Good lesson for you, ebb, to demonstrate that sometimes you have to dig to understand what is being said in scripture:
-——snip from one of my seminary professors, Dr Thomas Constable-——
“The conditional clause in this verse is in the passive voice and the perfect tense in the Greek text. The passive voice indicates that someone has already done the forgiving or retaining.
“That person must be God since He alone has the authority to do that (Matt. 9:2–3; Mark 2:7; Luke 5:21). The perfect tense indicates that the action has continuing effects; the sins stand forgiven or retained at least temporarily if not permanently.
Context is evangelism. Meaning is that God had already forgiven or not.
Why should I care what a protestant’s seminary professor has to say about a protestant bible?