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Originally Posted by
CatholicCrusader
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The following is a post I posted in another forum a few months ago:
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Okay. In another thread I was asked about the Sacrament of Confession and I said I would start a thread.
As with some of my threads on Baptism, it is important to understand the wider issue of what a Sacrament itself actually is. I will get into that too. But for now I am going to begin with these four points about Confession:
1. Why do I have to go to a priest for confession instead of going straight to God? After all, the Bible says that "there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5).
The Lord does want us to come to him when we fall into sin. He wants to bring us forgiveness so much that he gave the apostles the power to forgive sins. This power given to the apostles and their successors does not come from within them but from God. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus gave the apostles authority over unclean spirits, the authority to heal, the authority to raise people from the dead, et cetera. No Christian assumes that these powers came from the men themselves, since God is the one that has chosen to use them to manifest his power and mercy.
In the words of Paul, "All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Cor. 5:18). The apostles and their successors are merely ambassadors for Christ (2 Cor. 5:20), bringing his forgiveness to the world through the sacraments and the message of the gospel. If God has chosen to bring his message of forgiveness to the world by means of sinful, human ambassadors, why would he not be able to give these messengers the power to forgive and retain sins? And why would this not be a natural way for Jesus to extent his merciful presence on earth for all generations?
If Jesus has set up a way for us to draw near to him and receive his grace, why should we prefer another route? We would be like the three-year-old with his father who, in a rush to get home from the store, begins to run. "Let me pick you up," the father offers. The child says, "No, Dad. I’m fast. Just watch me." It takes them much longer to get home because the child’s pride prevents him from accepting his father’s help. Likewise, God does hear us when we ask for forgiveness, but it is dangerous and often prideful to stay away from what the saints call the "medicine box"—the confessional. Why would a person wish to overcome their sins alone when they have the God-given power of the apostles’ successors at their disposal?
Only God can forgive sins. If we were to assume temporarily for the moment the Roman Church has no false teachings, there is no Scripture for intermediary priesthood and confessionals. This is not to say a Christian can't go to a Christian worker for advice and even acknowledge his sin in that discussion, but confessional booths and thinking forgiveness can be achieved through man is fool-hardy as evident by the fact in this post no evidence is given for said claim. Man is always trying to do what only God can do. Why accept a lesser substitute? While the Roman Church calls it a sin to stay away from the booths, a Christian realizes those booths need to be torn down. This is how you turn God's redemptive design into a legalism. It is dangerous to access intermediary priesthood and prideful for men to think they have such power to forgive sins. The Pharisees tried to kill Jesus because He was forgiving sins, for even they knew only God could forgive sins. Believe the fact that the priests of the Roman church are unsaved and going to Hell. They are not showing you are more efficacious route but they are showing you the path to a sure fire way to Hell because they are exalting themselves for financial gain and control. I prefer to view forgiveness as it actually is,
http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/forgiveness-4_kinds.htm
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2. Where is the sacrament of confession in the Bible?
As soon as Jesus rose from the dead and earned salvation for us, he brought his apostles a new gift. After speaking peace to them, he said, "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you" (John 20:21). Just as Jesus was sent by the Father to reconcile the world to God, Jesus sent the apostles to continue his mission.
Jesus then breathed on the apostles. This is a verse that is often passed over, but it has extraordinary significance because it is only the second time in all of Scripture where God breathes on anyone. The other instance was at the moment of creation, when God breathed his own life into the nostrils of Adam. This should tell us that something of great importance is taking place. Upon doing this, Jesus said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:22–23).
Notice that Jesus is not simply commissioning the apostles to preach about God’s forgiveness. He is not saying, "Go tell everyone that when God forgives men’s sins, they’re forgiven." In using the second person plural you, Jesus is telling his apostles that by the power of the Holy Spirit he has given them the power to forgive and retain the sins of men. Having the power to forgive and to retain sins implies that the apostle knows what a person’s sins are, which in turn implies oral confession. Otherwise, how is the apostle to know what to retain or forgive?
In the same way that Jesus gave his apostles other supernatural powers (such as raising men from the dead), he gave them power to absolve sins (raising them from spiritual death). In Matthew 9, we read that Jesus forgave a paralytic and then healed him so "that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins" (Matt. 9:6)
After he exercised this power as a man, the crowds glorified God for having given "such authority to men" (Matt. 9:8, emphasis added). Notice that Matthew indicates this power to forgive sins had been given to men, and not simply to a man.
Jesus never gave Christians the power to absolve sins. Only Jesus can do that! For a man to think that he is already lost in arrogance and pomp. You totally misread Matt. 9.8. Jesus is that man, not men. That they mistook by saying, "given such authority to men" as if others could do what Jesus did is a grave mistake. What they should have said is, "they praised God for sending a man with such great authority" (NLT). Only God can forgive sins.
Many times God Himself says, "I forgive you!" Sometimes, though, He declares His forgiveness through the church: "God has forgiven your sins!" This kind of forgiveness we term borrowed forgiveness. "And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit: whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained" (John 20:22-23). Here the Lord gives His Holy Spirit to the church so that she may represent Him on earth and be His vessel to forgive people’s sins. Though we call this borrowed forgiveness, we need to exercise extreme care lest we fall into the error of the Roman Catholic church. Notice what the Lord said. The forgiveness here is based on the Lord’s breathing upon the church, saying, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." The consequence of receiving the Holy Spirit is that the church knows whose sins are retained and whose are forgiven. Thus the church may declare whose sins are retained and whose sins are forgiven. Remember this: the church has such authority only because she herself is under the authority of the Holy Spirit. "Whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained"—these words come after "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." Borrowed forgiveness is God forgiving people’s sins through the channel of the church.
The Church is not actually forgiving sins from themselves, but acknowledging in a spirit of discernment, recognizing whose sins are forgiven. This is not the same thing as intermediary priesthood, where the priest forgive sins. It's amazing I know this and you don't, and I am just a lowly Christian.
Sacraments are legalisms, taking what is life and twisting them for the sake of power-structure control system that goes outside God's provision.
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3. Doesn’t confession of one’s sins imply that Christ’s work was insufficient? The Bible says that if I believe that Jesus is Lord, I’ll be saved.
The passage you referred to is Acts 16:31, which reads, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." Sounds pretty simple. However, the Bible says much more about salvation and forgiveness. Jesus repeatedly affirmed that if we do not forgive others, we will not be forgiven (Matt. 6:15). When Jesus breathed on the apostles in John 20, he gave them the power to retain sins. But if one’s salvation is contingent upon nothing other than a verbal profession of faith, then there is no reason why Jesus would given any man the power to retain sins. In the midst of all of these passages what we need to be careful of is that we do not camp out on one particular Bible passage without consulting the rest of Scripture.
It is because of the work of Christ that we obtain forgiveness. All Christians can agree on that. What needs to be discussed is how that forgiveness comes to mankind. When Ananias spoke to Paul in Acts 22:16, he said, "And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins" (Acts 22:16). Later in the New Testament, the forgiveness of sins is tied to the sacrament of the anointing of the sick (James 5:13–15). Just as these Biblical practices are channels of God’s forgiving grace, the sacrament of confession does not add to or take away from the finished work of Christ. It is evidence of the finished work of Christ in our midst.
The finished work of Christ is not adhered to when you think you can retain sins. The problem is you misunderstand what retaining sins means. It is not the Church retaining the sin as God would retain the sin, but the Church is recognizing the sin is retained by God. These two meanings of retaining sins are worlds apart.
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4. How can Catholics claim confession to a priest is an apostolic tradition? I heard it was invented in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council.
What you heard probably came from the anti-Catholic book Roman Catholicism by Loraine Boettner. This book is well known for its inaccurate history, and the reference you gave is a primary example. During the Fourth Lateran Council, the Church reminded the faithful in an official way what had already been the ancient practice of the Church—to confess mortal sins at least once a year. In no way was this the initiation of a new sacrament or even a new way to celebrate an old sacrament. If the Church did initiate the sacrament of reconciliation in 1215, why were there no cries at the time of invention? The obvious answer is no one objected because they were aware that the sacrament was over a millennium old at the time of the Council.
Consider the following early Christian writings from the first five centuries:
"Confess your sins in church, and do not go up to your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life. . . . On the Lord’s Day gather together, break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure" (Didache 4:14, 14:1 [A.D. 70]).
There is nor requirement this be done in a confessional booth. This can be simply to oneself unto God or in a discussion with someone you again, confess, but orally to God. No confessional booths. Why no confessional booths? Because no intermediary priesthood. The 4 ways to Judaize Christianity are: 1) written codes (e.g. adding books to the Bible), 2) physical buildings, 3) earthly promises, (e.g. Rome), 4) intermediary priesthood (e.g. confessional booths).
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"[Regarding confession, some] flee from this work as being an exposure of themselves, or they put it off from day to day. I presume they are more mindful of modesty than of salvation, like those who contract a disease in the more shameful parts of the body and shun making themselves known to the physicians; and thus they perish along with their own bashfulness"(Tertullian, Repentance 10:1 [A.D. 203]).
This has nothing to do with confessional booths and intermediary priesthood. Confession is to God and if the Lord leads you to discuss with an Elder of Pastor.
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"[The bishop conducting the ordination of the new bishop shall pray:] God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . pour forth now that power which comes from you, from your royal spirit, which you gave to your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and which he bestowed upon his holy apostles . . . and grant this your servant, whom you have chosen for the episcopate, [the power] to feed your holy flock and to serve without blame as your high priest . . . and by the Spirit of the high-priesthood to have the authority to forgive sins, in accord with your command" (Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition 3 [A.D. 215]).
If by "authority to forgive sins" he meant borrowed forgiveness then I approve; but if it is according to how you teach that the man is actually forgiving sins then I reject such man-made forgiveness in the name the Father, Son, Spirit. A worker for the Church should dilenate what kind of forgiveness this is and whence it comes from since it does come from the person himself.
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"Priests have received a power which God has given neither to angels nor to archangels. It was said to them: ‘Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose, shall be loosed.’ Temporal rulers have indeed the power of binding; but they can only bind the body. Priests, in contrast, can bind with a bond which pertains to the soul itself and transcends the very heavens. Did [God] not give them all the powers of heaven? ‘Whose sins you shall forgive,’ he says, ‘they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.’ What greater power is there than this? The Father has given all judgment to the Son. And now I see the Son placing all this power in the hands of men" (John Chrysostom, The Priesthood 3:5 [A.D. 387]).
Every Christian is a royal priesthood, so there is not some Christians who are priests and some who are not. There is no cleric and laity found in the Bible.