Are all of our sins—past, present, and future—forgiven once and for all when we become Christians? Not according to the Bible or the early Church Fathers. Scripture nowhere states that our future sins are forgiven; instead, it teaches us to pray, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12).
The means by which God forgives sins after baptism is confession: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Minor or venial sins can be confessed directly to God, but for grave or mortal sins, which crush the spiritual life out of the soul, God has instituted a different means for obtaining forgiveness—the sacrament known popularly as confession, penance, or reconciliation.
This sacrament is rooted in the mission God gave to Christ in his capacity as the Son of man on earth to go and forgive sins (cf. Matt. 9:6). Thus, the crowds who witnessed this new power “glorified God, who had given such authority to men” (Matt. 9:8; note the plural “men”). After his resurrection, Jesus passed on his mission to forgive sins to his ministers, telling them, “As the Father hath sent me, I also send you … Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained” (John 20:21-23). Note that Jesus breathed on them when he said “receive the Holy Spirit.” There is just one other time when God breathes on someone, and that’s Genesis 2:7, when God breathes life into Adam.
Since it is not possible to confess all of our many daily faults, we know that sacramental reconciliation is required only for grave or mortal sins—but it is required, or Christ would not have commanded it.
Over time, the forms in which the sacrament has been administered have changed. In the early Church, publicly known sins (such as apostasy) were often confessed openly in church, though private confession to a priest was always an option for privately committed sins. Still, confession was not just something done in silence to God alone, but something done “in church,” as the Didache (A.D. 70) indicates.
Penances also tended to be performed before rather than after absolution, and they were much more strict than those of today (ten years’ penance for abortion, for example, was common in the early Church).
But the basics of the sacrament have always been there, as the following quotations reveal. Of special significance is their recognition that confession and absolution must be received by a sinner before receiving Holy Communion, for “[w]hoever … eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:27).
“Confess your sins in church, and do not go up to
your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of
life…On the Lord’s Day gather together,
break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your
transgressions so that your sacrifice may be
pure.”
—Didache
4:14, 14:1;
A.D. 70
“You shall judge righteously. You shall not make a
schism, but you shall pacify those that contend by
bringing them together. You shall confess your sins. You
shall not go to prayer with an evil conscience. This is
the way of light.”
—Letter
of Barnabas 19:12, A.D. 74
“For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are
also with the bishop. And as many as shall, in the
exercise of penance, return into the unity of the Church,
these, too, shall belong to God, that they may live
according to Jesus Christ.”
—Letter
to the Philadelphians 3, A.D. 110
“For where there is division and wrath, God does
not dwell. To all them that repent, the Lord grants
forgiveness, if they turn in penitence to the unity of
God, and to communion with the bishop.”
—(ibid., 8).
“[The Gnostic disciples of Marcus] have deluded
many women…Their consciences have been branded as
with a hot iron. Some of these women make a public
confession, but others are ashamed to do this, and in
silence, as if withdrawing from themselves the hope of
the life of God, they either apostatize entirely or
hesitate between the two courses.”
—Against
Heresies 1:22, A.D. 189
“[Regarding confession, some] flee from this work
as being an exposure of themselves, or they put it off
from day to day. I presume they are more mindful of
modesty than of salvation, like those who contract a
disease in the more shameful parts of the body and shun
making themselves known to the physicians; and thus they
perish along with their own bashfulness.”
—On
Repentance 10:1, A.D. 203
“[The bishop conducting the ordination of the new
bishop shall pray:] God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ…Pour forth now that power which comes from
you, from your royal Spirit, which you gave to your
beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and which he bestowed upon his
holy apostles … and grant this your servant, whom
you have chosen for the episcopate, [the power] to feed
your holy flock and to serve without blame as your high
priest, ministering night and day to propitiate
unceasingly before your face and to offer to you the
gifts of your holy Church, and by the Spirit of the high
priesthood to have the authority to forgive sins, in
accord with your command.”
—Apostolic
Tradition 3, A.D. 215
“[A final method of forgiveness], albeit hard and
laborious [is] the remission of sins through penance,
when the sinner … does not shrink from declaring
his sin to a priest of the Lord and from seeking
medicine, after the manner of him who say, ‘I said,
“To the Lord I will accuse myself of my
iniquity.’”
—Homilies on
Leviticus 2:4, A.D. 248
“The apostle [Paul] likewise bears witness and
says: ‘ … Whoever eats the bread or drinks
the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body
and blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor. 11:27]. But [the
impenitent] spurn and despise all these warnings; before
their sins are expiated, before they have made a
confession of their crime, before their conscience has
been purged in the ceremony and at the hand of the priest
… they do violence to [the Lord’s] body and
blood, and with their hands and mouth they sin against
the Lord more than when they denied him.”
—On
The Lapsed 15:1-3, A.D. 251
“Of how much greater faith and salutary fear are
they who … confess their sins to the priests of
God in a straightforward manner and in sorrow, making an
open declaration of conscience…I beseech you,
brethren, let everyone who has sinned confess his sin
while he is still in this world, while his confession is
still admissible, while the satisfaction and remission
made through the priests are still pleasing before the
Lord.”
—ibid., 28
“[S]inners may do penance for a set time, and
according to the rules of discipline come to public
confession, and by imposition of the hand of the bishop
and clergy receive the right of Communion. [But now some]
with their time [of penance] still unfulfilled …
they are admitted to Communion, and their name is
presented; and while the penitence is not yet performed,
confession is not yet made, the hands of the bishop and
clergy are not yet laid upon them, the Eucharist is given
to them; although it is written, ‘Whosoever shall
eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord unworthily,
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.’
(1
Cor. 11:27)”
—Letters
9:2, A.D. 253
“And do not think, dearest brother, that either the
courage of the brethren will be lessened, or that
martyrdoms will fail for this cause, that penance is
relaxed to the lapsed, and that the hope of peace [i.e.,
absolution] is offered to the penitent…For to
adulterers even a time of repentance is granted by us,
and peace is given.”
—ibid., 51[55]:20
“But I wonder that some are so obstinate as to
think that repentance is not to be granted to the lapsed,
or to suppose that pardon is to be denied to the
penitent, when it is written, ‘Remember whence thou
art fallen, and repent, and do the first works’
[Rev. 2:5], which certainly is said to him who evidently
has fallen, and whom the Lord exhorts to rise up again by
his deeds [of penance], because it is written,
‘Alms deliver from death.’ (Tob.
12:9)”
—ibid., 51[55]:22
“You [priests], then, who are disciples of our
illustrious physician [Christ], you ought not deny a
curative to those in need of healing. And if anyone
uncovers his wound before you, give him the remedy of
repentance. And he that is ashamed to make known his
weakness, encourage him so that he will not hide it from
you. And when he has revealed it to you, do not make it
public, lest because of it the innocent might be reckoned
as guilty by our enemies and by those who hate
us.”
—Demonstrations
7:3, A.D. 340
“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
(Matt.
3:6), but in Acts (19:18)
they confessed to the apostles.”
—Rules
Briefly Treated 288, A.D. 374
“Priests have received a power which God has given
neither to angels nor to archangels. It was said to them:
‘Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound
in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose, shall be
loosed.’ Temporal rulers have indeed the power of
binding; but they can only bind the body. Priests, in
contrast, can bind with a bond which pertains to the soul
itself and transcends the very heavens. Did [God] not
give them all the powers of heaven? ‘Whose sins you
shall forgive,’ he says, ‘they are forgiven
them; whose sins you shall retain, they are
retained.’ What greater power is there than this?
The Father has given all judgment to the Son. And now I
see the Son placing all this power in the hands of men
(Matt.
10:40;
John 20:21-23). They are raised to this dignity as if
they were already gathered up to heaven.”
—The
Priesthood 3:5, A.D. 387
“For those to whom [the right of binding and
loosing] has been given, it is plain that either both are
allowed, or it is clear that neither is allowed. Both are
allowed to the Church, neither is allowed to heresy. For
this right has been granted to priests only.”
—Penance
1:1, A.D. 388
“When you shall have been baptized, keep to a good
life in the commandments of God so that you may preserve
your baptism to the very end. I do not tell you that you
will live here without sin, but they are venial sins
which this life is never without. Baptism was instituted
for all sins. For light sins, without which we cannot
live, prayer was instituted…But do not commit
those sins on account of which you would have to be
separated from the body of Christ. Perish the thought!
For those whom you see doing penance have committed
crimes, either adultery or some other enormities. That is
why they are doing penance. If their sins were light,
daily prayer would suffice to blot them out…In the
Church, therefore, there are three ways in which sins are
forgiven: in baptisms, in prayer, and in the greater
humility of penance.”
—Sermon
to Catechumens on the Creed 7:15, 8:16, A.D. 395
Additional Scriptural references:
James 5:16; Matthew 9:6; 18:18 (wherein Jesus gave His disciples the power to bind and loose); Mark 2:10; Luke 5:24; John 20:20-23; 2 Corinthians 2:10; 5:18; James 5:15-16; Acts 19:18; 1 Timothy 2:5; 6:12; Leviticus 5:4-6; 19:21-22; 2 Samuel 12:14 (God has forgiven David’s sin, but David must nevertheless pay for it—temporal punishment—by losing his child); Nehemiah 9:2-3; Sirach 4:26; Baruch 1; 1 John 5:16-17.
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