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The Sermon on the Mount is clear. If there is an offense between you and your brother, don’t bother showing up at Temple to act all religious until you’ve been reconciled to your brother. Confession can take place in all kinds of venues. We once had a preacher caught in sexual sin. He injured the entire local body of believers. Confession to all of us was appropriate. If I say a sharp word to my wife and realize later it was sin, I confess that to my wife. Both errors should be confessed to God. This is Christian confession.

There was an altar where a sin offering was made. One still had to offer the gift at the altar after doing recompense for one's wrong.

If he confessed to those wronged and some did not forgive him, were his sins forgiven, or retained ?

Does the wife have power to forgive sins ?

BTW, confession to Jesus or Jesus issuing forgiveness is the same as confessing to God and needing God’s forgiveness. That dimension will be there for every offense, because every sin is at some level against God. Nothing precludes those same individuals from admitting they were wrong to the people they hurt. Nickodemus did as much, returning his unjust tax collection to the people he ripped off. Both-and. Not either-or.

Yes, penance and recompense, bring forth fruits meet for repentance, are along the way of working out our salvation with fear and trembling.

A Christian is obligated to try to set things right. Sometimes the other party isn’t ready to do that. God is the one who ultimately removes the burden of impending punishment for sin. But as Paul says, for those in Christ, the divine punishment has already been set aside. Confession serves a larger purpose than judicial forgiveness. It’s about reconciliation, the body of Christ diving headlong into the love of Christ and experiencing a bit of heaven on Earth. Reducing it to a checklist you intend to use to evade judgment is rather more like the Pharisee’s self-prayer. Only a few tweaks and it could be about any of the rituals we’re debating here. And the point would be the same. A man can be full of himself and his compliance with all the rules, or he can empty himself of all pride and come to God begging for forgiveness. The story Jesus told lets us know which is more important to God.

Peace,

Does the wife have power to forgive sins ?

Which one? There was only one wife explicitly mentioned -- in the italicised portion of comment that you highlighted.

Yes, penance and recompense, bring forth fruits

Recompense to those in this world who have been sinned against -- yes. If at all possible.

Penance? Forgiven convicts are not usually given prison (penitentiary) sentences. Not if the sentence is abrogated.

The wages of sin are death. There is no going back, there is no "doing penance" sufficient, or even necessary. Christ's work is sufficient. Our own payment plan (or else due wages we would receive, more to the actual point) would have to include our own actual death, as actual as was Christ's own death upon the cross.

The word is repentance, not penance, and/or the phrase "do penance" except for in Latin translations of NT Scripture.