Christ said if the Apostolic office doesn't forgive you, your sin isn't forgiven:
John 20:23, cognate with
Matthew 18:18. The Apostolic office is the bishop (see
Acts 1:20, which is referring to Judas being replaced by Matthias), and the presbyter (the source of the English word "priest") represents him.
That is indeed sophistry because Jesus said no such thing. And in fact if let to be believed would make Jesus a liar when he stated only God can forgive sins.
John 20:19-23 "When therefore it was evening, on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus therefore said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” 22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 “If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
You are reading the verse 23 incorrectly. "have been" forgiven them.
aphiami.
Verse 19 tells us Jesus is speaking to his Disciples. He breaths his holy spirit upon them in verse 22. He was not confering upon them the priesthood, or apostolic succession, or the power to forgive sins. He was anointing them and sealing them with his holy spirit and like unto his washing their feet before his crucifixion he is a appointing them who would be elders, as passages relate about such an act of appointment in Titus, and 1st Timothy, to the ministry.
If Apostles, elders, priests, could forgive sins, when Jesus healed the lame man and told him his sins were forgiven and the Pharisee present charged blasphemy, claiming only God can forgive sins, why would Jesus not then correct him? And tell him that the son of man can forgive sins, being that Pharisee did not know Jesus was God in the flesh, as well as stating that those Jesus appoints shall be empowered to forgive sins in the name of the Father?
Jesus was the Father. When he corrected the Pharisee for his charge of blasphemy against Jesus that Pharisee knew Jesus was proclaiming in those words that he and the Father were one.
If the Father through Jesus bestowed any capacity to forgive sins on anyone whom Jesus would seal with his holy spirit, Jesus would state so in his teachings. But he did not. When Jesus bestowed the holy spirit through his breath upon his Disciples, he made them elders of the word. When they delivered the good news to the world as he missioned them to do, their teachings would include the truth of God in Christs telling the world that through Him , those that receive His holy spirit like unto what he bestowed onto the Disciples, their sins would be forgiven by God.
