An Overview of the Sacrament of Reconciliation

Of all of the aspects of Catholicism which bother Protestants, confuse them, and especially seem foreign to the gospel of Jesus Christ, one aspect which causes some of the most problems is that of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Indeed, protestant theology focuses so greatly, and rightly so, on the work and mercy of Christ in salvation that the concept of confessing sins to a priest is utterly baffling at best and blasphemous at worst.  Those who believe it to be blasphemous do so at least in part because they believe it takes away from the role of Christ in salvation.

 

However, there is nothing involved in the Sacrament which detracts in any way from Jesus Christ, whom alone is able to save those who draw near to him (Heb 7:25).  It is important at the outset to clarify a few points Protestants, and even many Catholics, often misunderstand.  First and foremost, it is firmly held by the Catholic Church that the forgiveness of sin in the Sacrament of Reconciliation is an act fully of God and fully dependent upon and accomplished by the sacrifice Jesus Christ.  The forgiveness of the Sacrament is not a separate work, a new work, or possible by any means outside of Christ’s sacrifice. In fact, the Catholic Church teaches that a person can not even go to confession unless God prompts him to do so through the grace of repentance, a grace earned on the cross by Jesus Christ. Second, the priest in confession is understood to be acting as a representative of Christ; the official terminology is to say that the priest is acting ‘in persona Christi,’ which is Latin for ‘in the person of Christ.’  Thirdly, the Sacrament is not an excuse to sin, a point especially important for Catholics to understand.  True repentance is necessary for forgiveness in the Sacrament; a person choosing to sin deliberately while looking forward to the Sacrament would need to have a true change of heart, a change prompted by God’s grace, to be forgiven.

 

Therefore, there aren’t really any problems in terms of confession detracting from Christ. Of course, with all of the different theologies present in the Protestant world, it is hard to make a blanket statement as to what is problematic for them and what is not. For example, many evangelicals hold to a doctrine of once –saved – always – saved, which would reject the need to be concerned with sin at all. Nevertheless, in general the problem is one of understanding two questions: why would a person have to go to a priest when God is always there to hear a person’s confession, and is confession actually a commandment of God, or is it rather a tradition of men?

 

The first question is really not all that important a question when it comes down to it. Ultimately, it’s only a question that arises out of other concerns and confusions about the Sacrament, though many people who ask the question, both catholic and Protestant, may not realize it. To understand this, consider another issue. God’s first command to his chosen people, given through Abraham, was that every male child must be circumcised. This command was so important that when Moses failed to circumcise his son, God threatened to kill the child. Why did God command circumcision and hold it to be so important that He would strike a person for ignoring it? When one thinks about it, it really is rather silly. Why of all things did God make circumcision the means by which a man was set up part to be one of God’s people? People have been studying the scriptures for thousands of years and yet there still is not a definitive answer to this question. However, nobody has a problem with circumcision, and nobody questions Judaism or Christianity because of it. It is accepted that this is done because God commanded it, and that is enough for Christians and Jews alike to accept it without doubt. There are many other questions of this sort to be found in Christianity. Thus, even though we may not understand it, the question of why confession would be necessary is not really that important in addressing whether or not there is such a thing as the Sacrament of Reconciliation. If God commanded it, there is. The second question, then, really is the heart of the issue: did God command it?

 

While a Catholic would simply look to the sacred tradition of the church to say that God did institute the Sacrament of confession, Protestants of course do not accept any tradition as authoritative and look to the Holy Bible for all of God’s revelation. The Sacrament can be found there. The most important and clear text is in John’s gospel, when Jesus appears to the apostles after having been resurrected:

 

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins do you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”(20:21-23)

 

There are several important things to note about this passage. First, this is one of only two instances in the entire Bible in which God breathes on man.  The first is in Genesis 2:7 when He breathed the breath of life into the dirt of the earth to give man life. This is a sing that what Jesus does in John 20 is just as important as that, if not more. In Genesis God gave man physical life, but here He gives him spiritual and eternal life through the forgiveness of sins.  Second, Jesus tells the apostles that He is sending them in the same way as the Father sent Him.  Since the Father sent Jesus to forgive sins, this means that Jesus is sending the apostles to forgive sins.

 

Most important of all is Jesus’ statement that when the apostles retain sins they are retained. It is one thing to say that a person can forgive sins; it is another to say that a person can forgive and retain them. If a person is able to both forgive and retain sins, then that person must make decisions as to whether or not to forgive particular sins. This is why Catholics confess to priests; the priests must know what a person’s sins are, whether the person has repented of them, and whether the person is sorry for them if he is going to decide whether to forgive or retain them. 

 

In fact, this understanding helps to answer the question of why God would institute the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the first place. There are four reasons that can be derived from this passage to help to explain why it may be that He would do it this way. First, by requiring people to confess their sins, God is able to help lead people down the narrow path as opposed to the wide one. A person must repent before he can receive forgiveness in the Sacrament, otherwise the priest will retain his sins. This way a person cannot simply sin with the expectation that he will be forgiven afterwards. It is possible, for example, that someone may choose to sin with the intention of simply asking God’s forgiveness afterwards. However, Christ demanded repentance in the gospel. In the Sacrament of confession, there is a means to make sure people are not deluding themselves and that sin is not able to blind the conscience.  The priest ensures that a person is repentant and that if he is not he is made aware that he must be.  (Of course a person could lie to the priest, however as God is the one who judges the soul, this would not be beneficial.) Second, because people have that in mind that they must seek forgiveness for their sins, they will be less inclined to sin in general. In other words, the importance of living a life of holiness is driven home by having something as special as a Sacrament for forgiveness.  Third, by going to a person who is experienced with helping people through their struggles whenever one does fall into sin, help, guidance, encouragement, and comfort are all readily and freely available at any fall. It is like having an expert doctor available at any time, a doctor who understands not the body but the soul, and whom Christ the true doctor of the soul works through. Lastly, God loves us. He knows us, understands us, made us, knows how we work, and wants to do what is best for us. He knows that we are human beings with doubts, fears, hearts, and souls that need comforting. By giving to us the Sacrament of confession, Jesus is able to ensure that whenever we fall we can hear those comforting words that he spoke to the woman caught in adultery, “your sins are forgiven.” Jesus loves each of us just as much as the woman.  He wanted all the children of God to have no less than she did and to hear those beautiful words themselves.

 

While John 20:21-23 clearly shows Christ’s institution of the Sacrament of confession (other interpretations of the verses make little sense), it is by no means the only place in the Scriptures where it can be found. In fact, other verses which show the doctrine are profoundly interesting because many of them give further insight into the role of the apostles (and the priests of every age), several actually showing the Sacrament in use during the time of the apostles. For example, during Paul’s preaching in Ephesus in the Acts of the Apostles, many people who had participated in the occult are described as coming forward and confessing their sins (19:18). The passage does not elaborate as to how the sins were confessed, and it does not specify that they were confessed to Saint Paul, however when taken along with other passages which refer to similar things, it does have a certain weight.

 

This Scripture clearly teaches, for example, that Saint Paul forgave sins. In his second epistle to the Corinthians, Paul writes, “For indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for you in the presence of Christ.” (2:10) The most interesting thing about this passage is the word which is translated into English as ‘presence’ in this translation. In Greek, it is prosopon, a word which is often translated as ‘person.’ The King James translation, for instance, renders the phrase as “in the person of Christ”.  As has been stated already, in Catholic theology the priest is said to be acting in the person of Christ.  This is represented in St. Paul’s words. 

 

Another important passage in Second Corinthians is in chapter 5.  In verse 18 Paul says that God has given him a “ministry of reconciliation.” Two verses later, St. Paul says that he is an ambassador for Christ.  This is where things become extremely interesting.  The Greek word for ambassador is presbeuo. The word the New Testament uses for the Church leaders is presbuteros, which is a related word in the Greek. That Greek word presbuteros is the word from which we derive the English word priest. The apostles were, and Bishops and priests are, ambassadors for Christ. Saint Paul refers to himself as one, and the very Greek word which the New Testament uses to describe Church leaders is derived from the same base as the word for ambassador. This sheds a great amount of insight into the role of the apostles and today’s priests. The word ‘apostle’ literally means ‘one who is sent,’ while an ambassador is someone who appears in person to represent one who does not.  The apostles were, and Bishops and priests are, both ones who are sent and ones who represent Christ until His return.

 

This is why the Catholic Church says that priests are acting ‘in the person of Christ’; their role is that of ambassador. They represent Christ in his earthly dealings with us.  This does not mean that the believer cannot turn to God in prayer.  Indeed, if a person never saw a priest in his life but turned to God in prayer every day, that person would be doing far better than if it were the other way around.  Given that, just as the Church understands that Jesus instituted confession so that His children could hear those words that He spoke to the sinful woman, He provided ambassadors so that He is able to act in the physical, tangible world in an ordinary manner.

 

Of course Jesus is capable of acting in the world without anyone to do His work; He is God.  However, since the time of Moses He has chosen not to manifest His power and glory in the world in as direct a way as He could. He sent Moses, Joshua, the judges, and the prophets to do His work in the world on His behalf.  Ultimately, He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to do this for a short time.  However, when Christ ascended to Heaven He did not leave His children orphans left without men of God to turn to on earth as all of God’s people had had for thousands of years.  This is why Jesus told the apostles that “he who hears you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me.” (Luk 10:16)  They were, and today’s Bishops and priests are, literally his representatives in essentially the same way as Moses was.

 

There is still on other passage which explains this even more clearly. In the fifth chapter of James’ epistle, he writes:

 

Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters (presbuteros) of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the lord, and a prayer of faith will save the sick person and the lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. (14-16)

 

The key point of this passage is James’ instruction to call the presbyters. If just any person could accomplish the task James commands, or if a person could pray for his own forgiveness, there would be no need to call for the presbyters. Because James gives this instruction, it is evident that he recognizes a special role for them just as John’s gospel records Jesus providing them with a special power through the Holy Spirit. In the context of calling these Church leaders, James writes that men should confess our sins to one another. In uses the word therefore, he indicates that what he is going to say is related to and a result of what he has just said. Thus, the command to confess sins is related to and a result of the statement concerning the calling of presbyters.  John also makes it clear that one must confess his sins, making it a condition for forgiveness in his first epistle: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  This speaks to another reason that the Church believes God provided the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the forgiveness of sins.  Justas John says that God will “cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” it is understood that in the Sacrament God provides to the penitent grace to avoid future sin and become holy.    

 

The Scriptures do indicate that there is a special ministry of reconciliation which is held by the leaders of the Church.  It was not referred to as a Sacrament until later just as the Trinity was not first called by that name for centuries after Christ’s ascension.  However, it was instituted by Christ, commanded by Him through James and John, and practiced by the Apostles in their own ministry. 

 

God Bless,

 

 

Shane Coombs 2006