I understand quite well the catholic belief of confession it is not biblical and erroneous I do think PUBLIC confession together in a group of believers is beneficial and do it every Sunday in services
Confessing in private to a man and having that person pronounce judgement and penance is not biblical, can be very harmful and most definitely not necessary for salvation. It Is a system that easily lends itself to abuse. And I don’t care how many Hail Marys you say the only way to have sin forgiven is to confess directly to Christ and accept His grace No amount of earthly imposed rules will suffice
Did you look at johngrace’s link?
It has so much biblical information in it. Please do.
Jesus tells them as the Father sent me so I sent you.
We believe he is declaring as he was to the Father so is the Apostles in Authority concerning especially confession. Catholics believe he is giving the Apostles the ability here with a special unction when he breathed on them. Remember this is before Pentecost in the book of Acts when the Holy spirit came upon all in the group. So Jesus declares
"John 20:23 - Jesus says, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained." In order for the apostles to exercise this gift of forgiving sins, the penitents must orally confess their sins to them because the apostles are not mind readers. We believe The text makes this very clear."
How can you retain or forgive sins unless Jesus gave you the authority. It does not make any sense otherwise.
Sure it is, and the biblical references have been posted in this thread. When you confess to a Catholic priest, you are, in effect, confessing to Christ...the priest is merely acting as a vehicle through which we reach Christ....I didn't invent it, Christ did. The priest forgives nothing, Christ does the forgiving (we offended Him, not the priest)....for one thousand six hundred years, ALL Christians accepted that...now please, don't you change the rules....
“Confessing in private to a man and having that person pronounce judgement and penance is not biblical, can be very harmful and most definitely not necessary for salvation”.
You been listening to Jimmy Swaggart again?