 I just recently made a video about a man named Keith Nestor and this issue of eternal security. Now, the issue isn't so much about him, but I came across a video where he was speaking about going to a priest for confession and the reason why. Now, I'm not going to jump on the Catholic religion right now, although I think there's plenty of opportunity to, and I would love to have Keith to come on to talk about our issue, our differences on salvation and show him how the scriptures are pretty clear, but something that he said in his statement about why brings up the need, the necessity to actually look at the scriptures closely, understand what's being stated, have a good sound hermeneutic in my case, or I would even advise others to adopt a literal grammatical historical hermeneutic, keeping in mind that there is figures of speech, similes and so forth, but also the grammatical portion, look into what the words say. I'm going to show you how you can see that he's wrong as well as looking at other scriptures as well, but let's first listen to him and then I'll make my point on the other side. Why do I need to confess my sins to a priest? I mean, does he have the authority to really do anything about it? Who can forgive sins anyway? Who has that authority? In today's Gospel, Jesus heals a paralyzed man, but first he says to him, your sins are forgiven. This angered the religious leaders because Jesus was ascribing an authority to himself that lies only with God. He didn't argue with them, he doubles down and says, I am doing this so that you know that's exactly who I am. And here's what's awesome, after his resurrection, Jesus gives this same authority to his apostles to forgive or not to forgive sins. When in John 20, 23, he tells them, whoever sins you forgive are forgiven, whoever sins you retain are retained. Through the sacrament of confession, we can receive this gift of forgiveness by one who acts in line with the successors of the apostles. So when you receive absolution from your priest, you don't have to fear that your sin is counted against you any longer. Christ has the authority and through his priests, he applies it to us. Okay, a couple of things. One, this receiving absolution from a priest. That's not biblical. There is no particular apostolic succession from them to those priests in the Catholic Church and going to confess your particular sin. That particular sin is forgiven. That goes counter to what the word describes relating to sin. In other words, do we have to confess each and every sin? Are those sins held against us? But I want to leave that for a second and I want to go to the text that he brings up and I want to show you how he has this. There's a huge fundamental misunderstanding, not necessarily on his part, but at least on the part of the Catholic Church where there is probably, I think, an intentional deception or misunderstanding because they certainly also have access and understanding of the Greek text. That's a huge problem. They're not opening it up. They're not showing others how they come to this conclusion. Let's go to the pastors. First of all, Jesus makes a statement. Let's go to Matthew. I'm sorry, Mark 2, 2, 7. He says, they came to him. They brought to him a paralytic being carried by four men, being unable to get to him because of the crowd. They removed the roof above him. Now, what does Jesus say to him? He says, Jesus sings, son says, son, your sins are forgiven. Well, obviously that wrangled people because as they say, only God can forgive. As a matter of fact, what do they say? They were reasoning in their hearts. Why does this man speak this way? He is blaspheming who can forgive sins but God, which is correct. Only God can forgive sins. They understood this correctly and because Jesus is saying this, well, what is Jesus doing? He's putting himself in the same position or equal with God, making this statement. Who can forgive sins but God? Immediately, verse 8, Jesus aware in his spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves and then why are you reasoning about these things in your heart? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven or say get up and pick up your palette and walk. But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, now Jesus point is the Son of Man is God. That's his point. But verse 11, he says, I say to you, get up, pick up your palette and walk and he got up. Now the issue was Jesus is forgiving sins. I don't know what the sentence the man sins were, but he is forgiven sins. Now he makes a statement. He goes to John 2023 to say that the power to forgive sins has now been also given to the apostles. That is incorrect. The Lord did not give them the ability to forgive sins. Now at first glance, it might look like that, but let's go to it. Here we have in John 2022, he says, and when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. Now at this point in time, they haven't received it, but he's speaking to them what they're going to do. They hadn't received it yet. They will. He tells them in Acts 1 that you will receive the power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. So he hadn't come yet, but he's telling them that he will come. But verse 23 is the point I want to look at. He says, if you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them. If you retain their sins of any, they have been retained. So now for some and some of us might make it seem as though that he's giving them the ability to declare someone forgiven or unforgiven, but a closer look and this is where the Greek is going to come in. It's going to cause us to see what Jesus is saying. And then we're going to see an example of this being. So verse 23, he says, and whoever, the person that has sins, whoever it is, who sends you forgive. Aphete, which is if you forgive their sins of that person, he says they will be forgiven them. Now the word that's used here is aphiomtide. This is a plural, pluperfect tense, meaning this is a past act that's completed with ongoing ramifications. Why is that important? Well, I'll cover that in just a second. We drop down, he says, and whoever that you, whoever says you retain, they will also have been retained. And he uses, again, the pluperfect tense, the same. Firstly, it's pretty close to the perfect tense. It's a completed action in the past, but in this case has ongoing ramifications. We get this word from the Greek word kriteo, which means to take possession. So we see here this Greek word, kekriteantai, which is the perfect tense, or in this case, the pluperfect tinge. So what does this mean? As a matter of fact, the English on this side, on this particular translation might help. Some other English translations might, but what this is saying is the same as what we see when he says that whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth will be, will have been loose. I'm using this term because it's the perfect tense. All he's saying is that whatever you bind on earth will have been bound by heaven, whatever you loose on earth will have been past tense already have been loose by heaven. Same thing here, whatever you forgive, whoever, whoever sends you forgive will have already been forgiven by who? By heaven. Whoever sends you retain will have already been retained. That's why we have this tense that's used here, the pluperfect tense, which is similar again to the perfect tense. And so what Jesus is not saying that you have the authority to forgive sins or to retain sins, no, you do have, I'm giving you the authority to know if they are and are not. How do we know that Peter and the other apostles don't have this power? Well, it doesn't take very long to come to an example where someone has sins and Peter doesn't forgive sins, doesn't try to forgive sins. As a matter of fact, tells a person to pray for. This is in Acts 8. He's confronted with Simon the Sorcerer and noticed after Simon the Sorcerer tries to buy the Holy Spirit. Peter recognizes his sins, which is the point that we're getting at. They have the ability to recognize who have been forgiven and who have been, who have not been, who have been. And that's what he says. Peter says in verse 20, he says, May your silver perish with you because you thought that you could obtain the gift of God with money. You have no part or portion in this matter for your heart is not right before God. Therefore, look what he says, repent of this wickedness of yours and pray the Lord that, if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven. Peter does not forgive it. Peter didn't have the power to forgive it. He says you ought to pray that they can be forgiven. But if they had the power as Keith and other Catholics believe, then why couldn't Peter just forgive their sins? Because he didn't have that power. Peter understood that most other scholars, most other Christians understand that the Catholic Church does not. But there is some confusion even amongst Christians, Protestant Christians who believe that, is that what Jesus is saying that at least the apostles have that ability? No, they do not. That's why the Greek comes in handy here and we conceive the tense of the verb. We don't have perfect or blue perfect tense in English. And so it's not something that we're familiar with. But if you understand a little bit about Greek, you'll understand that particular tense, the voice, the moves and so forth. And in that case, in the blue perfect, that is telling us that these have been done by heaven and they can recognize it because at least with them, the Lord has given that authority. The whole authority to forgive sins relies on Christ and Christ alone. It is God. Paul says that who can bring a charge against us? It's God who justifies, not us. And so if a person could forgive sins, that's the person being able to place a person in a right standing. Only God can justify. Therefore, nobody, no one in the Catholic Church or even in the Protestant Church, can bring a charge against anyone of God's elect. So if a person places their faith in Christ, their sins will be forgiven. Matter of fact, the proper way of saying it, if a person places their faith in Christ, their sins will have already been forgiven. Amen.