Starting in the Old Testament. If you go to Leviticus five verses five and six,
it has all these sins that are listed there. What do you do? It says for the
sins you come to the priest and the priest is involved in the confession and forgiveness
of sins. Bring your sin offering to the priest. Why is this important?
Because in Hebrews 10:1, it says the law is a shadow of the good things to come.
What's a shadow? It's an outline. So the Old Testament law dealing with confession
should be an outline, if you will, of the New Testament law dealing with confession
in the Old Testament. You had to go to a priest and you had a penance.
You had to take, you know, a goat or turtle doves or some such thing,
and you had to confess you. Since the priest in the New Testament in first John one, it says,
If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just will forgive our sin. In the New Testament,
I'm going to give you three passages. The first one is James 5:16 which says,
therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.
And right before that, in verse 14, it says,
Call for the elders. The elders in our case would be the priest. But then it says again,
James 5:16. Confess your sins to one another. So a command from Scripture to confess your sins to
one another. So do you just confess your sins to anybody, or do you confess your sins to somebody
who has the authority to forgive those sins? Now the Protestant will say, Oh, there's
only Jesus. Only God has the authority to forgive sins. Well,
yes, but God exercises that authority through men, just like he uses his authority to heal
physically through men. He uses his authority to heal spiritually through men. And we see this in
the Bible. Matthew nine. This is the story of the paralytic, who his friends brought him to Jesus.
They couldn't get to him because of the crowd around this house. So they climb up on the roof,
cut a hole in the roof and lower the guy down. Verse six of Matthew nine says,
Jesus says, But then you may know that the son of man has authority on Earth
to forgive sins. So remember that you have authority on Earth to forgive sin.
That's Jesus. He then says, Right, take up your bed and go home. He did. And when the
crowd saw it, this is verse eight of Matthew nine. When the crowd saw it, they were afraid
and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men, plural, not to a man Jesus,
but to men plural. And then you combine that with Jesus on the night of his resurrection.
First thing he does when he appears to the apostles in the upper room behind locked doors,
they were hiding. And he says them and John 20 versus 21 to 23. He says, Peace be with you
as a father has sent me. So I send you.
Well, how did the father said Jesus? Well, we just saw Matthew nine six.
He sent him with the authority on Earth to forgive sins. So Jesus is telling them they
have the authority on Earth to forgive sins. And in case you don't get in case they didn't get it,
he said, if you forgi - he says, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any,
they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.
Very important part of that verse. So the apostles are given the power to forgive or
retain a person's sins. How can they do that unless people are confessing their sins to
them? So those three verses a command in James 5:16 confess to one another,
particularly here in James five it's time out the elders or the priest and
then Matthew nine verses six and eight Jesus as the authority on earth to forgive sins.
This authority has been given to man and that is John 20:21-23,
he specifically tells them you have the authority to forgive or retain sins.