John 20.23 (TR): An Assurance or an Absolution?
One of the most contested passages in the Johannine corpus is Jn. 20.23, where Jesus appears in the presence of the disciples and shows them His wounds. He breathes on them and instructs them to receive the Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit that Jesus teaches about to great lengths in the Upper Room Discourse (Jn 14–17). Then Jesus says:
“Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.”[1]
Not only does Christ anoint His disciples with the promised Spirit, but He also gives them the authority to proclaim the forgiveness of sins by His authority (cf. Acts 10.38). The words are a reminder of the Great Commission, where all authority is given to Jesus, and it is by that authority He instructs the disciples to go forth and make disciples of all nations (Mt. 28.18–20).
The Early Church saw continuity with the apostolic ministry. Appealing to the types and shadows present under the covenant of Moses, St. Ambrose of Milan writes:
“And so it is possible for God to give us that which it seems to us impossible to obtain. For it seemed impossible that water should wash away sin, and Naaman the Syrian thought that his leprosy could not be cleansed by water. But that which was impossible God made to be possible, Who gave us so great grace. In like manner it seemed impossible that sins should be forgiven through repentance, but Christ gave this power to His apostles, which has been transmitted to the priestly office. That, then, has become possible which was impossible.”[2]
And again, St. Chrysostom writes in his treatise on the ordained ministry:
“For indeed what is it but all manner of heavenly authority which He has given them when He says, ‘Whose sins ye remit they are remitted, and whose sins ye retain they are retained?’ What authority could be greater than this? ‘The Father hath committed all judgment to the Son?’ But I see it all put into the hands of these men by the Son.[3]
The fathers of the church viewed the Absolution as a means of grace conveyed through ministers, who themselves were icons of Christ.[4] In essence, ministers partake in the authority of Christ insomuch as they are ordained by Him to do so. The doctrine is always seen in conjunction with Matthew 16, where Jesus gives Peter the keys to the kingdom to “bind on earth” and “loose on earth” (Mt. 16.19).
The patristic doctrine of the Absolution has been challenged ever since the Reformation. Whole books have devoted themselves to this topic. More recently, challenges have presented themselves from contemporary evangelicals, who contend that the apostles would not have the authority to forgive sins. Instead, the evangelical ethos contends that since only God can forgive sins (cf. Mt. 9.6; Mk. 2.7), then it is impossible for man to forgive sins.
J.D. Greear, pastor and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, writes the following on his website:
“[…] the expression “if you forgive someone’s sins, they are forgiven” is in the perfect-tense verbs in Greek, which means you could translate that phrase as: “they have already been forgiven.” […] In other words, Jesus was saying that Peter and the Apostles were given the ability to recognize when God had saved someone, and the authority to validate their acceptance of it, assuring those new Gentile believers, when they believed, that they were indeed fully included in the family of God.”[5]
Likewise, Theological Editor of Third Millennium Ministries, Dr. Joseph Nally, argues against the Absolution:
“[In John 20.19–23] we observe a commissioning – sending (Jn. 20.21) – message of our Lord. Jesus is not here giving the power and authority to his apostles to grant salvation. Rather, Jesus is giving his apostles the authoritative message of salvation – the message of salvation which grants the forgiveness of sins. It is the Holy Spirit (Jn. 20.22) – not the apostles – that makes the message of salvation effectual.”[6]
Thus, the apologies of the patristics and contemporary evangelicals are seemingly opposed. The Scriptures must be sought and discerned with the spirit of Psalm 119 as a lamp and light of truth (Ps. 119.105). In discerning matters of truth and error, the church is right to consider the prudent words of the Second Helvetic Confession:
“We judge, therefore, that from [the] Scriptures are to be derived true wisdom and godliness, the reformation and government of churches; as also instruction in all duties of piety; and, to be short, the confirmation of doctrines, and the rejection of all errors […].”[7]
The Evangelical Objections
Once more, John reads:
“Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.”
“αν τινων αφητε τας αμαρτιας αφιενται αυτοις αν τινων κρατητε κεκρατηνται”[8]
This verse forms two conditional clauses—1) if the Apostles forgive sins, then they are forgiven, and 2) if the Apostles retain sins, then they are retained. These types of conditional statements are known as Habitual conditionals.[9] In other words, whenever the “if” statement happens, the “then” statement will come about habitually. The second phrase is logically dependent upon the first phrase.
In the Greek text, the verbs “αφιενται” (remitted) and “κεκρατηνται” (retained) form Apodoses, or the second part of the phrases. These verbs imply that the Apostles only validated faith according to Greear. However, the proposition rejects the syntax of the verse. Because the verse is written as a conditional, then the Apodoses cannot be a reference to a past event like Greear would suppose.[10] New Testament scholar D. A. Carson puts it well:
“If these perfects are not temporally construed, but are read aspectually, they will be rendered ‘they are in a state of forgiveness’, i.e. ‘they stand forgiven’ and ‘they do not stand forgiven’ […]”[11]
Greear’s proposition fails because of the syntax. If the Apostles forgave sin, then the recipient would be in a state of forgiveness. Moreover, if the Apostles are merely given the authority to validate salvation as Greear says, then what of the Christians who come after the Apostles? Where would their means of assurance come from? The grammar of the sentence clearly cannot be misconstrued to mean anything else other than what it reads at face value.
Dr. Nally’s objection aims in a theological direction as opposed to a linguistic direction, writing about the entirety of John 20.19–23. He theorizes that Jesus commissioned the Apostles only to preach the forgiveness of sins, not to forgive, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Before addressing Dr. Nally’s claims, it is helpful to take a step back. No Christian—whether Roman Catholic or Baptist—would contend that anyone has an inherent right to forgive sins. After all, the catholic faith holds that man has been corrupted by his sin, and that no man stands righteous before the Father (Eccl. 7.20; Rom. 3.23). Even the Pharisees knew that only God could forgive sin (Lk 5.21)! But note that Jesus specifically responds to them by saying that the Son of Man can forgive sins (Lk. 5.24). The Pharisees could not understand how, in their mind, a man could forgive sins!
God works through human vessels, and most of all through the God-Man Jesus Christ, the fullness of God dwelling bodily (Col. 2.9). When Jesus gives the Apostles the authority to forgive sin and retain it, it is as if God Himself speaks through the Apostles when they bind and loose in the kingdom (Mt. 16.19). The Apostles are Christ’s vicars and image-bearers, and they speak His authoritative word.
This is the authority that Paul exercises in 1 Corinthians 5. He judges a man “in the spirit” for sleeping with his mother, and his judgment is sure—to retain his sin, so that the man might be saved in the day of Christ (1 Cor. 5.5). Is this not what Paul means when he writes that he is a steward of the mysteries of God (1 Cor. 4.1)? What the Apostles decided, inspired by the Spirit of God, was what was set forth.
Therefore, when the Apostles forgave sin, it was as if God Himself was forgiving the sin through them. Just as St. Ambrose said in the quote above, “that, then, has become possible which was impossible.” Christ Himself is the only Mediator and Advocate (Heb. 7), and He has been gracious to raise up ministers as incarnate vessels of grace (2 Tim. 2.21).
While Dr. Nally is careful to herald the Scriptures well, he ultimately separates the forgiveness of God as an abstract reality that requires mental assent rather than a tangible, incarnate grace through God’s ordained means in the Church. It is at St. Basil writes:
“It is necessary to confess our sins to those to whom the dispensation of God’s mysteries is entrusted. 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, but in Acts they confessed to the apostles.”[12]
The Grace in Absolution
God has been gracious to raise up ministers for His Church to preach the forgiveness of sins. This forgiveness is given by the grace of God through ordinary means, namely, through the ministration of the mysteries of God. A wonderful image of such Absolution is found in the Lutheran Service Book, where the pastor proclaims:
“In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”[13]
The grace of God is made tangible by the faithful handling of the Word of truth by shepherds. While Moses, the Law, and the Prophets could not forgive sins, Christ has come for the forgiveness of sins—and He has given this ministration to His ambassadors by His authority and power. Such a doctrine is not to the diminishment of the power of God, but rather a demonstration through fickle and frail creatures such as ministers.
“Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by. I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.” (Ps. 57.1-2)
ܛܝܒܘܬܐ ܥܡܟܘܢ ܘܫܠܡܐ
Alex McWilliams
[1] All Scripture quotations are derived from the King James Version (1900).
[2] Ambrose of Milan, De. Paenit. 2.2.12 (NPNF 2.10), 346.
[3] John Chrysostom, De sacerdot. 2.5 (NPNF 1.9), 47.
[4] Please note that the phrase “Absolution” is used generally to denote the effectual declaration of forgiveness by a called and ordained minister of the Gospel, not as a theologically precise term in juxtaposition to “Penance” or “Reconciliation.” Each convey the same general idea of apostolic succession within their own contexts.
[5] J.D. Greear, “Did Jesus Give Peter the Ability to Forgive Sins,” J.D. Greear Ministries, 29 August 2022, https://jdgreear.com/podcasts/did-jesus-give-peter-the-ability-to-forgive-sins/.
[6] Joseph Nally, “Only God Can Forgive Sin,” Third Millenium Ministries, https://thirdmill.org/answers/answer.asp/file/50337.
[7] “Of the Holy Scripture Being the True Word of God” The Second Helvetic Confession, Chapter I.
[8] This text, to remain consistent with the KJV citation, is derived from one of the version of the Textus Receptus. See Maurice Robinson, Elzevir Textus Receptus (1624): With Morphology (Bellingham, WA: 2002), Logos Edition.
[9] These conditionals are formed by the construction αν + Aorist Subjunctive in the Protasis, or “if” statement (αφητε and κρατητε in Jn. 20.23). The Apodosis, or the “then” statement, usually has an indicative verb such as the present. In this case, two perfects are present, creating syntactic parallelism. This is a grammatical construction carried over from Classical Greek. See Evert van Emde Boas et. al., The Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 555–556, for more on conditional clauses.
[10] “Futuristic” is not an entirely accurate word to use here, as the perfect verb in the Greek still retains the Perfective Aspect. However, because the perfect is contextualized within a Habitual Conditional, it creates a “hypothetical” of sorts, namely, that people who are forgiven by Christ’s Apostles enter into a state of forgiveness.
[11] D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, PNTC (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 655.
[12] St. Basil the Great, Rules Briefly Treated 288.
[13] Lutheran Service Book (Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO: 2006), 291.
Leave a comment