John 20:23 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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John 20:23

Comments

What does this mean? Well certainly we can say one thing that it doesn’t mean is that there is any priestly absolution. It does not mean that the apostles were given the power to forgive sins or even to declare the forgiveness of sins to people in an authoritative way. That is the position of the Church of Rome and always has been. It couldn’t possibly mean that because that would make scripture contract scripture, even the enemies of the Lord, even the scribes and the Pharisees knew enough to say that only God can forgive sins. So there is no question, it doesn’t mean that.The disciples are being given authority, not to say to anybody, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Your sins are not forgiven; your forgiveness is withdrawn.’ They are being given the authority to declare with absolute certainty that people’s sins are forgiven if they believe the gospel and that nobody will be forgiven who rejects the gospel. Christ is telling them that he will send them to preach the gospel, and that through the preaching of the word souls will be saved or lost. It is about how people respond to their preaching. The Lord Jesus Christ commissions them (verse 21), ‘As my Father has 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.’ This is in fulfilment of the statements of Christ recorded in John 14 and 16 when he promises the giving of the Spirit. One of the great purposes of the giving of the Spirit is to convict the world of sin and so on, through the disciples. I send you on a mission of redemption, just as the Father has sent me to secure it, I send you to declare it and to announce it, and I breathe on you the Holy Spirit for this purpose. It is in the context of the proclamation of the gospel that the churches of Jesus Christ are made instrumental for determining the eternal destiny of lost souls. But it is God who forgives and it is God who rejects.

Application

Christ in this statement gives the apostles and all the church the authority to state the terms of eternal life very clearly. We have the authority to make those kinds of statements very clearly, so through us sins are forgiven or retained through the declaration of the gospel. That is the obvious and the plain sense, and the only sense that doesn't make Scripture contradict itself.

Questions

Among sounder students of the Bible there are broadly two views about this. One is that given above. The other too quickly links these words with the words of Christ in Matthew 18, and says it means something like this: the disciples are receiving instructions for the administration of the future community, the church that will come about through their preaching. They are being given instructions as the future first officers of those churches about how to discipline congregations and receive people and expel them, and so through the apostles the church is given authority to exercise discipline. Well of course true churches of Christ sadly sometimes do have to exercise discipline if there is unworthy conduct and unworthy members, but that has nothing to do with this.

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Introduction

John 20:23 Commentary and Bible Study