The Authority to Forgive Sins

In the midst of this study of the Catholic Faith and an examination of my own beliefs, I've run into Scripture passage after Scripture passage for which my former/current (I'm still journeying, afterall) tradition offers me no good explanation.

For example, here's a passage I've read hundreds of times and yet I never once caught the ending of it until just recently when I looked at it with a Catholic understanding.

The passage is Matthew 9:1-8. Read it and see if the last line surprises you or not. I'm betting that some of you at least will leave the computer and go check it against your own Bibles--just to make sure I haven't toyed with the wording. (That's the first thing I did when I stumbled upon it on a Catholic website explaining the Biblical roots for the Sacrament of Reconciliation).

Anyway, here it is:

And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city. And behold, they brought to him a paralytic, lying on his bed; and when Jesus saw their faith he said to the paralytic, "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven."

And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, "This man is blaspheming."

But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins"--he then said to the paralytic--"Rise, take up your bed and go home."

And he rose and went home.

When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men. Matthew 9:1-8

The word that caught me off guard is the last one: "men". Matthew clearly writes that the people were amazed that God gave this authority--the power to forgive sins if we read back a verse or two--to MEN. In the plural.

If you do a parallel study of multiple translations, you'll find there's no getting around it. This or that particular translation may opt for the phrase "people" or "human beings" or "men", but whatever word is selected, that word is always plural.

Now, when Matthew, guided by the Holy Spirit, wrote the words "they glorified God, who had given such authority to men," what do we think he was talking about? Is there any point in the history of Christianity--any point in recorded Scripture--in which God gave men--not a man, not just Jesus, but MEN--the authority to forgive sins?

Well, I can only think of one, John 20:21-23 which reads:

Then said Jesus to them again, "Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained."

This is the foundation of the Catholic understanding of Confession--the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And this is just a beginning introduction. The verses need to be weighed and parsed and history needs to be consulted before any kind of understanding one way or another can be reached. And I'll do my best to get to that later.

But for now, I wanted to throw it out there because it shows that while Protestants may disagree with Catholic theology regarding confession, they really can't honestly claim that there's no Biblical support for it.