Good morning

Yesterday, my friend and I had a little discussion if God gave any authority to any human on earth to divinely forgive sins of other humans as practiced in the Catholic Church by confessing their sins to their priests.

He made mention of a verse in the Bible to back up his claim.
John 20 verse 23: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

If you read from verse 19, you would observe that Jesus was only talking to his disciples. So, I told him that the Jesus only gave such authority to only the 12 disciples and not just to any other humans. As such, no human possess the divine power to forgive anyone sin.

So Nairalanders, I'm bringing this here to get a larger audience and possibly gain some insight from your contributions on the topic.

My problem with a lot of Christians is that they do not read their bibles, hence they sway easily to the doctrines of men . When Jesus gave that authority to His disciples , He was bestowing power on them because they were to be His representatives to the world . To understand this better, try and think of it like an ambassador representing the King or President of a country. The powers and authority a king has in his country is represented by the ambassador elsewhere . And this was the same thing His apostles were doing , and they were not trying to substitute themselves in His place . Which is why the book of Act3:19 says "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,"

Also , Acts4:12 says , " Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

These verse says no one can forgive sins except God, through Jesus Christ

Sins can actually be forgiven but not forgotten..

Most especially when people do things deliberately..

helinues:
Sins can actually be forgiven but not forgotten..

Most especially when people do things deliberately..

Of course humans can forgive other humans of any moral wrong done to them. But my point is does such person have the divine right to actually forgive the sin?

cornelin:
So Nairalanders, I'm bringing this here to get a larger audience and possibly gain some insight from your contributions on the topic.

Not humans, Sons of God. Those who Jesus Christ spoke of that to are those who have become Sons of God... they are able to forgive the sins of men and you need to also understand what this means to know how it applies.

I'll rather take it from the angle of genuine repentance and the willingness to follow Christ because definitely God will forgive sins.

Also divine forgiveness is from God and that is why when Jesus was teaching us how to pray He asked us to pray this way: '12 And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us'.

As you can see ours is to forgive those who trespass against us just like we'll want God to.

God forgives us, we forgive those who sin against us. Jesus didn't ask us to go meet a pastor or priest for forgiveness of our sins against God.

18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.

20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

21 Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”

22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.

Matthew 18:18‭-‬22 RSV