the Church has been confecting the sacrament of confession for many centuries).
Moreover, these Protestants fail to provide an adequate explanation of why Jesus would grant such an incredible gift to the apostolic age, and then remove the gift from future generations. The answer, of course, is that He didn’t remove it. The gift was preserved through priestly succession by the sacrament of ordination as Christ intended, which the Scriptures often refer to as “the laying on of hands.” Acts 1:20; 6:6; 13:3; 8:18; 9:17; 1 Timothy 4:14; 5:22; 2 Timothy 1:6.
Clipped from
here.
