fish hawk:
The sacrament of Confession is indeed theologically consistent with the New Testament and is rooted in the the Priesthood of Christ and his sending the Apostles to minister in his name and make present his priesthood for sacraments are not for God, but were given to man so that humanity can have communion with God in ways consistent with our human nature, that is we are human persons with both a body and soul and thus through the sacraments God allows us to have communion with him in ways that relate to our human nature.
The word Apostle means “one who is sent” and Christ throughout the NT spoke of being sent by the Father (e.g, John 3:17; 3:34) and thus when he gathers his Apostles, he then states that listening to them is listening to Christ and then he sends them to minister in his name. For example, Christ states “Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” (cf Luke 10:16) and the version in St. Matthew 10:40 reads “ Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me”.
So Christ is now linking the mission of Apostle to his on person and thus the Apostles and their mission has Christologicl implications as only they are charged with certain things {e.g, celebrate the Eucharist Mt 28:17-30, Mk 14:22-28; Lk 22:14-20, 1 Cor 11:23-30) and binding and loosing (cf Mt 18:18) and to forgive sins in Christ name. In St. John’s Gospel 20:21-23 we read:
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
St. Paul himself referred to his ministry as a “priestly service of the gospel of God”(cf. Romans 15:16) and we see St. Paul himself, who was brought into the Apostolic Ministry as he was ordained by Ananias (Acts 9:15) and Barnabas (Acts 9:27), who himself was an Apostle [cf Acts 11: 22, {he was sent} Acts 14:4 {called Apostle}] and was the one who brought St. Paul to the Apostles and later Paul and Barnabas had hands laid on them and “were sent off” (cf Acts 13:3)
Later, not only do we St. Paul celebrating the Eucharist and giving a strong Eucharistic theology of real presence in 1 Cor 11:23-30, but also speaking of the ministry of reconciliation given to the Church as we read in 2 Cor 5:18-20:
“And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation,
namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
St. Paul also refers to himself and the Apostles as being stewards as we read “ Thus should one regard us: as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” (cf. 1 Cor 4:1). What are the Mysteries, well, that is what the Eastern Orthodox Church calls “sacraments” and the word sacrament is the Latin word that St. Jerome translated “mysterion, ie mystery” into. In other words, St. Paul was saying that the the Apostles and presbyters [priests] were to be stewards of the Mysteries of God.
In other New Testament epistles, we see confession mentioned again as in St. James 5: 14-16 we see calling the presbyters of the Church:
“Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint (him) with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.”
In the context of the passage above, it is the presbyters who are called to administer the sacrament of annointing dn confession. So, how do presbyters share in the Apostolic ministry one may ask, well lets go to 1 Peter 5: 1-2 where we read:
“So I exhort the presbyters among you, as a fellow presbyter and witness to the sufferings of Christ and one who has a share in the glory to be revealed. Tend the flock of God in your midst, (overseeing) not by constraint but willingly, as God would have it, not for shameful profit but eagerly.”
So St. Peter, who is an Apostle, now identifies himself as a fellow presbyter and thus, the ministry of the presbyters is now finds its origins in the Apostolic ministry, which of course finds its origins in Christ.
I will not go into the tons of statements by the Early Church Fathers attesting to the Sacrament of Confession which confirms the interpretation of Sacred Scripture with respect to Confession by the Catholic Church in 2010 is the same one in the early Church but the Church Fathers attest to the sacrament of Confession [e.g., Didache, St.Ignatius of Antioch {called it penance}, St. Irenaus of Lyon, Origen, St. Cyprian of Carthage, St. Basil, St. John Chyrstotem, St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Jerome and St. Augustine, just to name a few] and one throughout Church History despite what you think and want it to be.
Regards