Is Confessing Your Sins To A Priest Blasphemy?

[GodChaser]

ets talk about Confession, shall we.

[quote name='God in Psalm 32' date=' JPS']A Psalm of David. Maschil.

Happy is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is pardoned.
Happy is the man unto whom the LORD counteth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
When I kept silence, my bones wore away through my groaning all the day long.
For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me; my sap was turned as in the droughts of summer. Selah
[b]I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid; I said: 'I will make confession concerning my transgressions unto the LORD'--and Thou, Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.[/b] Selah
For this let every one that is godly pray unto Thee in a time when Thou mayest be found; surely, when the great waters overflow, they will not reach unto him.
Thou art my hiding-place; Thou wilt preserve me from the adversary; with songs of deliverance Thou wilt compass me about. Selah.
'I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go; I will give counsel, Mine eye being upon thee.'
Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding; whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, that they come not near unto thee.
Many are the sorrows of the wicked; but he that trusteth in the LORD, mercy compasseth him about.
Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, ye righteous; and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.[/quote]

The big thing about Orthodox and Catholic Religions, at least when I was a Catholic, was confession. You go into a small cubicle, and you confessed your sins to a priest, and he would tell you what prayers to say in penance.

For the longest time, I have felt that was blasphamey, since I started my life for Christ. I thought, shouldn't you just confess your sins to God, and he forgives you. I'm glad I gave my life to Christ at a United Pentecostal Church, who stands steadfast on praying to God for forgiveness. Though I am not a member of that church anymore, I am glad I started my walk there, because they spoke the truth on a great many subjects.

Today, as I read Psalm 32, I realized that feeling was the Holy Ghost telling me to keep myself clean.

[quote name='"Malachi 3:5-7' date=' JPS"']And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers; and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not Me, saith the LORD of hosts.

[b]For I the LORD change not; and ye, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.[/b]

From the days of your fathers ye have turned aside from Mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye say: 'Wherein shall we return?[/quote]

If God never changes, then if he forgives David because David prayed for forgiveness, than God stills forgives us if we pray to him for forgiveness. We do not have to go to a priest to ask God to forgive our sins, because God is the Lord and he doesn't change!

Can this be found in the New Testament.

[quote name='"1 John 1:8-10' date=' KJV"']If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

[b]If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.[/b]

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.[/quote]

The Orthodox and Catholic Religions are no longer practicing Christianity. Even the New Testament says we need to confess our sins to God alone, and God alone cleanses us from all unrighteousness!

So someone, along the way, decided to turn everything around, and make people blasphme God.

Why do I say it is Blasphemy?

Blasphemy
impious utterance or action concerning God or sacred things
Judaism.
an act of cursing or reviling God.
pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton (YHVH) in the original, now forbidden manner instead of using a substitute pronunciation such as Adonai.
[b]Theology. the crime of assuming to oneself the rights or qualities of God.[/b]
irreverent behavior toward anything held sacred, priceless, etc.: He uttered blasphemies against life itself.

When a priest of the Roman Catholic Faith assumes he can listen to and forgive the sins of another person, than he is commiting Blasphemy. There is no way around it.

And the people who assume they are forgiven by confessing their sins to a priest, which they should only be confessing their sins to God, they are giving a human being things only God has a right too!

No priest can cleanse you from your sins, because only God can do that!

Edited May 10, 2007 by GodChaser

[prose]

I couldn't sy it better than this:

(have to go through and edit for quotation marks)

[quote]Penance is truly the unpleasant sacrament. Yet it is a necessary medicine to the condition of our lives, and what medicine is ever pleasant?

The most commonly used argument against confession goes something like this: "I can confess directly to God; He knows my sins already. I don't have to confess to another man. The practice of going to confession was invented by men." This argument is heard widely among critics of the Orthodox Church. I once actually heard a minister of another faith make a public statement very similar to this! It is, unfortunately, also often heard within the Church. Of course, if we follow this argument to its logical (or rather, illogical) conclusion, we would have to say: "I don't have to go to church, I can pray to God directly", or, "I don't have to be baptized, I can accept Jesus as my personal Savior in my heart" etc., etc.

[b]Anyone who makes the claim that there is no foundation for the practice of confession of sins before a priest in the Bible, reveals an abysmal ignorance of what is actually written in the Bible.[/b] Several statements of our Lord unmistakably and directly command the Apostles to forgive sins in His name and with His authority. Several statements of St. Paul are also extremely direct in this matter.

The most obvious statement of Christ in regard to the Sacrament of Penance is found in the Gospel of St. John. After His Resurrection, Jesus confers authority upon the Apostles and tells them: "Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I send you. . . Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you do not forgive, they are not forgiven." (Jn 20:22-23) What could be more obvious than this statement? How anyone could say the Sacrament of Penance is man's invention after reading this passage, would require some amazing verbal acrobatics! Note that the Apostles were commanded to forgive sins. How were they to forgive sins and judge which sins to forgive or not forgive, unless they know the sins? If a man's sins were to be forgiven, they, therefore, had to first be revealed.

The Church's Commission

Two passages in St. Matthew's Gospel also are directly related to the Church's commission to forgive sins. The first is the famous statement in reference to St. Peter. After calling Simon the "rock" upon which the Church would be built, Jesus goes on to say: "I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven; what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (Matt. 16:19) This same commission is later given to all the Apostles: "And so I tell all of you: What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (Matt. 18:18) Of course, it is possible to argue that the binding and loosening can refer to any number of things and the connection with confession and forgiveness of sins does not seem to be so readily apparent to the modern reader. If we, however, take this statement of our Lord first to Peter, then to all the Apostles, in its original context, we see that it definitely refers to forgiveness of sins. The concept of binding and loosening must be understood as deriving from the Mosaic Law where it directly refers to a man being bound by and loosed from his sins. We find numerous examples of this in the book of Leviticus. The Hebrew priests had the right to declare a man loosed from his sin after he had been bound for that sin (that is: the priests had the duty to impose a ritual "penance" over a period of time to "bind" a man by his sin. When the "penance" was fulfilled, he was loosed by the priests from his fault). Jesus undoubtedly made the statement in this context. The Apostles, being Jewish, certainly understood the authority to bind and loose in the same Old Testament context. Since the whole of the eighteenth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, from which this commission to the Apostles comes, deals with sinfulness and forgiveness, it is all the more reason to believe that the statement about binding and loosening has to do with the forgiveness of sins. It is, in fact, the commission to forgive the sins of men given in a way that the Jews would understand (remember that St. Matthew's Gospel was written for a Jewish audience.)

Another passage from the same chapter of the same Gospel deserves to be mentioned here: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them."(Matt. 18:20) On the popular level this statement of our Lord is almost universally believed to refer to prayer. While it is true that when two or more Christians are praying together, Jesus is spiritually with them, it is not the point of this passage in its context. Actually, Jesus is here talking about the Church having to judge a member who has sinned. The two or three are not gathered together for a prayer service, but to pronounce judgment on sins as witnesses for the Lord. Again we have to ask the question, how is the Church to pronounce judgment on sin unless the sin is revealed? The two or three witnesses became in actual practice one witness, a priest, who, while he is hearing confession and evaluating it, represents the entire Church.

St. Paul

The Epistles of St. Paul provide us with further evidence concerning the Church's power to judge sins. The incident from the Church in Corinth is especially to be noted in this regard. In the fifth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians St. Paul writes that he has heard of a case of incest in the Corinthian community. He goes on to say: "The man who has done such a thing should be expelled from your fellowship. And even though I am far away from you in body, still I am there with you in spirit; and as though I were there with you, I have in the name of our Lord Jesus already passed judgment on the man who has done this terrible thing. As you meet together, and I meet with you in my spirit, by the power of our Lord Jesus present with us, you are to hand this man over to Satan for his body to be destroyed, so that his spirit may be saved in the Day of the Lord."(I Cor. 5:3-5) St. Paul is here actually pronouncing excommunication from the Church on the unrepentant sinner. Notice that he speaks of passing judgment in the name of Jesus. Isn't this exactly what the priest is expected to do in the Sacrament of Penance; to pass judgment on the sin and on the sinner's sincerity of repentance?

We also find in St. Paul's writings the earliest statement of absolution by an Apostle. He says:

"When you forgive someone for what he has done, I forgive him too. For when I forgive ... if, indeed, I need to forgive anything ... I do it in Christ's presence because of you, in order to keep Satan from getting the upper hand over us; for we know what his plans are."(II Cor. 2:10-11) Paul pronounces forgiveness for the repentant sinner! It is possible then for a man to know the sins of another man and to pronounce forgiveness of these sins, if the sinner has shown signs of repentance.

When the priest of the Church hears confession, imposes penance and pronounces absolution, he does so with the authority of the Lord and in the name of the Lord and, as was hopefully demonstrated by this article, at the direct command of the Lord.

All of this is best summed up by the prayer of Absolution itself, which shows to us so eloquently that the priest in confession is a sinner as is the penitent, but because of his position brings the forgiveness of the Lord to those who truly repent.

My spiritual child, I, a humble man and also a sinner, do not have power in myself to forgive the sins of men on earth, but only through the divinely spoken words of our Lord, who said to His Apostles and disciples after His glorious resurrection, "Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them; whose sins you do not forgive, they are not forgiven."With this command in mind, we are bold to say: Whatever you have confessed here or failed to confess out of ignorance or forgetfulness, whatever these things may be, may Christ forgive you them all, both in this world and in His kingdom which is to come.

Father Antony Bassoline is pastor of St. George Church in Upper Darby, Pa.[/quote]

Edited May 10, 2007 by prose

[GodChaser]

How's that an arguement to my post?

I'm an ex-porn addict, saved by the grace of God!

There, I have just told you that I am a sinner!

The point is, if I say that to you, or a priest for that matter, I am not forgiven of my sin, because only God forgive sins.

Nowhere in Scripture did Christ give the Apostles the ability to forgive sins.

Loosing and binding, yes, forgiving sins no.

ONLY GOD CAN FORGIVE SIN! period, end of story. You can't go to a priest and ask for your sins to be forgiven, and it just complicates the matter.

And the remission of sins happens permanetly when you are baptized, as described in scripture.

[quote name='"Acts 2:38' date=' KJV"']Then Peter said unto them, Repent, [b]and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins[/b], and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.[/quote]

Those pesky church fathers, beliving baptism and the remission of sins are tied together!

After that, you can go to the father to repent of your sins.

God can forgive any sin you ask for forgiveness, and the scripture also says it.

Edited May 10, 2007 by GodChaser

[Paladin D]

[quote name='GodChaser' post='1270302' date='May 10 2007, 06:51 PM']Nowhere in Scripture did Christ give the Apostles the ability to forgive sins.

Loosing and binding, yes, forgiving sins no.

ONLY GOD CAN FORGIVE SIN! period, end of story. You can't go to a priest and ask for your sins to be forgiven, and it just complicates the matter.[/quote]


[b]John 20:23 - [i]"Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."[/i][/b]

It's a pretty literal translation.

Also note this: The priest does not "forgive" the confessor, God does. God works through the priest to forgive the sins, and the priest absolves them using His power. Not sure if that's the proper way of wording it, someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Edited May 10, 2007 by Paladin D

[GodChaser]

[quote name='Paladin D' post='1270312' date='May 10 2007, 05:02 PM'][b]John 20:23 - [i]"Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."[/i][/b]

It's a pretty literal translation.

Also note this: The priest does not "forgive" the confessor, God does. God works through the priest to forgive the sins, and the priest absolves them using His power. Not sure if that's the proper way of wording it, someone correct me if I'm wrong.[/quote]
And that happens when you get baptized for the first time.

All your sins, past, present, and future, are washed away.

After that, if you sin, you can go to the Father and ask for forgiveness!

[cathoholic_anonymous]

[quote]And that happens when you get baptized for the first time.[/quote]Only original sin is remitted in baptism.

[quote]After that, if you sin, you can go to the Father and ask for forgiveness![/quote]

That's exactly what we're doing when we go to Confession. The priest does have the power to forgive sins under his own authority - he absolves them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in much the same way that somebody who is given the gift of healing sick people doesn't heal them through their own special powers, but through the grace of God. The priest is only the instrument, but this is an instrument that God has chosen to use.

[Katholikos]

Would you want to confess to a man if you knew God had given him His own authority to forgive sins?

Edited May 10, 2007 by Katholikos

[Katholikos]

[quote name='GodChaser' post='1270316' date='May 10 2007, 06:09 PM']And that happens when you get baptized for the first time.

All your sins, past, present, and future, are washed away.

After that, if you sin, you can go to the Father and ask for forgiveness![/quote]

Whoa, Nellie. Baptism forgives original and actual sins. Future sins are not forgiven. For sins committed after baptism, God wants you to go to His priest who absolves you from your sins. The priest acts 'in persona Christi" -- in the person of Christ -- in the Sacraments. He says "I absolve you . . ." but it is Christ who speaks.

Likos

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='GodChaser' post='1270316' date='May 10 2007, 06:09 PM']And that happens when you get baptized for the first time.

All your sins, past, present, and future, are washed away.

After that, if you sin, you can go to the Father and ask for forgiveness![/quote]
If that's the interpretation you have for this verse, what does it mean by "whose sins you retain are retained"?

[jckinsman]

Nowhere in scripture does it say that scripture ALONE,should be used as your ONLY rule of faith! Why do you do that? It is not biblical to use the bible ALONE! You can reject what you want to but are you really getting the FULLTRUTH? I could quote scripture all day long and tell you what I think it means! I could pray and pray and pray and still have just enough pride to see it the way I want to.........Free Will,baby! You understand that right? Your just smart enough to attack the things that you most need. With your addiction to porn you most definatly need confession to get that HUGE monkey out of your life for good.......What was your other beef with the church???? Oh yes, Praying to the dead! Our older bothers and sisters that have gone before you! You really need to ask them for Prayers right now to help you understand the need for confession you have! Confession is the best way to stay clean. The graces you get....its like food for the journey!............... So were you cradle catholic? Are your parents catholic? When did you leave the church? Father Corapi's testimony is an awesome one to hear....Pure Faith! JC

[prose]

I see your problem now.

You simply don't understand the sacrament. Confession is not forgiveness by a priest. It is forgiveness from God. The sacrament is performed by a priest, yes, but ultimately God does the forgiving.

[quote]That's exactly what we're doing when we go to Confession. smile.gif The priest does have the power to forgive sins under his own authority - he absolves them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in much the same way that somebody who is given the gift of healing sick people doesn't heal them through their own special powers, but through the grace of God. The priest is only the instrument, but this is an instrument that God has chosen to use.[/quote]

That is a great explanation.

And baptism CERTAINLY does NOT forgive future sins. That is ridiculous.

[TotusTuusMaria]

[center]J.M.J.[/center]

Firstly, I think the first response by prose was very good and thorough. Did you read it all? It was rather long, but if one reads it it pretty much covered all of your objections (even those you still have).

[quote] The point is, if I say that to you, or a priest for that matter, I am not forgiven of my sin, because only God forgive sins.[/quote]God is the only one who can forgive sins. The only one! At root, Confession is grounded in [b]Christ's[/b] power to forgive sins. The Church maintains, on the basis of scriptural and historical data, that Christ passed on His authoirty to forgive sins to His disciples, for it obvious from the Gospels that Jesus did indeed confer power and authority upon His apostles. Luke says, "Jesus now called the twelve together and gave them the power and authority to overcome all demons and to cure diseases" (9:1). [b]Priests do not claim to forgive sins on their own authorityl they act as representatives of Christ and forgive sins in His name, just as the apostles were given the authority to overcome demons in His name. [/b]

Catholics always confess their sins to God. They do it [i]directly[/i] as well as [i]through His ministers[/i] because that is what God requires as clearly taught in Scripture.

[quote]Nowhere in Scripture did Christ give the Apostles the ability to forgive sins.[/quote]

Actually, there are a couple places in Scripture.

"I assure you, whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matt. 18:18)

"On the evening of that day, he first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you.' When he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad that they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.' And when he had said this, [b]he breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'"[/b] (John 20:19-23) [i] Notice that He conferred the power by [u]breathing[/u] on the Apostles. The only other time that God breathed on anyone was when He breathed life into the first human being. Think about this powerful symbol and how it signifies an awesome life-giving poiwer being given to the Apostles.[/i]

"All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their tresspasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconsiliation. [b]So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."[/b] (2 Cor 5:17-20) [i] St. Paul explains how the Apostles are ambassadors of Christ's work of reconciliation. What does this mean but that they share in the ministry of Christ and forgive sins in His name?[/i]

"Is any one among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is any among you sick? Let him call for the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." (James 5:13-16) [i]James makes clear that the sins of the sick are forgiven in this sacrament of anointing. he specifies that the presbyters (priests) must be called. They obviously had a power the ordinary Christian did not: the power to forgive sins. Otherwise, why didn't James simply ask ordinary, fellow Christians to pray over the sick as is the case in numerous other passages?[/i]

"As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." (John 20:21) [i] The Apostles are to continue the mission of Christ. The essence of that mission is [u]the forgivness of sins.[/u] [/i]

Clearly, It is quite Scriptural. Christ gave His disciples the power to forgive sins. This power has intended to be passed on, since Christ knew people would sin until the end of time.

[quote]Loosing and binding, yes, forgiving sins no.[/quote]In rabbinic terms, this constitutes the authority to declare what is allowed or forbidden under the law.

[quote]You can't go to a priest and ask for your sins to be forgiven, and it just complicates the matter.[/quote]

You can. I try to do it weekly! Usually every parish offers the Sacrament on Saturdays.

It does not complicate anything. It is just as Christ instituted it! It's perfect! He provided sacramental confession to give us several important gifts: humility, the certainity of forgivness, spiritual direction, and help to overcome self-deception and rationalization in matters of sins. And to offer us first and foremost MERCY!

Also, The Early Church history confirms that Christians believed this WAS passed on to the Apostles' successors.

God bless you!

In Jesus and Mary,
Marie

[TotusTuusMaria]

[quote]And the remission of sins happens permanetly when you are baptized, as described in scripture.
Those pesky church fathers, beliving baptism and the remission of sins are tied together!

After that, you can go to the father to repent of your sins.

God can forgive any sin you ask for forgiveness, and the scripture also says it.[/quote]

To believe that sins are wiped away in Baptism means that you believe MINISTERS are used by God as His [i]intruments in the forgivness of sins[/i] through a sacrament, Baptism, which they administer.

If men, as you say, can't administer forgivness for sins and God can't possibly use men to do that then what is the difference?

Edited May 10, 2007 by TotusTuusMaria

[Aloysius]

How are the Apostles able to retain sins? Your interpretation is a stretch so far removed from the context of the words and how Christ and the Apostles themselves would have undstood them that it is unrecognizable. There is no foundation, no context, no support whatsoever that indicates this particular verse was referring to baptism.

What we have is an ancient semitic mindset that understood communities and groups as the primary means of humanity struggling against your modern american individualist mindset. The Apostles had no concept that it would be more fair if each individual had their chance to go to Christ individually, that's something you read back onto history after being affected by post-enlightenment sensibilities.

If you said this to first century Christians they would have said "what? but the Christian Community is the Body of Christ, that's where I go to encounter Christ and to be forgiven by Him"

[mortify]

Confession to God through a priest goes back to the Old Testament:

"'When anyone is guilty in any of these [sins], [b]he must confess in what way he has sinned[/b] and, as a penalty for the sin he has committed, he must bring to the LORD a female lamb or goat from the flock as a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin."
Leviticus 5:5

"When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and [b]confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat's head[/b]. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert."
Leviticus 16: 20-22


In the New Testament we read that Christ gives His apostles the authority to forgive and bind people's sins, this authority is passed down through apostolic succession and is dispersed through the sacrament of holy orders. In the early Church the penitent would confess his or her sins to the community, and then an act of penance would be prescribed. The Holy Ghost eventually inspired the Church to make the sacrament private, between priest and penitent, though we still retain general confession of venial sins in the beginning of Mass ("I confess to you my brothers and sisters... etc")

The benefit of any sacrament is that it is a physical representation of something supernatural, we are able to visibly see the work of God's Grace. Hence, in the sacrament of reconciliation one hears the priest, acting as an icon of Christ, absolve the penitent in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One actually hears and knows they are forgiven since the priest shares in that authority to forgive sins, and therefore it is as if the Lord Himself forgave them.


What a beautiful gift from the Lord; Thank you Jesus!!