Scripture and retaining or remitting sins

So my baptist parents disagree a lot with the Lutheran or Anglican view that a minister has some power to absolve, Wether in the general liturgy or if you request private.
They say only God has the power to forgive sins, and not even the apostles had it. They say the verse about remitting or retaining sins is about spreading the gospel lol.
Is there any biblical verse where the apostles forgive someone’s sin?
Is there any typology of the Old Testament with the new priest hood?
Maybe omitting episcopal succession because there’s no way they will agree with that right now.
They think it’s too “Roman” to even have the Eucharist be part of the liturgy everyday…
I need some good Bible verses about the apostles remitting or retaining sins but I can’t find a single one. They refuse evidence of general absolution from the early church because they think the early church was not obedient to scripture. Pretty much only baptists follow Bible correctly in their view and anglicans and Lutherans have Roman accretions.

I remember @Invictus gave me acts 5:10 a while ago in another thread

“How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord?” Peter replied. “Look, the feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.” 10 At that instant she fell down at his feet and died. Thenthe young men came in and, finding her dead,carried her out and buried her beside herhusband. 11And great fear came over the whole church and all who heard about these events.”

how does this prove forgiving sins?
There’s not a verse where the apostles forgive sins is there? I don’t see how I can prove to them this isn’t a contradiction against the Bible lol

Help??

 

Acts 5:10 is an instance where a sin was retained rather than remitted.

I would avoid discussing this stuff with your family. Their mind isn't going to be changed by anything you say, but over time they may be more accepting of whatever change you decide to make, when they see how it has impacted your life.

 

Well they think I’m going down a wrong road and Denying biblical doctrine. They specifically asked me to sit down with them sometime and show them where it’s in the Bible. I’m not hunting for arguments but if they do come to me and ask me “where in the Bible is that” don’t you think I should at least have an answer?


Can you explain how acts 5 shows a sin being retained? It doesn’t show the woman asking for remission of sins and Peters decree makes her die. I don’t really understand this verse

 

What would make them think you owe them an explanation at all?

If you're not comfortable using that verse to make your point, then don't use it. Especially if you're not wholly convinced of it yourself.

 

2 Corinthians 2:10
“To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ;”

James 5:15
“And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.”

 

Is corinthians 2 talking about “general forgiveness” or the presbyters giving forgiveness ?
That’s a really good verse

 

That verse follows some instructions Paul had given them for handling the man who had taken his stepmother as an intimate partner. He had done his penance and so Paul is instructing that he be absolved. The strongest statement is at the end of the verse when he writes he forgave the man.

 

Hi Jellies, good to see you again!

"Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who in his great mercy has
promised forgiveness of sins to all those who sincerely repent
and with true faith turn to him, have mercy upon you, pardon
and deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you
in all goodness, and bring you to everlasting life; through Jesus
Christ our Lord." "Amen."

You might explain to your parents that Anglicanism is quite broad in its welcoming and acceptance of some diverging schools of thought on lesser matters (matters that do not pertain to the means of salvation, which is grace through faith). Christians are welcome to be Anglicans even if they view the words of 'general absolution' in different ways. But also stress to them that relatively few, if any, Anglicans view absolution in the sense that RCs view it.

The RCC teaches its laity that auricular confession, followed by personal absolution from the priest, and acts of penance, is the way (pretty much the only way) to get the guilt of one's sins removed. It's basically required of a 'good' RC to do this. The Anglican approach does not allow for this concept.

But the Anglican approach does allow for the fact that some people feel a great weight from their guilt and greatly the need reassurance (which the general absolution provides) that God has indeed forgiven them, so they may receive the Eucharist with a clear conscience and in faith. Meanwhile, the Anglican approach also allows for the fact that some people do not feel such a weight, because they have enough faith to trust His word that He has clothed us with His own perfect righteousness; for such people, the general absolution is more ritual-seeming but it is still a nice, formal reminder of what God has done for us by His grace. And because the congregation is made up of people in all of the various stages of 'faith-walk,' it is just as valuable to have general confession and absolution each Sunday as it is to have on each Sunday a sermon, some faith-encouraging hymns, a confession of our creed of faith, a time of joint prayer for other people's needs, a Communion reminder of Jesus' immense sacrifice for us, and so on. All parts of the service are included for the purpose of serving us (at whatever level of faith we are at) so that we may grow together as 'living stones' in the Church of our Lord Jesus.

To conclude, you might tell them that the Anglican Church does not call on or require its members to believe that the priest is forgiving their sins . Indeed, the Anglican Church would say that God is the one forgiving those sins. (May "Almighty God...pardon you...") As to what level of authority the priest holds to pronounce forgiveness, it is strictly Biblical: ultimately it is God, and Him alone, who can forgive sins, yet priests have the authority to state a pronouncement that all who have turned away from their sins and turned to Him in sincere faith are pardoned and delivered.

 

I am not so sure that is really the Anglican position. It is permissible for laity to hold that opinion but lets look at the BCP. During the transition period in the 1500's you see in the BCP the call for people not to get upset about the form of confession used by members of the laity because both public and auricular confession was valid. Then by the 1662 auricular confession was only to quite one's conscious while public confession was the normal mode. Auricular confession was not to be a life confession but a confession of a sin th at was bothering you to help you heal and move on with God's forgiveness. Just witness how if there is no priest there is no absolution offered because this is the power of the keys at work.
All this is said that there is still the ability to confess sins straight to God and be forgiven. So in Anglicanism we have both but the general confession during the service is in fact operational and can only be done by a priest.

 

thanks for all the answers guys.
Am I correct in saying the early church practiced general absolution in the beginning of the service like Lutherans and anglicans do? And that the auricular confession part came later?
I’ve read some stuff that says the early church had you confess your sins before the whole congregation if they were grievous sins, like idolatry or fornication, etc.
Then there’s also the verse in John that says “confess your sins to one another.”
I’m assuming it’s alluding to the general confession

 

Henry Charles Lea (a 19th Century historian) wrote in Confession and Absolution (Vol. 1) that absolution by priests was largely unknown and unpracticed in the church until about the 10th Century. He writes that confessing sins was practiced in the early church for the purpose of seeking God's forgiveness, by way of the intercessory prayers of all the people. A quote from P. 460:

Although, in a general way, absolution has been referred to in
preceding chapters, there is much concerning it which requires further consideration if we would understand the evolution of sacerdotalism leading to the existing theory and practice of the Church.
We have seen that in primitive times there was nothing to correspond with the modern conception of absolution—the pardon or
remission of sin by one human being to another. There was reconciliation to the Church, but there was no assumption that this
reconciliation included or inferred justification—the reconciliation of
the sinner to God. Yet penitence entitled the repentant sinner to
the mediation of the Church, including its ministers and the congregation, and this mediation was held to be an efficient factor in placating the Deity. From an early period the prayers of the just were regarded as the most available means of supplementing the repentance of the sinner and of inducing God to avert from him the sentence of perdition. The congregation joined in prayer over the penitents during the term of penance and at the ceremony of reconciliation. The intercession of all was sought, but that martyrs and saints and finally priests came to be regarded as peculiarly efficient mediators was a natural development of a religion which was constantly becoming more contaminated with pagan elements and more anthropomorphic in its conception of the Divine Being.
​

Of course, any researcher can err, and Lea didn't have the benefit of internet search tools. So perhaps there are forum members who have some noteworthy quotes from early fathers which would tell us differently.

That said, this has more to do with the early church practice and beliefs concerning absolution than with Anglican doctrine on the matter.

 

Yeah he missed this big time. As we all know the practice of private confession arose in two places at different times and then spread. It arose in Ireland and eventually became the dominant form of confession in the Western world by around the 7th century if memory serves me right but it arose even earlier in the deserts of Egypt.

St. Cyprian of Carthage
250 AD
The Lapsed 15:1-3; 28

The Apostle likewise bears witness and says: ….”Whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord” [1 Cor 11:27]. But [the impenitent] spurn and despise all these warnings; before their sins are expiated, before they have made a confession of their crime, before their conscience has been purged in the ceremony and at the hand of the priest…they do violence to his body and blood, and with their hands and mouth they sin against the Lord more than when they denied him.

….Of how much greater faith and salutary fear are they who…confess their sins to the priests of God in a straightforward manner and in sorrow, making an open declaration of conscience. God cannot be mocked or outwitted, nor can he be deceived by any clever cunning….Indeed, he but sins the more if, thinking that God is like man, he believes that he can escape the punishment of his crime by not openly admitting his crime….I beseech you, brethren, let everyone who has sinned confess his sin while he is still in this world, while his confession is still admissible, while the satisfaction and remission made through the priests are still pleasing before the Lord.
St. Basil the Great
330 – 379 AD
Rules Briefly Treated 288

It is necessary to confess our sins to those to whom the dispensation of God’s mysteries [i.e. the Sacraments] is entrusted [i.e. priests]. Those doing penance of old are found to have done it before the saints. It is written in the Gospel that they confessed their sins to John the Baptist [Matt 3:6]; but in Acts they confessed to the Apostles, by whom also all were baptized [Acts 19:18].

 

Are you sure you understood him correctly? The author is unknown to me but there are two separate issues involved here:

1. the practice of confession and absolution
2. practice of auricular/ private confession

It is well known that auricular confession as today seen in the Roman church, was invented close to the Middle Ages. The Church Fathers explicitly rejected the use of it, for the kinds of spiritual abuse it would engender.

But it is equally known that in the general setting (the whole congregation), confession and absolution by a presbyter was practiced from the very early on. In fact it stems from the pre-NT Jewish era when the people confessed and received absolution, as seen from the Jewish Mishnah and other writings. That’s what Jesus meant when he said the apostles would bind and loose: he gave them the power to do officially what was already being done among the people of God prior to the New Testament period.

There is a whole lot of research being done now on the Jewish roots of the New Testament. Things like confession/absolution, the keys to bind and loose in heaven, all this has been found in the Jewish writings, in existence prior to Jesus, during the Inter-Testamental period. Since almost all followers of Jesus were Jewish, that was the context they operated in.

 

The words of Cyprian, as quoted, sound convincing. But before we jump to conclusions, let us consider what Cyprian wrote, in a fuller context, shall we?

15. Moreover, beloved brethren, a new kind of devastation has appeared; and, as if the storm of persecution had raged too little, there has been added to the heap, under the title of mercy, a deceiving mischief and a fair-seeming calamity. Contrary to the vigour of the Gospel, contrary to the law of the Lord and God, by the temerity of some, communion is relaxed to heedless persons, — a vain and false peace, dangerous to those who grant it, and likely to avail nothing to those who receive it. They do not seek for the patience necessary to health nor the true medicine derived from atonement. Penitence is driven forth from their breasts, and the memory of their very grave and extreme sin is taken away. The wounds of the dying are covered over, and the deadly blow that is planted in the deep and secret entrails is concealed by a dissimulated suffering. Returning from the altars of the devil, they draw near to the holy place of the Lord, with hands filthy and reeking with smell, still almost breathing of the plague-bearing idol-meats; and even with jaws still exhaling their crime, and reeking with the fatal contact, they intrude on the body of the Lord, although the sacred Scripture stands in their way, and cries, saying, “Every one that is clean shall eat of the flesh; and whatever soul eateth of the flesh of the saving sacrifice, which is the Lord’s, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from his people.” (Lev_7:20) Also, the apostle testifies, and says, “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table and of the table of devils.” (1Co_10:21) He threatens, moreover, the stubborn and froward, and denounces them, saying, “Whosoever eateth the bread or drinketh the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” (1Co_11:27)
16. All these warnings being scorned and contemned, — before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offence of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, violence is done to His body and blood; and they sin now against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord. They think that that is peace which some with deceiving words are blazoning forth: that is not peace, but war; and he is not joined to the Church who is separated from the Gospel. Why do they call an injury a kindness? Why do they call impiety by the name of piety? Why do they hinder those who ought to weep continually and to entreat their Lord, from the sorrowing of repentance, and pretend to receive them to communion? This is the same kind of thing to the lapsed as hail to the harvests; as the stormy star to the trees; as the destruction of pestilence to the herds; as the raging tempest to shipping. They take away the consolation of eternal hope; they overturn the tree from the roots; they creep on to a deadly contagion with their pestilent words; they dash the ship on the rocks, so that it may not reach to the harbour. Such a facility does not grant peace, but takes it away; nor does it give communion, but it hinders from salvation. This is another persecution, and another temptation, by which the crafty enemy still further assaults the lapsed; attacking them by a secret corruption, that their lamentation may be hushed, that their grief may be silent, that the memory of their sin may pass away, that the groaning of their heart may be repressed, that the weeping of their eyes may be quenched; nor long and full penitence deprecate the Lord so grievously offended, although it is written, “Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent.” (Rev_2:5)
17. Let no one cheat himself, let no one deceive himself. The Lord alone can have mercy. He alone can bestow pardon for sins which have been committed against Himself, who bare our sins, who sorrowed for us, whom God delivered up for our sins. Man cannot be greater than God, nor can a servant remit or forego by his indulgence what has been committed by a greater crime against the Lord, lest to the person lapsed this be moreover added to his sin, if he be ignorant that it is declared, “Cursed is the man that putteth his hope in man.” (Jer_17:5)54 The Lord must be besought. The Lord must be appeased by our atonement, who has said, that him that denieth Him He will deny, who alone has received all judgment from His Father. We believe, indeed, that the merits of martyrs and the works of the righteous are of great avail with the Judge; but that will be when the day of judgment shall come; when, after the conclusion of this life and the world, His people shall stand before the tribunal of Christ.
18. But if any one, by an overhurried haste, rashly thinks that he can give remission of sins to all, or dares to rescind the Lord’s precepts, not only does it in no respect advantage the lapsed, but it does them harm. Not to have observed His judgment is to have provoked His, wrath, and to think that the mercy of God must not first of all be entreated, and, despising the Lord, to presume on His power. Under the altar of God the souls of the slain martyrs cry with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood upon those who dwell on the earth?” (Rev_6:10) And they are bidden to rest, and still to keep patience. And does any one think that, in opposition to the Judge, a man can become of avail for the general remission and pardon of sins, or that he can shield others before he himself is vindicated? The martyrs order something to be done; but only if this thing be just and lawful, if it can be done without opposing the Lord Himself by God’s priest, if the consent of the obeying party be easy and yielding, if the moderation of the asking party be religious. The martyrs order something to be done; but if what they order be not written in the law of the Lord, we must first know that they have obtained what they ask from God, and then do what they command. For that may not always appear to be immediately conceded by the divine majesty, which has been promised by man’s undertaking.​

Please notice that the thrust of Cyprian's comments is not to support priestly absolution. His main concern is the people who have committed gross sins, such as eating food sacrificed to idols, come to communion without any thought about what they've done. They're eating and drinking the bread and cup unworthily.

Fact is, just a bit further on (in 17 and 18) Cyprian says things that run contrary to the idea that he's writing in support of priestly absolution: "The Lord alone can have mercy. He alone can bestow pardon...nor can a servant remit or forego by his indulgence what has been committed by a greater crime against the Lord...But if any one... rashly thinks that he can give remission of sins to all, or dares to rescind the Lord’s precepts, not only does it in no respect advantage the lapsed, but it does them harm." If Cyprian were trying to support absolution, this would have been a great place for him to make a firm distinction in favor of it.

I have been unable to locate a copy of this document so as to examine the context, but it is easy enough to see in the quoted excerpt that Basil makes no mention therein of absolution. It is one thing to confess one's sins to a priest, and quite another to have efficacious absolution. Basil's quote mentions the former only, not the latter.

If these are the strongest early church quotes in favor of absolution, it doesn't look convincing.

 

It is known? By you, perhaps. Not by me. Yes, confession to a presbyter was practiced. Absolution, though? I need more proof than your bald statement, "It is known."

 

This is an interesting article on the subject:
https://medium.com/@chrisantenucci/...conciliation-in-the-early-church-8d0eaf275faf

 

Some interesting quotes there. Once one gets into the late 4th Century and the 5th Century, one finally sees statements that are suggestive of absolution (even then, they don't come right out and speak of absolution per se, but Chrysostom talks about the power of forgiving or retaining sins, and Theodore of Mopsuestia says the priests 'grant healing' to sinners).

 

Certainly, there is a developmental aspect to it. I think the important question to ask is whether the later developments were/are consistent with the earlier states of affairs. I wouldn’t expect a 2nd century Father to expound 9th century doctrine.

 

That begs for subjectivity and opinions, right? I mean, some will say they think the later developments are consistent with the earlier, and some will say the opposite.

 

That’s where consensus comes into play.