Of course, it's one of a series of puzzling passages from the New Testament. The one that stands out starkly for lots of folks is that taken from John 20.19-23. The context is an event immediately following Jesus' resurrection on Easter.
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.I should point out that Catholics don't have a problem with this text. As they read it, this passage confirms their ecclesiology -- particularly that bit about "the power of the keys". (Read in conjunction with Matthew 18.18.)
Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you". And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven".
For Protestants, though -- given the way we read the Bible -- this admonition wouldn't have been limited to just Jesus' hearers, but aimed at every Christian.
If that's the case, then ordinary Christians have the ability to forgive sins or withhold forgiveness from each other.
Which is a bit of a head-scratcher. Isn't Jesus the only one who can forgive my sins? And didn't he already forgive my sins? If so, what's this bit about my fellow Christians forgiving or leaving me hanging with my sins?
My Catholic friends, no doubt, will be wringing their hands with some glee by now. This is one of those texts -- along with all its issues -- that Protestants just love to ignore. Ignore, I say, because it causes so many theological problems.
So, what do we make of all this talk about forgiving sins?
Here's what I think.
One of the problems with Protestantism, particularly evangelical Protestantism, has been its overemphasis on Jesus forgiving our sins. That is, it's assumed that forgiveness really is just between you and Jesus. This is the classic individualistic emphasis -- It's just Jesus and me, baby! -- we see throughout Protestantism.
That's a hard reading from the New Testament. Because the New Testament has a communal vision of being Christian. Individualism is just too thin. We should care more than just for the forgiveness of Jesus. We need to care about being a community of forgiveness for one another.
This is why those texts from Jesus up the stakes for us. When we fail to become a community of forgiveness -- fail to forgive one another -- there are serious consequences. When we fail to forgive each other on earth nothing in our private experiences will Jesus will wipe away that sin. Until forgiveness is experienced among our brothers and sisters that sin, in some form or another, remains on the books. If we want forgiveness, Jesus is saying, it's up to us.
That last line is rather alarming, I'm sure, so work with me here.
Imagine what Jesus is saying was literally true. We are all church together. And, being people, we'll sin against each other. But following Jesus we feel called to be a community of forgiveness. We've been entrusted with the "ministry of reconciliation" (2 Cor 5.18). Because of this we take passages such as this to be the foundation of our common life together:
Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift (Matthew 5.23-24).That is to say, before we do anything as Christians (see Bonhoeffer's comments in ch. 8, "Confession as the Heart of Spiritual Care"), before we pray, sing, worship, take communion -- before we do anything -- we work on being reconciled with each other. Because this reconciliation -- the giving and receiving of forgiveness -- is what defines this community as a Jesus-following community. It's in the forgiveness of sins, extended by each to all, that makes the community a church. All other communities where reconciliation is postponed for worship, song, sermons, prayer, classes, ministry or communion are false churches -- pseudochurches.
It's for this reason that I get nervous when the liturgy leaves out a corporate confession of sin and a sharing in forgiveness at the beginning of its liturgy. Confession of sin pushes back against the triumphalism and self-righteousness that pervades in our churches. Not that saying the confession is a panacea and fix-all. But it has to have a salutary spiritual effect to take a moment each week to corporately say "We've sinned".
We've sinned, often grievously so, against our neighbors by not loving them as we love ourselves in both what we've done to them and what we've failed to do for them.
And we don't have to employ written prayers for this Confession of sin, either. There are plenty of penitential psalms that, when reintroduced into our churches, will have this effect.
If we take Jesus seriously -- especially in Lent -- reconciliation is the central work of the Church. That's a radical claim, I know, but there's a moral genius at work in the New Testament's logic. So stay with me just a bit longer.
To be concrete about it, imagine I sin against Joe. And let's say Jesus's formulation is literally in force, that the reality of the situation is that if I want God to forgive me I need Joe to forgive me. If that's the situation then let me bring us to the million dollar question: How might that formulation energize my desire to be reconciled and at peace with Joe?
I know it'd be a big kick in my pants to get right with Joe. My reconciliation with Joe is no longer optional or something that can be postponed, perhaps indefinitely. Suddenly, my reconciliation with Joe has become deeply intertwined with my reconciliation with God. Outstanding sins on earth become outstanding sins in heaven.
That's the genius of Jesus, I think.
Because isn't the problem with Christianity that we want God to forgive us but we don't care about being reconciled to others? Isn't it much easier to pray to God for forgiveness than to put in all the time and relational work to live at peace with others?
What if Jesus is saying that forgiveness on earth has eternal consequences. What if Jesus is saying that it's in our relationships with each other where our sins are truly forgiven. Forgiveness in heaven might be irrelevant if you don't forgive each other on earth. Why fall down at the altar asking God to forgive me when I need to be falling at Joe's feet asking him to forgive me? Isn't that exactly what Jesus is saying in Matthew 5? Isn't Jesus saying that Joe's forgiveness is more important, more pressing, and more vital than the forgiveness of God at the altar?
Let me give another illustration of this. Imagine you are a parent with your small child at a playground. Your child gets into a little fight with another child and punches, as little kids can do, the other child. You jump in to scold your child. Your child, feeling contrite, looks at you and says, "I'm sorry".
What would any good parent do in that moment?
"I appreciate that, but you really need to go say sorry to that little boy over there."
I think this is what the New Testament is getting at. It's the thrust of Jesus' petition in the Model Prayer. It's the thrust of Matthew 5. It's the thrust of Paul's admonition to the Corinthians. Jesus, in effect, is saying: "As God's representative on earth I forgive you. So you don't have to worry about that anymore. You don't have to go to the temple and make sacrifices anymore to secure God's pardon. In my life, death and resurrection I've ended your need to seek forgiveness from God. For I have forgiven you. Now you are released to live out that forgiveness with each other. Those are the actions -- your forgiveness of each other -- which will determine your eternal destiny. How you forgive on earth is how you will be forgiven in heaven."
And that includes our enemies, by the way.
Consider the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant or Jesus's consistent refrain that "as you forgive others so you will be forgiven". "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven" (Luke 6.37).
Here's the deal: Even if you reject this strong formulation it is indisputable that if I restrict forgiveness to what happens between God and myself energy and urgency is sapped from seeking forgiveness from others because that just isn't my most pressing concern. I think we've seen the practical effects of this all over the place. I sin against Joe and then seek forgiveness from God in prayer. I never really get around to seeking reconciliation with Joe. That's just not my central concern. And it might not be a concern at all.
To conclude, there is an objection here. What if Joe doesn't forgive me? Can Joe hold a sin against me keeping that sin outstanding and unforgiven in heaven? And if so, wouldn't Joe be holding my eternal destiny in his hands? If Joe's keeping the books on me and Joe doesn't wipe my slate clean then what is going to happen to me in heaven?
Three responses. First, if your overriding concern is saving your own skin rather than working on your relationship with Joe then you've missed the point of everything we've been talking about. Quit worrying about hell and go talk to Joe. If you do that, trust God that the rest will be taken care of. Just go talk to Joe.
Second, we have to remember the symmetry of the situation. Joe is commanded to forgive you. And if he doesn't, Joe's damned himself. You don't have to worry about if Joe does or doesn't forgive you. You just have take care of your side of the equation. As Paul says in Romans 12, "as far as it depends upon you live at peace with everyone".
Finally, we have to keep the communal focus in mind. It's a community of forgiveness that we're imagining. A community where I am to forgive Joe and Joe is to forgive me and there are others around us helping us both to do this. That is, I don't think it's best to think of two people keeping score. I think what Jesus is doing in John 20 is giving us a picture of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Sure, any given expression of this will fall short of the ideal. But that doesn't take away from the vision of what Jesus is calling us to, that if we want God's forgiveness in heaven we should be focusing on forgiving each other on earth. By ending the temple sacrifices, God pushed forgiveness out of heaven and onto the earth -- out of the temple and into the church. A community of forgiveness replaces sacrifices on an altar (check out the entire book of Hebrews on this point).
So let me come back to my initial questions. If Jesus's formulation is literally in force, does that not mean that I hold your eternal destiny in my hands? And does that not also mean that you hold my destiny in your hands? Does it mean that we are all mutually holding our collective destinies? On earth and in heaven?
I think this is exactly what Jesus is getting at.