FRATERNAL CORRECTION

CONVENTIONAL BELIEF: Jesus gave his church the power to act in Gods name to forgive sin.

The Catholic and Orthodox churches ordain priests to forgive sin, believing that this power has been handed down from the apostles.

The Catholic Church, in the Council of Trent, declared that its dogma is found in a passage from John 20:19-23:

In the evening of the first day of the week, with the doors locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood with them and said to them, Peace be with you. After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Seeing the Lord, the disciples rejoiced. Again Jesus said to them, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. After saying this, Jesus breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you hold back forgiveness, their sins are not forgiven.

Regardless of how clear this passage appears to us, the early church did not acknowledge the power of the priest to forgive sin.

Those who would know best how to interpret the Gospels ought to be those who lived closest to the time of Jesus. And for the early church, the passage of choice relating to church authority was not John 20, but Matthew 18:15-18:

If your brothers or sisters sin against you, go and tell them their fault between you and them alone. If they listen, then you have won them back. But if they will not listen, approach them again with one or two others, so that all that is said may be upheld by the testimony of two or three witnesses. And if they refuse to listen to your group, then tell the community. But if they refuse even to listen to the church, then consider them the same as a [non believing] Gentile or as a [cheating] tax collector. Amen, I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you unbind on earth will be unbound in heaven.

This text is a lesson on how to correct a wayward brother or sister: First, deal with the offender privately. If that fails, go to the person with one or two others. As a last resort, go public, telling the congregation or the church, which is to ostracize the person like a Gentile or a tax collector. For whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you release (unbind) on earth will be released (unbound) in heaven.

In Jesus time binding and releasing (or loosing) had a rabbinical or technical meaning. These terms meant that the community could pass judgment by expelling a guilty party from its midst. That was the power to bind. As for releasing, the congregation could also readmit the sinner to its company. Thus the power of loosing refers to removing the same penalty, which the church uses to bind, or to lifting the burden it has itself imposed.

The early church believed it was acting in Gods name by imposing penalties, such as excommunication, and it believed the same when it pardoned. However, its absolution was interpreted not as a direct forgiveness of sin, but rather a decree that a sinners penitential acts were a sign of Gods forgiveness. Consequently, even into the early centuries of the second millennium, theologians believed that in the confessional the priest did not forgive sins, because God had already granted forgiveness.

HIDDEN TRUTH: Jesus taught his followers how to correct, punish and pardon by forgiving penalties the community itself had imposed. The early church never claimed the power to forgive sin in Gods name.