DID GOD SAY TO CONFESS YOUR SINS TO HIM, NOT A PRIEST?

Confession to a priest is Biblical, it is a God-given ministry written in the scriptures.

It is God who forgives sins, and once forgiven, He ceases to remember them.

Rom 3:26, “GOD in His patience remitting former sins…”

GOD uses His priests as His instruments of reconciliation. The New Covenant priesthood is prefigured or ‘typed’ in many places in the Old Testament.

Here are several examples from the Old Testament of reconciliation and atonement being performed by a priest:

Lev 4:20, “…Thus the priest shall make atonement for them, and they will be forgiven.”

Lev 4:26, “Thus the priest shall make atonement for the prince’s sin, and it will be forgiven.”

David the King conversed directly with GOD:
2 Sam 2:1, “And after these things David consulted the Lord, saying: Shall I go up into one of the cities of Juda? And the Lord said to him: Go up. And David said: Whither shall I go up? And he answered him: Into Hebron.”

Yet David still had to confess to Nathan and hear from him that he had been forgiven.
2 Sam 12:13, “And David said to Nathan: I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David: The Lord also hath taken away thy sin: thou shalt not die.”

The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is revealed in the New.

Matt 18:18, Jesus gave this power to all of the Apostles, “Amen I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.”

Jn 20:21-23, “He, therefore, said to them again, ‘Peace be to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you. When He had said this, He breathed upon them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.”

Christ, the High Priest of the New Covenant, ordained the apostles to continue His priestly mission.
Jas 5:14-16 states…
(14) “Is any among you sick? Let him bring in the presbyters (priests) of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; (15)and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he be in sins, they will be forgiven him. (16) Confess, therefore, your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be saved. For the unceasing prayer of a just man is of great avail.”

OUTLINE:
1, Why confess to a priest if one can talk directly to God?
2. Where can you find God’s desire to forgive through his chosen ministers in the Bible and the institution of the Sacrament of Confession?
3. But isn’t it that only God can forgive sins?

1, Why confess to a priest if one can talk directly to God?

We Catholics confess our sins to a priest and receive God’s forgiveness and absolution BECAUSE GOD WANTED IT THIS WAY. God willed that His pardon and mercy pass through His Son, Jesus Christ, who acts in the priest, and hence, instituted the Sacrament of Confession upon giving His Apostles the power and authority to forgive sins or retain them.

2. Where can you find God’s desire to forgive through his chosen ministers in the Bible and the institution of the Sacrament of Confession?

Jn 20:21-23 – “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “RECEIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT. IF YOU FORGIVE THE SINS OF ANY, THEY ARE FORGIVEN; IF YOU RETAIN THE SINS OF ANY, THEY ARE RETAINED.”
• God’s salvific ministry carried out in His Son Jesus Christ wanted to show and perpetrate His loving mercy and reconciliation throughout time through the Apostles and their successors (Bishops, and their collaborators, the priests (cf. 2 Cor 5:18-20; Jas 5:14-15).
• This power to “forgive and retain” sins in the name of Jesus is described in other scriptural passages as the authority to “bind and loose” (Cf. Mt 16:19; 18:18).

3. But isn’t it that only God can forgive sins?

Yes! Only God can and it is He who forgives sins in the sacrament of Confession and not the priest.
• When the priest gives the absolution or forgives sin in Confession, he lends his voice to Christ: He acts IN THE PERSON OF CHRIST. IT IS CHRIST HIMSELF WHO SAYS: “I ABSOLVE YOU FROM YOUR SINS…”
This fact is in consonance with Jesus’ act of imparting his power to forgive sins to His apostles and his authority to reconcile sinners with His Church. The practice of confessing one’s sins to another has been present since the times when the Apostles were still alive.
• James” 5: 14 Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; 15 and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore CONFESS YOUR SINS TO ONE ANOTHER, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.”
• The command in v. 16, “confess your sins to one another” has to be interpreted within the previous context of the anointing rite, where the elders (i.e., presbyter = Greek πρεσβύτερος: priest, the senior, leader of the Christian congregation) presumably hear the confession of the sick person before his sins are remitted through the sacrament (5:14-15). It must be reminded that such confession has its roots in the liturgical practice of Israel (Lev 5:5-6; Num 5:5-10) and is contained in the teaching of Jesus (Jn 20:23).

During his life-time Christ forgave sins. Since he would not always be with the Church physically and visibly, Christ delegated this power to other men so that the Church would be able to offer forgiveness to future generations. He gave this as a communicable power to the apostles so it could be passed on to their successors, the bishops. In this passage (Jn 20:21-22) Jesus is telling the apostles to follow his own example, in delegating the power to the apostles to forgive sins.

Dear brethren in Christ, had God willed for us to confess directly to Him, Jesus wouldn’t have given His power and authority to forgive sins to His Apostles and nor had instituted the Sacrament of Confession.
Besides, one advantage of obeying God’s will to confess our sins to His instruments is the absolute assurance of having been forgiven upon receiving the sacramental absolution, a fact which we cannot be absolutely sure if we are to confess our sins directly to God.
By confessing our sins to God’s instruments, who are also sinners for all we are, He also wants us to practice and grow in humility and faith, necessary virtues in order to receive God’s loving mercy.

Note that all of this is God’s doing. It is He who, through Christ, has reconciled us to himself, and allowed us to minister this reconciliation of his to others (2 Cor 5:18). Indeed, confirms Paul, “We are Christ’s ambassadors” (2 Cor 5:20). Note also that in the anointing of the sick described in Js 5:13-15-16, it is to the presbyters of the Church the person is to be brought, and his sins will be forgiven. It is to the ordained that the sick are brought. “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteousness person is very powerful.”

THE WITNESS OF TRADITION

Self-accusation is listed as a part of the Church’s requirement by the time of Irenaeus (130-200). Slightly later Christian writers, such as Origin (185-254), Cyprian (d.258), and Aphraates (early 300s) state clearly that confession is to be made to a priest. Cyprian writes that the forgiving of sins can take place only through the priests.” Ambrose (339-397) says that “this right is given to priests only.” These sayings are never seen as anything new and novel, but as reminders of accepted belief. The antiquity of this practice easily documented in Jurgens (see above in Sources).

This power to forgive is two-fold, to loose (to forgive) or to hold them bound (not to forgive). This means that sins had to be verbally confessed to the priests so they could know which sins to forgive and which not to forgive. Also, their authority was to forgive or not to forgive, not merely to proclaim that God had already forgiven sins based on people’s subjective contrition (see Keating p.185).

ANSWERS TO SOME COMMON OBJECTIONS:

1. Did the Medieval Catholic Church, in a power-hungry move, force this doctrine of confession to a priest upon the innocent apostolic Church?

If the apostles and disciples believed that Christ instituted a priesthood that included the power to forgive sins in his stead, we would expect the successors of the apostles, that is, the bishops, and Christians of late years to act as though such power was legitimately and habitually exercised. On the other hand, if the priestly forgiveness of sins was what fundamentalists term it, an “invention,” and if it was something foisted on the young Church by ecclesiastical or political leaders, we would expect to find records of protest. In fact, in early Christian writings, we find no sign of protests concerning priestly forgiveness of sins. Quite the contrary, we find that confession to a priest was accepted as consistent with the original deposit of faith (Keating, p. 183).

2. Isn’t the practice of private confession (auricular) a later development?

There was also a private administration of the sacrament of penance from the beginning as attested by a severe letter of Pope Leo I in 459 censuring those who presume to act “against the apostolic regulation” by demanding public manifestation of sins. “It is sufficient,” he affirmed, “that the guilt which people have on their consciences be made known to the priests alone in secret confession” (Hardon, p. 482).

BENEFITS OF DOING THIS THE CATHOLIC WAY

FIRST, the Catholic is seeking forgiveness the way Christ intended it to be sought.

SECOND, by confessing to a priest, the Catholic learns a lesson in humility which is conveniently avoided when one confesses only through private prayer. Don’t we all desire to escape humbling experiences?

THIRD, the Catholic receives sacramental graces that the non-Catholic does not get; through the sacrament of penance, not only are sins forgiven, but graces are obtained.

FOURTH, and in some ways the most important, the Catholic is assured that his sins are forgiven; he doesn’t have to rely on a subjective “feeling.”

FIFTH, the Catholic can obtain sound and objective advice in analyzing his sins and avoiding sin in the future.

SIXTH, the Catholic, by going to a recognized and trained confessor, is protected against the subjective dangers of such psychological tricks of the personality such as projection, rationalization, etc.