Episode 21: Year A – Divine Mercy Sunday
In this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word, Karlo focuses on three details that are relevant to discussions concerning Socialism, the Sacrament of Baptism, and the Sacrament of Confession. The details come from each of the readings for this upcoming Divine Mercy Sunday. The first detail is Luke’s reference to the early Christians holding all things in common, which is taken from the first reading in Acts 2:42-47. The second detail is Peter’s statement in the second reading, which is taken from 1 Peter 1:3-9, that we are born anew through the resurrection of Jesus. The third and final detail is Jesus’ command in the Gospel reading of John 20:19-31 for the apostles to forgive and retains sins.
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Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In this episode, we’re going to focus on three details that are relevant to discussions concerning Socialism, the Sacrament of Baptism, and the Sacrament of Confession. Each detail corresponds to each of the readings for this upcoming Divine Mercy Sunday. The first detail is Luke’s reference to the early Christians holding all things in common, which is taken from the first reading in Acts 2:42-47. The second detail is Peter’s statement in the second reading, which is taken from 1 Peter 1:3-9, that we are born anew through the resurrection of Jesus. The third and final detail is Jesus’ command in the Gospel reading of John 20:19-31 for the apostles to forgive and retains sins.
The Early Christian Sharing of Goods
Let’s start with the first detail. Luke writes the following in Acts 2:44-45: “44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need.”
Some Christians appeal to this detail as justification for the claim that Christians should be socialists. And it would seem they’re right given that socialism, as one online dictionary defines it, “is a political and economic theory that states the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” This seems to match exactly what Luke describes in Acts 2:44-45.
So, must Christians be socialists? My colleague and good friend Trent Horn deals with this issue in his Catholic Answers Magazine Online article “No, the First Christians were Not Socialists.” The answers that I’ll give here come from Trent’s article. I would encourage you to read it for more details.
The first thing to say is that at least for us as Catholics we can’t accept this socialist reading of Acts 2:44-45. As Pope Leo XIII stated in his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, “the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected” (sec.15).
But not only should we as Catholics reject this socialist reading on magisterial grounds, we should reject it on exegetical grounds. The first reason is that text doesn’t say that the early Christians were mandated to renounce their private ownership of goods and hand it over to the community. This is what the text would need to say to lend any sort of support to a socialist reading. Rather, the text simply says that they sold their property and possessions and divided them among all according to the needs of each.
Their giving up of private ownership could have been due to voluntary charity. Given the ambiguity as to the reason for the distribution of ownership of these goods, a person can’t appeal to this verse as a proof text.
Now, when we consider how St. Paul conceived of the early Christian practice of giving to the poor, it’s most likely that the Christians described in Acts 2 gave up their possessions and distributed them to those in need out of charity. Consider what Paul tells the Corinthians concerning their gift to a collection for poor believers in Judea: “It may be ready not as an exaction but as a willing gift . . . Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:5,7). If this is Paul’s conception of the early Christian practice of giving to the poor, then it’s reasonable to think that it would also have been the conception of the Christians described in our first reading.
A second exegetical reason for rejecting the socialist interpretation is that there’s no indication in the text that these early Christians completely and totally renounced their private possessions. In fact, the imperfect verbs used in the Greek text of verse 45 seems to suggest an ongoing process of selling property and goods to support the poor. It literally reads, “they were selling and were dividing them all.” This suggests that the Christians would have had retained some property and goods as they were selling and dividing things overtime.
In sum, all we have with Acts 2:44-45 is a model for Christian generosity, and thereby a challenge for us Christians today to be generous like the early Christians were. It does not teach that we must renounce our private ownership of property and goods and transfer such ownership over to the community. In short, this doesn’t show that the early Christians were socialists. Nor does it say that to be a Christian is to be a socialist.
The New Birth through Jesus’ Resurrection
The second detail for this episode comes from the second reading for this upcoming Sunday’s Liturgy of Word, which his taken from 1 Peter 1:3-9. The key verse is verse 3, where Peter writes, “3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Some Christians who deny the spiritual efficacy of the Sacrament of Baptism might appeal to this passage to support the view that rather than water baptism bringing about our new birth, or salvation, as Christians it’s Jesus’ resurrection. Protestant pastor Todd Baker makes this very argument in his book Exodus from Rome: Volume I when commenting on a similar statement that Peter makes in 1 Peter 3:21: “21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Baker puts it this way: “Peter tells his audience in verse 21 that it is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, symbolized by the waters of baptism, which actually saves the Christian.”[i] A Christian might follow Baker’s train of thought and make the same objection with 1 Peter 1:3.
What can we say in response?
First, as I point out in my book Meeting the Protestant Response: How to Answer Common Comebacks to Catholic Arguments, the main problem here is a false dichotomy: our salvation is brought about either by Jesus’ resurrection or by baptism. But, if we consider Paul’s teaching on baptism in Romans 6, we see that baptism is that which allows for us to participate in Jesus’ resurrection, by which we are saved. Paul introduces baptism in this chapter as the experience of death and resurrection in Christ:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (vv. 3-4).
Paul goes on to articulate the effects of this baptismal death and resurrection:
We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin (vv.6-7).
What’s interesting about this passage, as pointed out in Catholic circles by apologist Jimmy Akin, is that the Greek doesn’t say “freed from sin.” The Greek word translated “freed” is dikaioō, which means “to put into a right relationship (with God); acquit, declare and treat as righteous.”[ii] This is the same word Paul uses when he speaks of our justification by faith: “Since we are justified [Greek, dikaiōthentes] by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). So the phrase “freed from sin” in Romans 6:7 can literally be translated “justified from sin.”
Modern translations render it as “freed from sin” because the context is clearly about sanctification. For example, in the verse before Paul speaks of baptismal death, he speaks of those in Christ as having “died to sin.” As quoted above, Paul speaks of those who have died the death of baptism as “no longer enslaved to sin.”
In verses 17-18, Paul actually uses a form of the Greek word for “free” (eleutheroō) in relation to the freedom from sin that we receive in Christ:
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free [Greek, eleutherōthentes] from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
This tells us that, for Paul, justification can include sanctification, which is the interior renewal of the soul whereby the objective guilt of sin is removed. And that justification, or new birth, takes place in baptism.
In sum, baptism brings about our new birth precisely because through it we participate in Christ’s resurrection. So, it’s not either Christ’s resurrection or baptism. It’s both-and.
Forgive and Retain sins
The last detail that we’re going to consider for this episode is Jesus’ instruction for the apostles to forgive and retain sins, which comes John 20:23, part of this upcoming Sunday’s Gospel reading. Jesus tells the disciples, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
The power to forgive and retain implies the confession of sins, since in order for the apostles to judge whether to forgive or retain, they would have to know which sins were committed and whether the penitent was sorry for them.
The Council of Trent gave its full backing of this passage as support for the sacrament:
The Lord then especially instituted the sacrament of penance when, after being risen from the dead, he breathed upon his disciples, and said: Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. The consensus of all the Fathers has always acknowledged that by this action so sublime and words so clear the power of forgiving and retaining sins was given to the apostles and their lawful successors for reconciling the faithful who have fallen after baptism. . . . Therefore, this holy council, approving and receiving that perfectly true meaning of the above words of the Lord, condemns the grotesque interpretations of those who, contrary to the institution of this sacrament, wrongly contort those words to refer to the power of preaching the word of God and of making known the Gospel of Christ (Session 14, The Most Holy Sacraments of Penance and Extreme Unction, Chapter 1).
Now, as I point out in my book Meeting the Protestant Response, there’s only one major objection that Protestants make to the Catholic argument from John 20:23: Jesus’ instruction is a command for the apostles to preach the forgiveness of sins, and God is the one who will forgive or retain based on how the hearer of the gospel message responds. There are several reasons that Protestants give to justify this claim. However, we don’t have time to go through all of them here. You’ll have to get my book for that.
For our purposes here, we’re just going to consider the general counter-argument. It challenges the assumption that the command to “forgive and retain” refers to the apostles forgiving and retaining sins. For Protestants who give this counter, it’s God who forgives or retains depending on how a person responds to the gospel message. If the hearer receives the gospel message, then his sins will be forgiven. If the hearer rejects the gospel message, on the other hand, his sins will be retained, or held bound.
Concerning the preaching aspect, Protestant apologist Robert Zins writes, “It is apparent that the commission to evangelize is tightly woven into the commission to proclaim forgiveness of sin through faith in Jesus Christ.”[iii] Ron Rhodes maps out the parallel between sins being forgiven or retained and a person accepting or rejecting the gospel:
Only God can judicially forgive sins committed against him (Mark 2:7). All John 20:23 is saying is that when people respond positively to the gospel and accept it, we have the right to declare to them, “Your sins are forgiven,” based on the promise of Jesus. Likewise, when people respond negatively to the gospel and reject it, we have the right to declare to them, “Your sins are not forgiven,” based on the promise of Jesus. We are simply declaring or announcing heaven’s verdict regarding what will happen if people respond one way or the other in regard to Christ.[iv]
Now, there are several reasons why this alternative explanation is problematic. First, nowhere in the immediate context of John 20 does Jesus talk about the apostles going out to preach the gospel. It’s just not there!
Second, the wording itself doesn’t suggest an instruction to preach. The actions that Jesus’ ministers are to perform are forgiving and retaining: “if you forgive . . . if you retain.” Telling someone to forgive is not the same thing as telling someone to preach. When I tell my eight-year-old daughter to forgive her eleven-year-old brother for pushing her, I don’t mean, “Tell him that he what he did was wrong and that he needs to repent in order for God to forgive him.”
To suggest that forgiving sins (and retaining sins) means the same as preaching the gospel is to force the text to be taken in an unnatural sense. And since there is no evidence in the context to suggest otherwise, we’re justified in taking the language in its natural sense.
Third, if Jesus meant what the objection suggests (tell people their sins will be forgiven or retained by God depending on whether they accept or reject the gospel), then why does Jesus say the disciples are the ones that will be forgiving and retaining (“if you forgive . . . if you retain”)? Of course, God is ultimately the one who forgives and retains sins. But the apostles are the ones Jesus highlights as performing the action.
Fourth, the command to forgive and retain is something new, unlike the instruction to preach the gospel. Consider that Jesus sent out the apostles to preach the gospel years before when he first called them. Mark records:
And [Jesus] called to him the Twelve, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. . . . So they went out and preached that men should repent (6:7,12).
According to Rhodes’s and Zins’s interpretation above, the apostles would have been “forgiving and retaining” sins (people having their sins forgiven or retained depending on their response to the call to repentance) way before Jesus ever commissioned the apostles to forgive and retain sins in John 20:23.
But that’s unlikely because what Jesus commissions the apostles to do in John 20:22-23 is presented as something new. At no other time are we told that Jesus “breathed” on the apostles. Also, we’re never told Jesus communicated the Holy Spirit to the apostles before this moment. Nor did Jesus ever use the words, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Jesus already gave the apostles the role of preaching the forgiveness of sins. Here, Jesus is giving the apostles a role that they have not heretofore had: forgiving and retaining sins.
Finally, this objection fails to take into account the connection that Jesus makes between the mission that his Father sent him on and the mission he’s sending the apostles on. The Father didn’t send Jesus merely to preach the forgiveness of sins. He sent Jesus to actually forgive them. For example, Jesus didn’t tell the paralytic in Mark 2:5 about the forgiveness of sins; he told him, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Jesus makes it clear that he is sending his ministers on the same mission as the Father sent him on: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (John 20:21). And lest there be any ambiguity as to what that mission is, he tells them specifically that the mission involves forgiving and retaining sins.
Since Jesus’ mission involved not merely preaching the forgiveness of sins, but the actual forgiving of sins, and since Jesus is unequivocal about his apostles doing the same thing that his Father sent him to do, we can conclude that Jesus doesn’t intend that the apostles merely preach the forgiveness of sins, but that they actually forgive them.
This makes sense out of the command to forgive or retain. Like Jesus, the apostles are to judge whether to forgive or not to forgive. And since God doesn’t ordinarily give his ministers the gift to read souls, this further implies that the penitent would need to confess his sins and express contrition.
So, for the reasons given here, the counter that Jesus is only giving the disciples the instruction to preach the forgiveness of sins is unpersuasive.
Conclusion
Well, my friends, that does it for this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. You’re now ready to take on several challenges:
- that the early Christians were socialists,
- that it’s only Jesus’ resurrection that brings about our new birth and not baptism, and
- that Jesus’ instruction to forgive and retain sins simply meant for His disciples to preach the forgiveness of sins.
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I hope you have a blessed Divine Mercy Sunday.
[i] Baker, Exodus from Rome, Chap. 11.
[ii] B.M. Newman Jr., A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament, 46. See also A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 249.
[iii] Zins, Romanism, 100.
[iv] Rhodes, Reasoning from the Scriptures with Catholics, 223.