Quote:
Originally Posted by TRFrance
I was thinking recently about the Catholic doctrine of confession (to a priest), which we of course know is an unscriptural practice.
However, the Catholic church feels they have biblical justification for it. The scripture they use is ( John 20:22-23):
22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: 23 Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.
Therefore according to this argument, Roman Catholic priests, based on the authority handed down from the apostles, have the power to remit or retain sins.
Your thoughts please... How would you respond to someone who is Catholic, and defends the practice using that particular scripture? |
I believe it has more to do with church discipline. The soon to be apostles were granted authority to lay the sins of those who rebelled against the gospel of Jesus Christ upon them. When a brother sins all efforts to restore him should be exhausted. However, if he will not repent and seek to reconcile himself with the Lord and those he has wronged his sins are to be layed upon him and he be given over to Satan. Jesus explained it as follows:
Matthew 18:15-18
15Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
16But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
17And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
18Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Paul also explained this authority:
I Corinthians 5:1-13
1It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.
2And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
3For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
4In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
12For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
13But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
Being an elder comes with great spiritual responsibility. We shouldn't see this verse as something that grants an authority to use lightly. It is perhaps one of the most serious of responsibilities given to church leadership. Always strive to restore such a one...only bind their sins upon them if they absolutlely refuse to repent...in the hopes that being turned over to their sins will shake them to ultimately repent.
:r udolph
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