Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.
John 20.19-23

Our article entitled ‘Priests and Penance, in the Quarterly Record 407 prompted one of our readers to enquire about the validity of the Roman Catholic interpretation of John 20.19-23. As our detailed reply may also be helpful to other readers who have been puzzled by these verses, we are reproducing the relevant paragraphs here:—

John 20.23 “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained”.

Roman Catholic commentators make use of this verse to support their claim that the ‘priest’ has a judicial power to forgive sins and must therefore hear the confessions of the penitent. The truth is that our Lord never delegated to his disciples the power to forgive sins, but commanded them to proclaim the forgiveness of sins on the ground of His atoning sacrifice. He did not leave them in any doubt about this, but gave them a correct interpretation in His own words in Luke 24.46-47, “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem”.

John 20.23 should be read and understood in the light of this passage, for in this way the disciples themselves understood the words. Thus in Acts 5.31, 32, Peter points to Christ being exalted as prince and Saviour to give repentance and forgiveness, and in Acts 13.38 Paul declares that through Christ “is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins”. Their task was to preach Christ as the One through whom alone the truly repentant believer could be assured of the forgiveness of sins. They did not forgive sins, but they preached about forgiveness through Christ.

It is true that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God” and that “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”. It is equally true and everywhere apparent that the Holy Spirit inspire the prophets and evangelists to use forms of speech which were in common use and intelligible to their hearers. The Hebrew and Greek writers were familiar with an emphatic form of expression by which a person is said actually to do what in reality he declares shall be done. A few examples will be sufficient to demonstrate how the first hearers and readers would have understood these forms of expression;—

Genesis 41.13 The chief butler tells Pharaoh how Joseph had interpreted the dreams of the butler and baker. The butler says, “Me he restored to mine office, and him (the baker) he hanged”. In reality neither Joseph nor Pharaoh hanged the baker, but they both declared that he should be hanged. Joseph made this declaration by prophecy, and Pharaoh made this declaration by command. In the written account he is said to do what in reality he only declared should be done.

Jeremiah 1.10 The Lord says to Jeremiah, “I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant”, meaning that Jeremiah must proclaim that the nations would be destroyed, etc. He is said to do what in reality he declares shall be done by another, in this instance by God using other nations as His instruments.

Hosea 6.5 “I have hewed them by the prophets”, meaning that the prophets declared that the people would be hewed by their enemies, but again the prophet is said to do what he declares shall be done.

Isaiah 6.10 “Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, etc.,” meaning, “Declare to this people that if they continue rebellious and impenitent their heart will become fat and their ears heavy, etc”. Again the prophet is said to do what in reality he declared should be done.

In John 20.23 our Lord uses the same form of expression in addressing His disciples and they understood perfectly clearly that His meaning was that they should declare to their hearers that their sins would be forgiven if they were truly repentant, and that otherwise their sins would remain and be the ground of their final judgment.

By grammarians this form of expression is defined as ‘metonymy of the subject’, by which the subject is put for some circumstance pertaining to the subject. When affecting a verb, the action is put for the declaration concerning it, and a person is thus said to do what in reality he only declares shall be done.

We have no instance in the Holy Scriptures of any of the apostles or disciples of Jesus professing to remit or retain sins, but we have many instances of their faithfulness in preaching forgiveness and salvation through Christ alone. In this they acted consistently with His own declaration that the Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son. He alone can make the declaration, “Thy sins be forgiven thee”. The apostles had no difficulty in understanding our Lord's words in John 20.23. They would not need to study the complexities of Hebrew and Greek grammar and idiom to know what He meant. They would not need to be able to define ‘metonymy of the subject’.

They obviously understood His meaning to be that they should preach repentance and remission of sins in His Name, and this they proceeded to do without fear or favour. We ourselves cannot do better than follow the interpretation which our Lord placed upon His own words, and the sense in which they were received and acted upon by those who first heard them.

Corrected and modified for online publication. This article was first published in Quarterly Record 408.