John 20:22-23 (NLT)
22 Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
In our verse for today, Jesus finally breathed His closest disciples, and gave them the promise: the Holy Spirit. This transpired after His resurrection; after more than three years of intensive discipleship course with Him, after showing them His glorified body, after they had finally removed their doubts and become true believers. They are empowered by Jesus to forgive sins through the Holy Spirit they received.
The authority to forgive sins was not based on their credentials. Knowing the background of the disciples particularly the Apostles, they are ordinary guys. Most of them are Galileans fishermen, not anyone of them was a member of the priestly order, not one of the chosen twelve was a scholar or rabbi, none of them are royalties. Even yet, there’s one among the twelve apostles who is a tax collector and was considered among the disreputable sinners in those time (Mark 2:15). Also their leader Simon Peter had admitted himself as sinner (Luke 5:8). They did not become priests when they were commissioned by Jesus Christ to forgive sins. In fact a great number of priests were convinced to become disciples of the Word through the works of the Holy Spirit in them. Acts 6:7 affirms, “So God’s message continued to spread. The number of believers greatly increased in Jerusalem, and many of the Jewish priests were converted, too.”
Now to where these ordinary men powers came from to forgive sins? Jesus mentioned in Luke 24:49 “And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.” And as promised, these disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit in Pentecost (Acts 2:4).
Therefore anyone who wholly believed what was written in Scriptures about Jesus Christ as the truth (Luke 24:44-48), has the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to forgive sins or not forgive sins. They do not forgive people who are not repentant, who do not adhere to Jesus teaching, the unbelievers who don’t ask forgiveness, who are righteous on their own and no need of themselves the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Romans 10:3 (RSV) says, “For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.” Thus Jesus said, they cannot forgive those who reject or insult the Holy Spirit. Matthew 12:31-32 says, “So I tell you, every sin and blasphemy can be forgiven—except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven. Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man can be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come.” With certainty no one can be forgiven if he rejects the One who will forgive him.
In James 5:16 it says, “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.” This verse wants to tell us, we can confess our sins to one another, BUT the prayer of a righteous man has the power to forgive us. So if we want to confess our sins so that we are assured of forgiveness from Heaven, we are going to look for the person/s who submitted to the righteousness of GOD, who has the Holy Spirit in them.
Now, the people in authority to forgive sins are those people filled with the Holy Spirit. We could tell stories of how those firsts anointed ones become filled with the Holy Spirit. They have different manners when they received Him. Saint Peter and the disciples differed from Saint Paul. The first gone through baptism of water of repentance, then taught by Jesus for over three years, and finally received the Holy Spirit after resurrection by Jesus himself, while the later received the Holy Spirit through Ananias who was sent by the Lord to St. Paul who was blind for three days after he encountered Jesus through seeing a great light (Acts 9:3-6,17). Cornelius together with the other Gentiles received the Holy Spirit while St. Peter is still proclaiming the Word, before they were baptized with water (Acts 10:44-47). It seems that there’s no specific way on how they were filled with the Holy Spirit. What is only certain is that they all received the Holy Spirit after they all wholly believed the truth about Jesus as the Christ, as the Son of the Living God.
Receiving the Holy Spirit therefore is not a matter of who or how, but a matter of when and why. When is when they wholly believe in Jesus, and why is because they accept and proclaim Jesus is the Lord (1 Cor. 12:3). There’s evidence that the Scriptures testified for those filled with the Holy Spirit. When you are filled, you will also receive gifts from the Holy Spirit. People who are filled speak in tongues, they have the ability to give wise advice, special message, or great faith to another, and to others, the one Spirit gives them gift of healing. They perform miracles, and prophesy, others had the gift of discernment (1 Cor. 12:7-11). So whether you are priest in the Church, a pastor, or an elder in God’s Word Ministry, you have the power to forgive sins because the Holy Spirit anointed and bestowed those powers and gifts on you. It is not because of your title, or position, or seniority that authorize you, it is the Holy Spirit that dwells in you.
Though people can perform powers, St. John the apostle warned us to test those people. Otherwise, even they act to forgive our sins, we might be barking at the wrong tree and at the end we are not sure we are forgiven. 1 John 4:1 says, “Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world.” To test is to find the fruit of Holy Spirit in them, their attitude, their lifestyle. We get the assurance if they all have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). Their powers should vary, but they are all expected to have ALL of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in them. That is why it continued “There is no law against these things!” For if the Holy Spirit is in one person, the person is not controlled by sin, but he is now the authority to forgive sins as the Holy Spirit remains in the anointed ones.
The Eternal News: We should ask forgiveness to the one we wronged AND to the Holy Spirit. It is a requirement. 1 Corinthians 6:11says, “Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” Thus when we repent and approach the anointed ones, the priest or the pastor or an elder who we believe have the Holy Spirit in them because of the gift/s and the fruit they have, we make it sure that we are talking not to them but talking to the Holy Spirit in them. This is necessary to our salvation as written in Luke 1:77 “You will tell his people how to find salvation through forgiveness of their sins.” AMEN.
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