In addition, after His resurrection, Our Lord appeared to the Apostles in the
Upper Room and breathed on them saying:
“As the Father has sent me, so I send you ... Receive the Holy Spirit. If you
forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any,
they are retained” (St. John 20:21-23).
Pope John Paul II has commented on St. John 20:23 as follows:
“Now this power to ‘forgive sins’ Jesus confers through the Holy
Spirit upon ordinary men, themselves subject to the snare of sin,
namely the Apostles … This is one of the most awe-inspiring
innovations of the Gospel! He confers this power on the Apostles
also as something which they can transmit––as the Church has
understood it from the beginning––to their successors, charged by the
same Apostles with the mission and responsibility of continuing their
work as proclaimers of the Gospel and ministers of Christ’s
redemptive work.”¹
The power given to the Apostles in St. John 20:23 is reinforced by Our
Lord’s following promise:
“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (St. Matt.
18:18).
It is interesting to note that the only other time God breathed on man was
when he first created Adam and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life” (Gen. 2:7). The first breathing was to empower man with life; the
second breathing was to empower man to restore life.
Second objection: “But St. John 20:23 really means that the Apostles
were simply authorized to go out and preach forgiveness only
according to the following injunction: ‘that repentance and
forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations’ (St.
Luke 24:47).”
1
Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 1984, # 29.
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