WHO CAN FORGIVE SIN? The simple question now becomes what Scriptural basis does the Roman Catholic Church use to try to support their doctrinal position of confession or Penance? The first passage they attempt to use is John 20:22-23. “Receive ye the Holy Spirit; whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.” The other passage is Matt. 16:19. “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” The Roman Catholic Church claims that Jesus gave the apostles the power to forgive or not forgive sins and hence the doctrine of confession or Penance was instituted. Furthermore, they believe that this power was passed on down through the ages and because of ‘apostolic succession’ priests today alone can forgive sins. A more thorough examination of these two passages of Scripture is in order though. In the first passage in John 20, it is very interesting that the Roman Church conveniently omits verse 19 which clearly states that all disciples received the same power. This means that lay people also received the power. The parallel passage of this same event is found in Luke 24:45-47 and Jesus clearly explains how the remitting of sins is to be accomplished. “Then Jesus opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance for the remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” The second passage in Matthew 16:19 has the same explanation. How did the disciples remit and retain sins? According the words of Jesus, they were to preach the Gospel beginning at Jerusalem. (It is also quite interesting that the Savior stated the church was to begin in Jerusalem and not Rome.) As the apostles and other disciples proclaimed the simple Gospel massage, men were given an opportunity to repent of their sins and believe in Jesus. If they repented, their sins were remitted; if they refused to repent, their sins were retained. It is actually no different today. We invite sinners to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior by repenting of their sins and by faith trusting Him to be their Savior. We can boldly proclaim that all who trust Christ have eternal life and those who refuse Him, will die in their sins and spend eternity in hell. The final question then to be answered is, who then can forgive sins? Mk. 2:7-”Who can forgive sins but God only?” Ps. 32:5-” I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord.” Eph. 1:7-”In Jesus we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” 1 John 1:9-”If we confess our sins, He [Christ] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Is. 43:25-”I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” The Bible is very clear that God alone can forgive sins. Therefore, it totally unnecessary to confess to a priest. There is not even one verse in the entire New Testament that records anyone confessing their sins to anyone but God. The apostles did not hear confession. The apostle Paul did not hear confession. Luke, James and Jude certainly did not hear anyone’s confession. Our Catholic friends will often turn to James 5:16 in another attempt to prove auricular confession (confession in the ear of a priest). “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervant prayer of a righteous man availieth much.” They will even go so far as to change the word “faults” to sin and the word “healed” to saved. The Greek word translated fault is paraptoma which also carries the meaning of a lapse, deviation or error. The common Greek word for sin is hamartia and is obviously not used here. The Greek word translated healed is iathete and can never mean saved. The Greek word translated saved is sosei. Unforunately many of the modern translations follow the corrupt Wescott Hort text which changes the word paraptoma to hamartia which follows the error of the Douay-Rheims Bible thus attempting to prove the need for confessing to a priest.. Let’s see what is actually being said in James 5:16. To begin with, we need to examine the context of the entire passage beginnng in verse 13. When examined as a whole verses 13 to 16 are clearly dealing with the healing of the sick and not with confession of sins to a priest. The Catholic contention that verse 16 teaches auricular confession fails for several obvious reasons. 1. The confession in this verse is not made by a healthy person to obtain salvation, rather by a sick person that he may be healed. 2. A mutual confession is the thought here and not that of confessing to a priest. 3. No mention of a priest is made or even a confession to any kind of minister for that matter as one to whom the confession is to be made. 4. The confession mentioned in the verse is of faults one to another and nothing is said of confession to someone who has not been injured. 5. There is no mention of absolution here by a priest or anyone else for that matter. 6. All this passage can possibly mean is that God promises to forgive those who are truly penitent and this fact may as well be stated as one to another.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 04:16:58 +0000
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