Dr. John Bergsma

and that you had brought the animal that corresponded to the gravity of your sin.

We know how this works, like more serious sins required more expensive animals and so on.

So if you look at the whole pattern in Leviticus 5, if you sinned under the old covenant, you had to go to the priest, the priest would ensure that you were bringing the right animal, et cetera, and then he would offer it.

And then after he had offered the sacrifice, then you were forgiven.

So the administration of forgiveness of sins was a priestly responsibility under the old covenant.

Our Lord, of course, is our high priest.

He has that ability to forgive or decide not to, to retain sin.

depending on his judgment about our contrition, our degree of repentance.

But what we find here in John 20, 22, and 23 is Jesus sharing his priesthood with the apostles who are the fountainhead of those in holy orders.

Then later in Acts and so on, we'll see the apostles appointing men to represent them.

geographically or temporally when they cannot be there personally.

And those are the Episcopal and the Presbyteroi, which we come to call the bishops and the priests, the men in holy orders who will have this.

And so, I was shocked.

I read this verse all the time as a Protestant and the Calvinist interpretation was,

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.

If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

Calvin said, oh, this is just through the preaching of the gospel.

So the apostles are going to preach and those who accept the preaching of the gospel are going to have their sins forgiven and those who reject the preaching of the gospel are going to have it retained.

But that's eisegesis, Matt.

There's nothing about preaching in here.