Roman Catholicism teaches that the priest has the power to forgive one's sins. This teaching is clearly declared in the Council of Trent regarding priests: "They pardon sins, not only as ambassadors of Jesus Christ, but as judges, and by way of jurisdiction."

This teaching goes on to be further clarify, "Whosoever shall affirm that the priest's sacramental absolution is not a judicial act, but only a ministry to pronounce and declare that the sins of the party confessing are forgiven, let him be anathema."

The biblical model for forgiveness is quite different. Even when the priesthood was in effect we see in examples like that of David (Ps. 32:5), Daniel (Dan 9:3-19), Nehemiah (Neh. 1:4-11) and Ezrah (Ezr. 9:5-10) where sin is confessed directly to God, not to a priest. Sin is confessed to God because all sin is an offense to God. In 1 John 3:4 we read that "whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness." Ultimately, sin is a transgression of God's law / standard and therefore He is the only one who can forgive sins (Dan 9:9). This was clearly understood by the pharisees in their response "who can forgive sins but God alone?" (Mk 2:7) after hearing Jesus state to the paralytic "your sins are forgiven" (Mk 2:5). Jesus notes in Matthew's gospel that He healed the paralytic, a visible sign which is harder to prove than an invisible sign like healing one's sins so "that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" (Matt 9:6). Ultimately, this is all a demonstration that Jesus is God, because He has the authority to forgive sins.

The question that remains though is, what did Jesus mean in John 20:23 when he told His disciples, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld." If Jesus meant this the way Catholics interpret it, then why is there not a single instance in Acts or any of the epistles of a priest in the early church forgiving/absolving the sins of another? The only confession of sins to another than God in scripture is in James where we read to mutually confess our sins to one another (Jas 5:16).The correct understanding of John 20:23 would be to recognize that Jesus is not opposing the theme throughout the rest of scripture that God alone forgives sins but that they can boldly declare that those who genuinely repent and believe the gospel will have their sins forgiven by God and those who reject Christ will die in their sins (Jn 8:24;Heb 10:26-27). The apostles had heard similar statements by Jesus like in Matthew 16:19 that they can bind and loose that which is on heaven and earth. Here too, Jesus is not giving away authority that belongs to God alone, but noting that their authority and teaching comes from being in the confines of Christ's teaching and authority. Regarding forgiveness, Christians should preach the gospel so that others might have the forgiveness of God and likewise warn those who reject it that they remain under His righteous judgement. We see an example of this in Christ's final exhortation in Luke 24:46-47 where He says, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." Did you catch that? Forgiveness of sins is proclaimed as the result of receiving the gospel.

How tragic that priests have have gone so far as to believe that they have authority to forgive sins as mediators between God and man, the position of Christ alone (1 Tim 2:5) and give a false hope to those who are without Christ. Catholics must turn from trusting in their religion to save and forgive them and recognize that salvation and complete right standing is found in Christ alone (Acts 4:12).