Truth Unites - PENANCE: A Protestant Critique

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Gavin Ortlund offers a critical appraisal of the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance or confession, from a Protestant perspective. See my video on assurance of salvation: https://youtu.be/5KV3xmPo5iE?si=IbwUQ7doUYTT6EP8Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance throughtheological depth.Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) isPresident of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support:https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/Twitter:https://twitter.com/gavinortlundFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/Website:https://truthunites.org/

This video is a Protestant appraisal of the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance, or also called confession and reconciliation. This is an area where I have deep concerns and very pastoral concerns that I'll especially address at the end of this video. I'll strive to lay them out in a way that is candid and truthful, where I don't skirt around anything and don't shy away from kind of working through particulars. But I'll also try to be respectful. If you know my channel, you know that I try to keep positive relationships wherever possible.

across our differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics. So I'll try not to speak unfairly or be offensive or unduly provocative or something like that. God help me. Polemical theology is actually really hard to honor these different values all at once. Let me start by just stating the positive value that drives a video like this. And that is actually the same as the goal of my entire YouTube channel, which is to promote gospel assurance. You can have assurance. Let me put it as a happy note here, pastoral statement at the beginning. You, whoever you are watching this, you can have assurance that God has fully forgiven you so that you are prepared to go to heaven when you die through Jesus Christ. And you can have assurance of that in the depths of

your heart flowing like a river in your heart through the Holy Spirit. The gospel can do that. The New Testament holds out the definition of faith is the assurance of things hoped for. And it teaches us that through the gospel we have a peace in our relationship with God. There is no condemnation that we need to fear, and we can know that our relationship to our heavenly father is just that, a relationship to a father. See this video on Assurance of Salvation for more. So that's the backdrop. I make a video on penance because of my sincere concern that unfortunately Roman Catholic teaching in this area undermines that assurance and, in effect, obscures what the gospel is made clear. And I say that not lightly knowing that, you know, I know how people

will really disagree and take offense at that. I just sincerely believe that is absolutely true. And in this video, I want to explain why, and encourage people toward what I think the gospel provides for us. We'll go in three steps. First, we'll define what is the Roman Catholic understanding of penance, drawing particularly from the 14th session of the Council of Trent, trying to frame. So this first section is framing, trying to get accurate, where do we actually disagree? That's the really important step. Then we'll simply ask, is the theology we have accounted correct. We'll kind of give a biblical and historical survey of the evidence. And then we'll get to the pastoral section asking, why does this matter? First, what is penance? This is important because

sometimes it might be framed like this, where the Roman Catholics believe in confession or penance, and the Protestants don't. And this is not accurate. We want to target more accurately where we actually disagree. So let me state two points of agreement and then three points of disagreement. agreement number one, post-baptismal sin requires repentance and confession. This should be pretty basic, but one of the things you learn in doing ministry is not to assume anything. So you start at the basics, and you say, look, all Christians should be able to agree upon this, and it actually does bear repeating and sort of underscoring, because sometimes this gets neglected. Sin is a very serious matter. And sometimes Christians can become glib about ongoing sin in our lives. For example,

I've seen in Protestant churches sin of abuse or scandal kind of minimized and not taken seriously in the name of showing grace. And this is wrong. Sin is a very serious matter. Sin leaves a stain upon our conscience and upon our life. Think of Hebrews 10, having our conscience is wiped clean. sin in the life of a Christian, particularly when it is a serious sin, requires repentance and confession. That confession should be both to God and other people as appropriate. And the repentance is not a light and trivial matter. It should involve discipline and remorse and hard work and so forth. So that's something all Christians can agree on.

A second point we can all agree on is that repentance and confession is not merely a private matter. It should be something that functions under the formal ministry of a church. Every Christian should be a member of a local church living in submission to that church's doctrine and leadership. We're accountable to that church for our ongoing repentance, and we should take advantage of the means of grace displayed in our church as we repent of sin. In other words, this repentance we're talking about, we don't just do it all on our own. This is a part of our broader corporate life as Christians in the church.

And this means, among other things, that Christians, should regularly confess their sins vocally out loud to other Christians. This is very therapeutic, as well as very edifying, and it's very biblical. We'll talk about James 5 as we go. Furthermore, in the case of gross or heinous sin, say someone, a Christian commits a crime like murder or something like that, a church member who has done this should confess this to the leadership of the church for the sake of submitting to church discipline. So in a case of an illegal activity like that, or a true repentance will involve submitting yourself to the proper authorities, like the police, and so forth. So all of that is standard historic stuff that Protestants shouldn't, that's not

where we differ, right? So, for example, here's how Francis Turriton, the reform theologian puts it. We acknowledge that the fallen from whom the church suffers public offense ought to confess their sin before the church, so that after they have given suitable proof of their penitence, they may be reconciled to the church and admitted to the peace and communion of the church and of her sacred rights, but we deny that the judicial absolution of a priest is necessary for this. So with this church, and quote, we're already launched into where the disagreements fall. He used as this language of a judicial absolution of a priest that I underlined there.

And so basically now we want to double click on that, tap on that, unpack that, say, what are we talking about here? what does that language mean? Where do we disagree? If we agree that you need to repent of sin and you need to do it in connection to the ministry of the church, where do we disagree? Well, let me list three areas where we disagree, and this is all not trying to argue for anything yet, but to frame the difference. And I'll work through and document these by, especially from the Council of Trent, but other sources as well, and show these are required by anathema by the Roman Catholic Church. number one, that confession or penance is a sacrament per se, a so-called second plank after baptism.

Number two, that's a point of disagreement. Number two, that confession is made to a priest specifically and usually privately to the priest. And number three, that confession is a judicial act that the absolution from the priest administers divine forgiveness and procures reconciliation to God. to the penitent person. Now, quick footnote here on number two. This is not to say that Protestants are disallowed for making confession to a minister of the church. Actually, that is a historic Protestant practice in many confessions, including my own reform tradition. I remember reading George Marston's biography of Jonathan Edwards' amazing book, and being struck by how many hours every single week,

Jonathan Edwards, this congregationalist minister, congregationalism is one tradition in the reformed movement would spend every single week with one-on-one spiritual counseling for parishioners, and one of the aspects of that was their confession of sin. So there is certainly nothing wrong with going to your pastor and confessing sin. But for Protestants, this would be a matter of liberty for what best honors the Word of God, the edification of the church, and so forth. It doesn't need to be the pastor, specifically. And so, you know, we can all agree that the general practice of confessing sin is,

incredibly liberating and joyful, and many Protestants have fallen away from this. We need to recover our own historic practices. The issue is its necessity unto a priest, specifically, as a sacrament that constitutes a judicial act that procures reconciliation to God. Let's explain these three points, not arguing against anything yet, just trying to be accurate to frame things. First, penance or confession or reconciliation, is a sacrament. It's one of the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church distinct from baptism. So baptism is how you enter salvation. Penance is to sort of re-enter salvation after you've fallen away. In the catechism, it's specifically cast as a recovery of the loss of baptismal grace. So in Roman Catholic theology, you can sever yourself from your salvation, for example,

by committing a mortal sin. We'll talk about mortal sin more a little later. And penance is a means by which you enter back into a state of salvation. The image that, again, this is, I'm just trying to be accurate to, you know, not everybody knows what's at stake here, what's involved. The image that will come up is the second plank of salvation. This is from Jerome and other church fathers. And the idea is basically baptism is your first entry point into salvation. Penance is the second plank of salvation after you shipwreck your faith. So you have these two distinct sacraments. the distinctness of baptism and penance as two separate sacraments is required by anathema at the Council of Trent.

If anyone confounding the sacraments says the baptism is itself the sacrament of penance as though these two sacraments were not distinct, and the penance, therefore, is not rightly called a second plank after shipwreck, let him be anathema. Right off the bat, we might just wonder about this. Making penance of sacrament seems kind of strange in light of the specific nature of what a sacrament is. For example, Roman Catholic theology holds that sacraments have both matter and form. The form consists of the meaning of the act. This will often be conveyed in a particular wording or phrase, like, I baptize you in the name of the Father's Son and the Holy Spirit,

or this is my body. The matter is the substance that is conjoined with its administration through which the sacrament takes place. So, for example, in the case of baptism, it would be water, in the case of the Lord's Supper, it would be bread and wine. So when we get to penance, the verbal formula is, I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and of the Holy Spirit. But you ask, what's the matter? There's no physical element involved that would correspond,

like there is water for baptism, bread and wine for the Lord's Supper. So this is more tricky. And this is, what constitutes the matter of penance is debated all throughout church history up into the, right before the Reformation, you can see discussions in Gabriel Beal in the 15th century and so on and so forth, others who are going back and forth about this. But ultimately, what is identified as the matter of the sacrament is our actions in penance. Specifically, the Council of Trent identifies three acts that constitute the matter of the sacrament of penance, contrition, confession, and satisfaction. We'll talk a little bit about what we mean by

satisfaction in a second, and I'll put up the corresponding anathema here. These anathemas of the 14th session of the Council of Trent are absolutely brutal. Reading through it to me was the experience was like, you know, this isn't something I've done a deep dive on before I did in the connection to this, and it's brutal. It's like a lot of times you're leaning into trying to be as ecumenical as you can, and you just realize like, honestly, what it feels like is I'm in an open field, and there's a helicopter above with someone in it with a bazooka just shooting at you. And it's just like no matter where you run, they can hunt you down and shoot you down. There's no escape. Because if you believe that the matter of confession is simply fear of God

and faith in the gospel, then you are targeted by this anathema. If you think the matter of confession is twofold rather than threefold, there's an anathema, and we'll just see how many anathemas come. And it's brutal. So, you know, I know people really go, they go lots of different directions when we start talking about anathemas. I'm not even claiming anything right now in this video about that other than just trying to, I'll just read a lot of them so you can think about it for yourself. But the point is when there's an anathematts at least this much, that this is officially teaching what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. It at least means that. So another important aspect of a sacrament, though, is that it's instituted by Christ himself as a sign of the new covenant gospel.

So, for example, with baptism and the Lord's Supper, we have this very clearly in the New Testament in the Great Commission. You have the commissioning of or the instituting of baptism by Christ. In Luke 22, you have the Lord's Supper as well as other places like Paul in 1st Corinthians 11, narrating a tradition from the Lord. So you ask then, okay, corresponding to that, just like we're wondering, okay, if it's bread and wine here, if it's water here, then what is it for penance? Now we're asking, okay, if Jesus instituted baptism here and the Lord's upper there. Where did he institute penance? And the answer is John 2023. This is where Roman Catholics locate the origin of this sacrament. We will return to that verse because it is so important

throughout this video. In fact, among the many anathemas hurled at us by the Council of Trent is how you interpret John 2023. You have to interpret it in relation to their theology of penance. importantly, in designating penance as a sacrament, the Council of Trent insists that it was not yet a sacrament until John 2023. Okay? So there is no sacrament of pen. This is going to be a very important point that's going to come up later. So I really want to belabor this.

I totally understand people sometimes maybe are fading in and out of attention during videos, long video like this, lots of information. Hear me on this point. This is really important. there is no sacrament of penance prior to John 20 in Roman Catholic theology. Okay, throughout the old covenant era, throughout the preaching ministry of John the Baptist, throughout the ministry of Christ before his death. That is very clear.

And at the Council of Trent, you can see that from the passage I put up, and this was conceded by theologians in the counter-reformation and so forth. So, for example, David's confession of sin and Nathan's declaration of forgiveness in 2nd Samuel 12, was not a sacrament per se. The sacrament of penance comes into being in redemptive history in John 20. That's really important to remember as we go. So this is the first point. Penance is a sacrament. We can already see why this will be important, by the way, because of what sacraments are. Sacraments convey the gospel to us in a very particular manner. Martin Kempnitz calls them vessels in which are deposited the benefits obtained by Christ's death on the cross.

So already we can see the importance of this. Whether or not we call penance a sacrament is a very serious question. We're dealing with nothing less than the means by which God forgives certain kinds of sins. Very important. A second point of disagreement and difference, we're trying to find the fault line accurately here, is that in Roman Catholic theology, this sacrament typically involves private confession to a priest. I'll be very careful here. The Catholic Catechism requires that confession be made specifically to a priest, and the Council of Trent also made it clear that this exercising of the keys, a reference to Matthew 16 and 18, must not be extended outside of the priests and bishops. Furthermore, the bishops can reserve certain cases for themselves, as you can see here

from Canon 11 at the Council of Trent. So the result of this is that the administering of forgiveness in applicable cases through this sacrament to those who've lost their baptism, chismal grace, takes on the same kind of hierarchical structure as the Roman Catholic clergy. Now, what about private confession? This one is very tricky. It is not strictly required for every act of confession to be done privately. But that is the practice that is typically encouraged and just typically done. And it is claimed at the Council of Trench that private confession was the historic practice of the church, as you can see on the screen here. And you can see the corresponding anathema here in Canon 6. For anyone who says that the manner of confessing

secretly to a priest alone, which the Catholic Church has always observed from the beginning and still observes, is that variance with the institution of Christ and command of Christ, and as a human contrivance, let him be anathema. Later, we will challenge this idea and argue and just try to trace out the transition in so many ways, one of which is from public penance to private penance, but we're just trying to demarcate the difference here. So necessity of confessing to a priest, typically privately. Third area of disagreement is, in Roman Catholic theology, the sacrament of penance involves a judicial act that itself procures reconciliation with God.

The role of this sacrament is not merely to edify and encourage the sinner by pointing them to the forgiveness that God generally provides. Rather, the act itself bestows that forgiveness and secures a reconciliation with God. So this is different from like, you know, in a Presbyterian context growing up and for me as a pastor, one of my favorite parts of church and liturgy is the confession of sin and assurance of pardon. So we confess our sins together to the Lord and then we hear an assurance of pardon. That assurance of pardon is not itself procuring the reconciliation to God of people who are confessing their sins. Rather, it is a declaration of, basically, of the gospel and applied in that particular context. This is a point of demarcation and difference.

By the way, I'm talking about Protestants here. This is true of Protestants in the main. A couple of the things I've said, there'd be a little blur, because you can find some of like the real high church Anglicans and so forth who wouldn't be represented. But what I'm saying is representative of vast majority of Protestants. So again, at the Council of Trent, you can see legal language used to describe the priest's absolution. It is not a bare ministry only either of proclaiming the gospel or of declaring that sins are forgiven, but it is after the manner of a judicial act, by which sentence is pronounced by him as a judge. So this is again, this is very different from me as a Baptist minister leading our church in a confession of sin, assurance of pardon, where it does

function as basically a declaration of the forgiveness of sins, not a judicial act. So if we were to ask what specifically is being judicially acted, the answer is reconciliation with God, as you can see here from chapter 3 of session 14 of the Council of Trent. If you don't think it's that, if you think it is merely a declaration of forgiveness, you guessed it, anathema. There's corresponding anathemas for almost all these points. Steming from its judicial nature, Penance is necessary for salvation in the appropriate situation. So where there has been grave post-baptismal sin, you've lost your salvation through immortal sin. Penance is then necessary to escape hell.

Because it is a judicial act of reconciling the sinner to God. Without that act, you're not yet reconciled to God. Counsel of Trent, this sacrament of penance is for those who have fallen after baptism necessary for salvation, as baptism is. for those who have not yet been regenerated. So in other words, just like you need baptism to get in the front door, if you walked out the back door, now you need penance to get back in, if that makes sense. Here's the corresponding anathema for that, where you can see the words emboldened there,

that it's a divine law and it is necessary for salvation. We've seen this canon before in connection to the history of secret confession. Here we note it's claim that penance is divine law, not a human custom, for example. and this follows from its nature as a judicial act. And again, these anathemas are just brutal. I mean, let me put that back up this one with the, basically there's a historical interpretation in this anathema. I've underlined here, and that historical interpretation is exactly what I believe, exactly what I'm going to argue in this video, that basically private confession unto a priest

involving a judicial act that procures reconciliation to God as a sacrament, that is a good. gradual accreted practice, not something that Christ established. This is why these anathomas are so brutal, but we're trying to just clarify where we disagree right now. So penance is necessary for salvation and the next canon at the Council of Trent makes it clear that it's necessary for all mortal sins to be confessed. You also see here the reference to secret ones and the last two commandments of the Deca log, those involve the sin of coveted. which brings up a question that we're going to return to in the third section of this video, and that is the subjectivity involved in, how do you know for sure what and when you need to confess?

And that's not as easy to answer as sometimes you will be led to think. So we'll get back to that. But first, we've summarized there three points. Let's just ask this question. Is this theology correct? This is the second section of the video. Did Jesus institute penance as a sacrament in the way we have described? is it ultimately the case that it's necessary for your salvation to confess mortal sins unto a priest

so as to receive a judicial sentence of reconciliation to God? Is that true? And what ultimately matters here is not what I think or what anybody else thinks, but what God thinks, and what kind of church God set up, what Jesus actually did in history, what John 2023 actually means in its original historical context, with the apostles actually taught and practiced, and so forth. So there's really no way around this, but just diving into the biblical and historical evidence and looking through things. And I'll just summarize my position, and that is those practices of confession, which Protestants and Roman Catholics generally agree upon, are those that do have a clear foundation in the Word of God and are attested in early church history. Those points

on which we disagree, which we've just recounted, private confession to a priest, for example, a sacrament involving judicial absolution, for example, are precisely those things that lack such a foundation. What we find in the case of penance is what we have in so many instances of Roman Catholic theology. A practice or a belief slowly evolves during the course of church history and then is subsequently read back into the original sources of Christianity, such as the New Testament. This is the nature of the concern with penance, as with so many other areas. The church is rumbling forward. The church is growing and changing and evolving and many wonderful things are happening, even while there is also error and sin. And eventually, you take something that sort of

comes, slowly comes out through a long process over here, and then we have to kind of thrust it back into the first century as though it had been there from the beginning, when in reality it's the product of a very slow process of accretion and evolution and so forth. And if you're familiar with my videos, I do a lot of stuff like this where I'm trying to work through church history and just make this kind of case on lots of issues. And that's what I think is very clear with regard to penance. Just looking at the New Testament generally, we have lots of confession of sin, as we did in the Old Testament. For example, when people become a Christian, they will often confess their sins publicly and forsake sinful practices like sorcery, for example. When Christians themselves sin as a Christian, we confess to each other.

and we pray for each other's healing. This is very clear in James 5, for example. But we don't have anything in the ballpark of a sacrament of confession in the ways we specifically just demarcated and defined. We don't have any examples of private confession, neither the matter of repentance, of confession, contrition, confession, satisfaction, those three things,

nor the form, the priestly declaration of I absolve you are found in the New Testament, as they are contrary-wise for baptism in the Lord's Supper, as we've recounted. Basically, we have strong reasons to think that Jesus Christ himself actually instituted baptism and the Lord's Supper, but penance we don't have either the matter or the form, and it really lacks any sort of basis in the New Testament. So it has to sort of be read into a passage like John 2023, which will now work through here. But having already just framed where the differences lie, I hope you can see already how this passage is going to fall way short. There's neither

form nor matter in John 2023, nor is there any hint of private confession to a priest or a judicial procedure or an enumeration of all mortal sins or satisfactions to be imposed or anything like that. That whole body of thought is later accretion that has to be imported back onto John 2023. I'll just put up this verse in context. You can note the words in blue here come after the words in red. The if you forgive they are forgiven comes on the heels of, as the Father sent me, so I'm sending you. And so what we want to understand is that the power to forgive sins must not be abstracted out from the general ministry of Christ, as it is portrayed in the New Testament. The Apostles' ministry, including this aspect of it and every other, flows out of Christ's ministry, inaugurating the kingdom of God, one aspect of which was forgiving sins. I'll put up on the

screen two examples where Christ looks at someone and says, your sins are forgiven. Can you imagine what that would feel like to have God incarnate say that to you? Happy thought, that's what everybody who experiences the gospel can know is the case. And in heaven from now, Jesus, if you trust in him, follow him, repent, you know, he says, your sins are forgiven. That's an aside. So if the point for now, though, is if someone wants to posit that in addition to the extension of Christ's incarnate ministry, a new sacrament is being instituted in this passage that didn't exist previously, the burden of proof is on the one advancing such a bold claim. If Christ is, with these words in John 20, instituting a sacrament, which is necessary for salvation in certain conditions, and requires

confession to a priest specifically, and constitutes through the priestly absolution, a judicial act of forgiveness for certain kinds of sin, you'd need some reason to think those things are in view here because that's not at all in the verse. And, but someone could say, okay, well, fine, yeah, but you don't need to have it all in John 2023, right? They could say, there's something more general here, but for the broader idea that penance is a sacrament instituted by Jesus, we get that from the rest of the New Testament. The answer to that would be, okay, well, Where do you find it in the New Testament? Because nowhere ever in the New Testament do we have either the matter or the form of penance, nor do we have the idea of private confession to a priest

and so forth. The things that are lacking in John 2023 that would need to be there for this to really meet the burden of proof are also lacking in every other verse of the New Testament. The consistent New Testament teaching about forgiveness of sins is that it's simply the promise of repentance and faith in response to the gospel. That is how you get forgiveness of sins, and there's no more complexities or wrinkles to it. So, for example, in the parallel post-resurrection commission of Luke's gospel, very relevant passage for interpreting John 20, it is precisely this method of receiving forgiveness of sins, the repentance in the name of Christ, that is part of the proclamation of the gospel that Jesus commands for his apostles. And this is the method of forgiveness of sins that's everywhere.

This is what is anticipated in the old covenant era, as you see in the apostles preaching in the book of Acts. This is what you see in the apostles' epistles and writings. There's so much. I mean, I could only scratch the surface in putting up verses about how we get forgiven of our sins in the New Testament. So there's a lot in the New Testament about that, but nowhere do we get the idea of a sacrament of penance for the forgiveness of certain kinds of sins. Rather, forgiveness of sins is achieved by repentance in response to the gospel, and the apostles exercising of authority for that is one piece of their general authority over the ministry of the gospel. It's worth stepping

back for a moment to look at the big picture of redemptive history here. And what we can note is just a consistent pattern in divine revelation for how forgiveness of sins is obtained. From the dawn of time, at the beginning of biblical revelation, up through the New Testament, forgiveness of sins consistently happens through repentance and faith in response to God's revelation. And that's it. There's no other second plank or anything like that. So this is what is operative throughout the old covenant among the people of Israel, among other people like the Ninevites to whom Jonah preached. This is what is operative in John the Baptist ministry in his call for repentance, and in response to the ministry of Christ prior to John 20.

At no point in biblical revelation do we have a second plank? Do we have an alternative method for obtaining forgiveness of certain sins distinct from how you initially obtained forgiveness of sins? A good model for how repentance is to work is David, after being confronted by Nathan for his horrific sin with Yeraya and Bathsheba. And if you want to see what forgiveness looks like, in the case of a serious fall into sin by a servant of God, we have no better model than this. David is confronted by Nathan, he repents. And Nathan declares that his sins are forgiven, but this is not a judicial act that Nathan performs, nor is there any unique sacrament of reconciliation here, as distinct from just repentance simpliciter.

Nathan's words here function the way a Protestant here is the assurance of pardon during the confession of sin at our liturgy. It's a declaration and confirmation of what God offers to the repentant sinner. It is not a judicial act that itself procures reconciliation to God, nor is Nathan functioning as a priest in this capacity, nor is this distinct from the initial repentance or other moments of repentance in David's life in any way. Psalm 51 is simply just a perennial promise that David is expressing here, that God can forgive our sins. And this is the model. You know, I can just, you know, if you get

lost in the theology, it's just this simple. When you sin, do Psalm 51. And there's nothing more to it than that. And this is what is operative all throughout redemptive history. There's so many examples of this throughout the old covenant. You think of Miriam, for example, in Numbers 12. Horrific sin. she shut outside the camp for seven days, but there's no sacrament of penance involved. Okay? Now, this was acknowledged by the Council of Trent, that this is, the sacrament of penance is not operative until John 20. And so this rightly became a focus point for the Protestants, and here's how Martin

Keminence put it. We accept this confession from our opponents, namely that during 4,000 years from the foundation of the world, repentance was not such a sacrament as the papalists argue about, and that during the whole time of the Old Testament, there was no such a way and such a mode of reconciliation with God after a fall as the papalists prescribed in the sacrament of their penance. In other words, the Roman Catholic position suggests that something changes in John 2023 with regard to how forgiveness is administered to God's people. Some new arrangement comes into being that Miriam didn't experience in Numbers 12 and David didn't experience in 2nd Samuel 12 and so on and so forth. in rejecting that proposal, we are simply maintaining that no such change has occurred, that the way confession and forgiveness has occurred from the dawn of time up to the ministry,

through the ministry of Christ, simply rumbles forward in the church age, just as Jesus says, as the Father sent me, so I'm sending you. And the point that I'm trying to make from all this is to say, if that's not the case, if there is a change, we need some proof, you know, because if I just say, look, it's not in John 23, there's nothing about the actual points of demarcation that I listed, those three points. None of those are indicated in that verse or anywhere else in the New Testament. Then people say, well, that's an argument from silence. So the reason I'm belaboring this point about the consistent model we have is, look, we are to obey God. When God reveals a way to get your sins forgiven,

we are to respond to that. And if it's consistent throughout divine revelation, we are accountable to that. We have no grounds to accept some alternative means that doesn't have a basis in divine revelation. If a particular spiritual reality is not in existence throughout the entire old covenant or the preaching of John and Jesus prior to Jesus' death, and then it comes into being in Jesus' post-resurrection commission recorded in John, then we're not being overly demanding to suggest we need some kind of indication of this, either in John 20 or elsewhere in the New Testament, or somewhere else. So here's the third possibility. Someone might say, well, Jesus didn't need to explicitly lay out the matter and form in the New Testament. The New Testament

doesn't record everything Jesus taught. If we see a particular practice in the extra-biblical writings, then we can infer that Jesus taught it. Okay, fine. In other words, if a sacrament of penance is not attested during the period of divine public revelation, but we have to be a second, have a lot of strong attestation for it right after that, then that could be enough. Okay, for the sake of argument, I'll accept that as a possibility, but then the problem that emerges is probably what you can anticipate is even if we accept that criteria, we simply don't see the Roman Catholic view of penance outside the New Testament either. Anywhere else in the other, you know, the other first century writings like the didache or any time soon after that, moving forward into the post-apostolic era.

On the contrary, the witness of church history strongly confirms the position that private confession to a priest whose absolution constitutes judicial reconciliation with God is a late and gradual emergence in church history and, in fact, an extension from earlier different kinds of confession. So let's talk about church history a little bit. In the early church, there were various practices for restoring those who had fallen into serious sin. And many of these practices look different from anything that goes on in any church today. These were extremely rigorous and austere. There is legalism, unfortunately, in church history.

And there are some practices that seem to go too far and be too harsh. Even in the second century, the Shepherd of Hermes, some of these restrictions like you can only be restored one time or not at all. I'm not saying that document affirms that, but it gives evidence that some teachers in the church we're taking very rigorous views. That's one of the things you see in the early church. But what happens is sometimes particular terms, like the term confession or the term satisfactions, are used to describe both earlier practices and later much different practices. So as to present a kind of veneer of continuity, when in reality there's enormous diversity

in the practice of the early church, and there's significant changes. as you move into the medieval era and that continue on during the medieval era as well. Just to give one sound point here, reference point. In his examination of the Council of Trent, Martin Keminitz lists nine different kinds of confession that are going on in the early church, nine different practices for which that term is used. Now, so for example, one of the big, clear, obvious, bright changes is from public confession to private. okay, this is almost conceded by just about everybody. And the particular catalyst toward this change appears to be, among other things, the influence of Irish missionaries spreading their practice

into continental Europe starting around the 7th century. There's some debate about the details of this, but very few people question this at all. In fact, it's so well established that I can document it by simply quoting from the Catholic Catechism. Over the centuries, the concrete form in which the church has exercised this power received from the Lord has varied considerably. Then it talks about the austerity and rigorousness of the early practices of the early church. During the 7th century, Irish missionaries, inspired by the Eastern monastic tradition, took to continental Europe the private practice of penance, which does not require public and prolonged completion of penitential works before reconciliation

with the church. From that time on, the sacrament has been performed in secret between penitent and priest. this new practice envisioned the possibility of repetition, and so opened the way to a regular frequenting of the sacrament. You can go on and read the rest of that quote on the screen. Now, one of the things that is annoying is if I ever quote anything now, to make a particular point, I have to anticipate people will make charges of being dishonest or disingenuous if I don't make absolutely clear everything else that that particular author might said that the viewer might feel relevant. It's quite, it's exhausting trying to anticipate these

charges of dishonesty. This happened recently in my interstings with Alex O'Connor where people in the comments are saying, oh, you left off this portion of the quote. It's like you're allowed to quote one portion of a document to make a particular point without quoting every other portion to make other points you possibly could also make. And the assumption that, oh, this other portion is so relevant is an interpretation that itself is one of the points that we disagree on. So the charges of dishonesty about this are annoying, but I know here, like when I put up that quote, just to be super clear, the Catholic catechism doesn't think these changes rupture the structure of the sacrament, the overarching unity. And you can see that in the next paragraph there. So, you know,

of course. But my point, of course, is that it even, it just acknowledges these changes and these particular changes. And it does so because of the evidence. I mean, this can be documented from many historical sources that there's this gradual transition from public. I have to try to nail down the hatches here. When I'm doing like scholarly work, like writing an article, I don't have to be this careful to try to like really hedge it. But people who view my videos often call me a liar. And they just think I'm making stuff up or something like that. Even it's funny, even when I'm just saying the most standard fair stuff that's almost always conceded. And this is one of those points that really isn't contested that much. But if you want to look this up, so what I'll say is just

look it up for yourself. A good place to look would be the letters of Pope Leo the Great, Letter 78, for example. He's talking about the transition, from public penance to private and so on and so forth. There are other changes that you can chart out as you're going along throughout church history. Another is the gradual evolution from ceremonies that are intended to induce and manifest repentance unto those that are held to be instrumental in the actual administration of forgiveness. So for a detailed working through of that, you could read Chemnitz. He kind of parses out how this is evolving. But if you don't trust him because he's a Protestant, you can just read the work of contemporary Roman Catholic scholars. I'm not trying to act like, again, if I cite one book,

the people are going to say, oh, but the same book says this other thing. But I'm just trying to make the basic point that the scholarship acknowledges the tremendous, evolution and change in the practice of penance throughout church history. So for example, this is a fantastic book, maybe a leading book in this area by Thomas Tentler. And he taught a Catholic University of America. This is an excellent book. And it's basically, especially tracing out the medieval development and change of practices of confession in the Western church especially. And because it's really in the high middle ages that penance starts to take the shape that we know it has today, okay, that it fully kind of blossoms into what we think of it as today. And what

Tentler is doing in this book is very skillfully tracing out that evolution, including some of the very foundational aspects of penance that are still coming in, and some of them are still being disputed right up to the dawn of the Reformation. For example, Tentler notes that there are these various developments between the 9th and 13th centuries, and I'll just comment on the fourth one here, the role of the priest. And what he's drawing attention to is different schools of thought about this. He basically lays out three different schools of thought for the role of the priest in penance in medieval theology, and he charts them out according to Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus, three medieval theologians. Let me share with you

Peter Lombard's view. This is in the 12th century, just so you're aware of the kind of development and change that we're talking about, this just as one sound point or example. Peter Lombard held, now, again, if I say this, someone's going to say, oh, look, he didn't talk about John Dunds Scotus or something like that. Well, I'm not saying Peter Lombard is representative of everybody. I just said he's one school of thought that's, you know, different from Scotus and Thomas. Thomas is kind of an intermediate between Scotus and Lombard. But by the way, Peter Lombard is not the only one who thinks this way. Peter Abelard has a very similar view. Basically, Lombard thinks that during penance, the moment at which forgiveness is bestowed is not

the priestly absolution, but the experience of contrition and peasant. in the heart of the sinner. So in this idea, the role of the priest is not actually to bestow forgiveness. Quote, sins are blotted out by contrition and humility of heart, even without confession by the mouth and payment of out or punishment, for from the moment when one proposes with compunction of mind that one will confess God remits. So for Peter Lombard, the priestly absolution is not a judicial act of forgiveness. It is merely a declaration of what a priest-judgment is that God is already done, though he thinks that judgment can err. God does not always follow the judgment of the church, which can fall into error. Marcia Colish, who is a fantastic medievalist

in her book on Peter Lombard, concludes that the role of the priest is basically not a necessary one. Now, that interpretation of Lombard is sometimes disputed. And again, Peter Lombard is not everybody. Lots of people disagree. This is a whole big thing. But the point I'm trying to make is that look how much evolution and development there is in church history on some pretty foundational questions, like what penance is. Okay, this is the 12th century, over a millennium after this sacrament is allegedly instituted, and this is only four centuries prior to the Council of Transcopious anathemas and claims to be following what has always been observed from the beginning and so on and so forth like

we've already seen. But honest scholars just admit that practices of penance have changed enormously. And the ones that are around the time of the Reformation are the result of a long process of accretion and development. Here's how Tentler puts it. It was universally recognized that there had been important historical changes in the development of confession. Now here he's going to reference a particular document that comes out of the fourth laddering

in the 13th century. He says, no one, for example, and this is a document that says you have to confess once a year. He says no one, for example, argued that the obligation to confess once a year, for all practical purposes at Easter time, could be found anywhere in Scripture, nor could anyone argue that the directive to confess only to one's priest was in Scripture either, both clearly derived from the omnis utriusque sexis, yet the decree of 1215 had made both regulations part of positive church law. They were unquestionably binding, and their consequences for the practice of confession, both as a consoler of individual penitence

and as a way of controlling their conduct was immense. Now, as with any area of theology, the story of church practices about penance is enormously complicated. So, again, someone can say, Oh, Ortland's lying and being disingenuous because he didn't quote this other thing that I think he should have quoted. But actually, my point is extremely modest right now.

I'm just trying to give you some information to establish the point that if you're saying, well, yeah, okay, we believe Jesus Christ actually established penance as a sacrament. But we admit it's not in John 2023, actually. And we admit that maybe it's not in the New Testament, but church history confirms it. I'm just trying to show, no, it doesn't. Okay, this particular construal of how penance should function that we've identified as the line of demarcation where we disagree takes a long time to develop. And therefore, what emerges is,

the points at which Roman Catholic practice of confession depart from Protestant practices, private confession to a priest, it's a sacrament, judicial act, et cetera, don't have a historical or biblical foundation. Without trying to be inflammatory, I need to kind of just say it as blunt as this, as to say, this particular theology that is set upon us with anathema doesn't have a foundation in history. Okay, we should not, we don't have any reasons to think. It's actually true that Jesus instituted this as a sacrament to function in the ways we've defined. Because it's not present in the New Testament, and it takes a long time to emerge in church history. So that's why we would say we can't accept this because we don't think it's true. Okay, third section of the video,

why does this matter? Well, obviously it's been implicit already somewhat. You can see how much is at stake here. I mean, this is a very serious topic. For some of the reasons we've already given, you know, put it just like this, what are the sacraments by which we obtain forgiveness in the gospel of Jesus Christ? That's pretty important. That's pretty relevant to your everyday life. We're all going to sin and need to know, now what do I do? Right. But let me highlight two particular areas of pastoral consequence that emerge from this topic where I want to pastor people and encourage them toward the hope that we have and express the concerns of why this particular error, as I regard it, is pastoral consequential. First, the theology of penance in Roman Catholicism diminishes baptism,

and by extension the benefits of the gospel that are sealed and conveyed through baptism. Roman Catholic theology of penance results from too small a view of the gospel that is signed and sealed in baptism. When you give two planks of salvation where God is only given one, there is an unintentional sidelining of the power and significance of the initial one. I'll give a metaphor for this in a second, because the effect of the Roman Catholic understanding of penance is to make the efficacy and baptism, efficacy and power of baptism tied to the moment of its administration, as though subsequent to that time when you got baptized, now that you're out of the water and you've dried off, now you need some new mechanism

for the forgiveness of grave sins. The undergirding rationale here is that baptism doesn't cover the future sins. And, you know, in the interest of trying to be as honest as I can be. I can say that's a very common view in church history, though it is not universal. But it's very common to think like that. You can find that idea. But one of the great insights of Luther was that baptism is sufficient to cover all our sins, not just the sins that occur until you dry off. Baptism doesn't run out. Baptism covers your whole life. It is not tethered to the moment of its administration. This is actually, now I'm going to offend everybody, one reason why I reject baptismal regeneration in its typical definition and stronger definition as cause of regeneration,

because I think you're already forgiven the night before you get baptized if you're trusting in Christ. Just like a monarch is already technically the king, one hour before the coronation ceremony starts. Baptism is even more powerful. Baptism stands over your entire life, from the moment you trust in Jesus to the moment you die. But the point, so that's, I've explained more about the baptism of regeneration piece later, elsewhere. Point for now is, when we fall into sin, we don't need some new sacrament. Rather, we need nothing other than what we have already obtained in the gospel of Jesus Christ when we first became a Christian.

We simply return to our baptism in repentance. And the way you repent of sin, we put it like this. The way you repent to become a Christian is fundamentally the same as how you repent as a Christian. There is no other means. It is the same gospel and the same means of appropriating the gospel. at the beginning, in the middle, at the end, at every step along the way, just like it was for David, just like it was for Miriam, just like it was at every nanosecond of history prior to John 20. Put it like this, when you sin, just do Psalm 51. Do what David did. You don't need a sacrament of

penance any more than he did or any more than Miriam did in Numbers 12 and so on and so forth. And to think we do does minimize the power and meaning of baptism. Let me give a metaphor for that. Recently, I traveled to Europe, thanks to those of you who were praying for me. It was actually a really, really wonderful trip and amazing. Maybe we want to pray more for revival, just seeing all that God's doing there. I'll share more about that. I'm going to put out some video clips from that trip and some shorts as well. When I boarded my flight, I had my passport with me, along with my boarding pass to get on the plane

because it's an international flight, so you bring your passport. But I'm so used to flying in the United States that I instinctively brought my driver's license as well, and I had it there in my hand. And so there I am with both. Now, I don't need my driver's license because you only need one form of identification to get on the airplane. The passport is sufficient. And if I were to insist that I do need my driver's license, I would actually be failing to understand what I have with the passport. The passport is sufficient. If you have that, you can get on the plane. In the same way, what is represented by your baptism, namely union with Christ in the gospel, is sufficient to cover your entire life as you walk with the Lord.

So when you sin, you fear God, you confess your sins, including to a Christian brother or sister, maybe to an elder of your church as needed. You grieve over and forsake your sins. You place your trust in God. You practice disciplines to seek righteousness and put sin to death. You seek Christ with all of your heart. You do this all your life long. But there's no special second sacrament.

You're just doing the same things by which you first be. became a Christian. And we can know that when we practice this, that our sins are forgiven, because that is the very promise of the gospel itself. You can see why I'm so, oh, man, I feel so strongly about this topic. That's why I'm just trying to, if you notice the way I'm recording this video, I'm trying to just get through it without deviating from my manuscript, because I don't want to go too extemporaneously, because I don't want to shy away from saying it as bluntly as I need to. I don't want to give offense. I don't like, I mean, I'm aware of Catholics on the other side listening to this, experience this, who may find penance, their practice of confession,

very liberating. But look, I got to be the, what is at stake in this issue goes to the very heart of our experience of Jesus and the heart of what it even means to be a Christian and how you walk with the Lord through life. I guess I could put it this simply, and this is not really making an argument right now, it's making a pastoral offer. If you struggle with assurance of salvation, if you struggle with sin, hold out a verse like Psalm 10312. Okay, this is one of the promises of God. This applies to those who trust in Jesus. Okay, claim that promise in your heart and understand that you don't need anything other than what you already possess through faith in Christ to experience that. And just, you know, it's that, the gospel really is that.

good news. God loves you that much. Your sins really are, even yours, removed as far as the east is from the west from you, as you trust in Jesus. Think of when Jesus says to the woman caught in adultery, I do not condemn you, go and sin no more. If you are a Christian, if you're trusting in Jesus, he says that to you. But of course, there's a question of, well, how do I know I'm a Christian? And this is the second pastoral point that I want to address. Penance diminishes, not just baptism, penish diminishes assurance of salvation. In action, in action, actual life, in real time, there is subjectivity in determining what precisely constitutes a mortal sin, as opposed to a venial sin, as well as in when we have met the requirements for penance

to a sufficient degree. Earlier we noted, or actually I didn't put this out, I'll put it up now, three conditions for a sin being a mortal sin. In Roman Catholic theology, there's mortal sin and venial sin, and then you also have a distinction between perfect contrition and imperfect contrition, I'll put this distinction up from the catechism on the screen, perfect contrition can obtain forgiveness of mortal sins even without the sacrament of penance if a person intends to receive it as soon as they can. But in all of these things, there is a human element of, well, how do you know if it's a perfect contrition?

And in the question of what constitutes full knowledge and deliberate consent and so forth, you will get different views about this. There are different opinions, different schools of thought. If you listen to how much do people commit a mortal sin? How frequent is this? How common is this? How much should you be worried about it? Some people say, oh, it's really hard to commit a moral sin.

Others say something very different than that. There is ambiguity for assessing this in how this works out in real life. So just, you know, for example, on the distinction between a mortal sin and a venial sin, extreme anger is a mortal sin. Okay, how extreme? You know, how do you assess this? lying, you say, well, you have to have deliberate knowledge and consent, okay, well, if I'm really angry, and I know I'm angry, I mean, how angry? At what point do I cross the line into a mortal sin?

It's not, this is not a hard science. There's subjectivity and ambiguity involved in this. Lying can be a mortal sin, but it can also be a venial sin. It depends on the truth that it deforms and the circumstances and the intentions and how much harm it causes and so forth. So how do you you know which lies are the mortal sins. Stealing can be a mortal sin, but it depends upon various factors, like how much you steal, and the amount of destruction and various other factors like that. Missing mass, without good reason, will often be classified as a mortal sin, but how good of a reason? You know, if you're sick, what if you just have a cold, you know? I'm not trying to be pedantic here. I think these are the things that really come up in real life. I mean, if I was under this theology,

have these questions like, how do I know? Envy can be a mortal sin. There's more subjective sins like this that's like, so, you know, and the same with perfect contrition. How do you know when your contrition is sufficient to constitute perfect contrition? There's always, here's the problem. There's always a mixture of imperfection in everything we do. We never know our sins perfectly. Psalm 119 asks a very poignant question. Who can discern his errors? Now, if someone out there is watching this and you're a Roman Catholic and you're saying, no, no, Gavin, you misunderstand. It doesn't work like you're thinking. It works like this. This is kind of my point. Okay. I get lots of different answers and views from different Catholics about how this all works

up. And so the ultimate state is that this theology leaves a person in a state of uncertainty as to their preparedness for death and eternity. It tethers them down to this very specific practice that is evolved through our church history rather than the bright, clear promises that are founded in the Word of God. Let me give an example how this plays out in real time. In Roman Catholic theology, contraception and masturbation are mortal sins. Let's say on Wednesday, you commit one of those sins. On Friday, you intend to go to confession, and today, now it is Thursday. You're honestly not sure if you have a perfect contrition. The truth is, you're mainly scared of hell, and you're not sure. You know, you just don't know. You're driving, and it's a rainy day. You're. You're driving, and it's a rainy day.

and it's Thursday. And this thought is hanging over you. If I get into a car accident and die, where do I go? Because in Catholic theology, if you die in a state of mortal sin, you go to hell forever. Not purgatory hell. Now, someone out there is going to say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, you don't, you know, they're going to try to correct this. I'm telling you, this is the kind of experience I know a lot of people have.

And this theology, you can see how, but you can put it like this. When Luther comes along, Luther gets criticized as being kind of neurotic and overly introspective, and certainly he had some issues, but sometimes they're exaggerated too. But a lot of people have those issues, and it's kind of understandable. Tentler, interestingly, argues against Reformation concerns, but he acknowledged this is a stronger point of Luther's. Luther's most damaging criticism of medieval practice is his denial that a complete confession is necessary or even possible. Already in 1518, before he fully developed his campaign against the Catholic Confessional, he emphasized the hidden sinfulness of man, the sinfulness even of good works and the inevitability

of secret sins. This is why Turriton will speak of the Roman Catholic theology of penance as the executioner of conscience and the noose of desperation, which leads man into inextricable difficulties, both because he either knows not how to distinguish between mortal sins and venial sins, or because he can never be certain of the just and sufficient scrutiny of conscience, or concerning the remission obtained, which depends on the intention of the priest, of which he is ignorant. Here's how Kemnitz puts it, they do not want a confession which is useful for instructing and consoling the penitent,

but an enumeration which they say is necessary by divine right for the remission of sins, so that whoever does not confess all sins in this way, to him divine goodness remits nothing through the ministry of absolution. For they make all the benefits, comforts, efficacy, and certainty of absolution depend on this total and specific enumeration. This truly is that old torture of conscience, which our churches have for very many weighty reasons driven out by the sword of the spirit. The unhappy consequence of this theology is that all the benefits of the gospel are restricted to this one particular avenue of, have I made a sufficient confession of our sins? Did I leave anything out? Some of you might say, no, that's not how it works today.

That is how it works in history for sure, and that does seem to be a necessary question that arises from the historical standards and the things we've identified at the Council of Trench, for example. Ultimately, this theology can very easily lead us away from trusting in Christ and experience the peace and assurance that we get from just looking to Jesus in simple faith to this question of, have I done enough? And this question especially comes up with the third aspect of the matter of penance, satisfactions. Historically, satisfactions have been identified as things like prayer,

fasting, almsgiving, other works of piety like this. And the differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics can be exaggerated here because we all agree there are consequences to sin in this life that forgiveness doesn't take away like David had, you know, and Miriam, she still had to be outside for seven days. And we can all agree that discipline is necessary for a full repentance. And happily, we can all agree that Christ's death on the cross is the ultimate cause of our forgiveness. In the catechism, enumerating possible satisfactions to be considered during penance states, it's stated that Christ alone expiated our sins once for all. However, there is a valid concern here that comes up throughout history and in real life where

people think of their own acts of satisfaction as atoning for their sins. And it's not at all hard to see how people think like this, because even at the Council of Trent, the language of atonement is used for our actions of penance. So we need to be crystal clear to remind people. Let me just close the video like this. Nothing that we do can make us right with God, only what Jesus did. We accept that it's 100% his work that creates salvation for us. And we simply receive. it by the empty hands of faith. While we strive to put sin to death and obey God and love him more in our lives, we do this out of gratitude and love. And we should be careful that our own actions, though so important, never become the object of our trust. I'm speaking just pastorally to where

I think people are really at on these kinds of issues. So let me give a quote here from maybe my favorite quote from Robert Murray McShane. This is a great place to land the plane. He says, is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it, learn much of the Lord Jesus. Now here's the quote, for every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely, such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief. Live much in the smiles of God, bask in his beams, feel his all-seeing eye, settled on you in love, and repose in his almighty arms. I'm not embarrassed to use very intimate language like reposing in the arms of Jesus because the experience of Christ and his forgiveness

really is that wonderful and like that. But this is what I would say to everybody out there who is struggling with ongoing sin. Confess this sin. Go through all the necessary steps to stamp it out of your life by the power of the Holy Spirit. But along the way at every moment, let this assurance rest upon your heart like a blanket. Jesus loves you. Think about that 10 times as often as you think about the sin. Look to Jesus 10 times more. And as you surrender your life to him and as you follow him and keep seeking him, he will forgive you. And you can be assured of that. And if that still is not sufficient to give that in your heart, gather Christian friends around you, confess what you're struggling with, ask them to lay hands on you and pray for you. And just watch what the Holy Spirit does.

because the Romans 816 assurance, the testimony of the Holy Spirit, that's a real thing. The Holy Spirit can do that. That's one means that he often uses in our lives to do that. So these final comments in the video are my pastoral comments to people out there who really struggle with assurance of salvation. And I want them to know, you can have assurance of salvation. My video on that whole topic could be useful as well. All right, that's my video on this topic.

I hope it achieved its end of being candid, but not inflammatory. I know people who are in the Roman Catholic tradition will not appreciate it. But hopefully you can at least see my motives. This is really important. And again, you know, I could maybe sum up everything by just saying we have, and this is the heart of Soliscriptura, we have to follow Christianity as God revealed it. So if there's something that's not in scripture and it's not in the early church, and it's slowly coming in and gradually getting there private confession to a priest.

That's not anywhere. You know, that is a sacrament. That's just way late. And those things that come in way after the fact, after the period of divine public revelation is over, are not authoritative over us. So that's the way to sum it all up. All right, thanks for watching. Let me know what you think in the comments. I'll be curious for your thoughts.

Long video. Hope it's useful. See you in the next one.