Dr. John Bergsma

You know, we come to say bishops and priests.

But a little bit after the New Testament era, in the era of the early fathers, those roles become differentiated.

And then the chief presbyter in any area became designated as the episkopos and, you know, had that kind of clarity of office.

But

Yeah, anyway, I would say theologically, the strongest case for confession to those in holy orders comes from our Lord bestowing on the apostles the authority to forgive or retain sin after his resurrection.

And then that authority being passed on to the successors of the apostles.

It is, yeah.

Yeah, it's divine power being exercised by men.

They're really acting in Christ's place, in persona Christi, we say.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, the Holy Spirit is the answer to that.

I mean, as 2 Peter 1.4 says, we've become partakers in the divine nature.

So the Holy Spirit makes up for the lacks of our human limitations.

And so the saints in heaven, to use a poor analogy, and all analogies have their limitations, right?

But my laptop doesn't have the computing power to do AI, right?

But my laptop is connected up to the web.

and it can send stuff out and get messages back.

So I think the saints in heaven are like laptops hooked up to the Wi-Fi of the Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit is able to give them that processing power to intercede and to grant assistance and so on.

And we're all webbed in.