Salvation & the Sacraments

Confessing Sins to a Priest

Christ gave the apostles authority to forgive and to retain sins in his name. In Confession the priest doesn't forgive by his own power — God forgives THROUGH the minister Christ authorized, which is why Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on them for exactly this.

The short answer. On Easter night Jesus breathed on the apostles and said, ‘whose sins you forgive are forgiven.’ To forgive OR retain, they had to hear the sins — that's Confession.

Jesus explicitly gave the power to forgive sins

On Easter evening the risen Christ breathes the Holy Spirit on the apostles and grants them authority to forgive or retain sins — the same Spirit-breathing as creation. This is a real, transferred authority, exercised in his name.

John 20:21–23Jesus therefore said to them again, “Peace be to you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit! If you forgive anyone’s sins, they have been forgiven them. If you retain anyone’s sins, they have been retained.”

‘Retain’ requires hearing the sins

To decide whether to forgive OR retain, the minister must know what is confessed — which requires the penitent to tell them. James tells us to ‘confess your sins to one another’ and to call the presbyters (priests).

James 5:16Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.

James 5:14Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord;

The ministry of reconciliation

God ‘gave us the ministry of reconciliation’ and makes his appeal through Christ's ambassadors. Forgiveness is God's, delivered through the ministers he sent — just as he heals and teaches through human instruments.

2 Corinthians 5:18–20But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation; namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the word of reconciliation. We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Common objections

“Only God can forgive sins — why go to a man?”

Only God can — and God chose to do it through men he authorized. The crowds ‘glorified God, who had given such authority to MEN’ (Mt 9:8). It's still God forgiving; the priest acts in the person of Christ, by the power Jesus handed on in John 20.

Matthew 9:8But when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

“I can just confess straight to God.”

You can and should turn to God always — but he gave a sacrament with the certainty of hearing the words ‘your sins are forgiven,’ spoken with his own authority. Why would Christ grant the power to forgive AND retain if we were only ever meant to bypass it?

Scripture quoted verbatim from the World English Bible (public domain).

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