In this engaging clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Catholic apologist Trent Horn to discuss the importance of obedience in the presence of God. As they explore a listener’s journey from a Baptist background to considering Catholicism, Trent addresses misconceptions about the sacrament of confession and the authority of priests, shedding light on the transformative power of God’s grace.
Transcript:
Caller: The reason I’m not Catholic is because of the disagreement regarding confession to a priest. Basically, in Matthew 9:6, when they’re talking about the cripple, Jesus says, “Which is easier to say, ‘Get up and walk’ or to show the authority that I have to impart absolution over sins, to heal, to do all that?”
And I believe that. I have faith. I’m a Christian. I believe that Jesus has that power.
Trent: Okay, so your concern is that in Matthew 9 and in the Companion Synoptic Account in Mark 2, Jesus talks about how the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Only God can forgive sins, much the same way that only God can. I don’t know what you believe about baptism. Do you believe it? You probably. I’m sure you believe it’s an ordinance, like all Protestants do. I don’t know. Do you believe that it regenerates us? I do.
Caller: I’m actually an ordained minister. I believe that quite. When Christ sets an example with John the Baptist in the river, that’s something we should follow.
Laughter.
Trent: Okay, but I wouldn’t even if you didn’t believe this, you could at least appreciate it. So it sounds like—make sure I heard you right—that you believe baptism causes spiritual regeneration in a person.
Caller: Absolutely.
Trent: Okay, great. So if baptism takes away original sin, only God can take away original sin. But you can’t baptize yourself, which is interesting that you have to go to someone else to be baptized. You can’t. I’ve never actually really met any Protestants or any Christians who believe in auto-baptism.
So here, of course, it’s not the minister of baptism who takes away sin. God works through that person, specifically through the water and the nature of the sacrament to do that. And actually, what Catholics teach is that the sacrament of baptism is valid if anybody does it with the correct intention of the Church.
Now, when it comes to confessing sins, as a Catholic, we would say, well, that’s not something that was reserved to everybody. We would look at scripture passages like John 20:23, where Jesus breathes on the apostles and says to them, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven; whose sins you retain are retained.”
But we can talk about scripture verses however much you like. But a question I might ask you, Jonathan, is this: Does the New Testament ever say to us as a prescription for believers, “Confess your sins to God”?
Caller: Well, I mean, I would think of like maybe 1 John 1:9.
Trent: Stuff like that. But, yeah, and stuff like that. But never. I mean, I mean, precisely.
: Well, here’s what’s interesting about that. The only places where the Bible talks unambiguously about confessing our sins is in James, chapter five. And that’s actually to other people. It’s in the context. Fascinating that you have the presbyters. And the word “priest” comes from the Greek word “presbyteros.” It’s a contraction of it. So the elders.
: But these aren’t just older men who have wisdom in the community. They have a sacramental purpose that if someone is sick, in James 5:14, James says, “Call for the elders of the church, let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick man. The Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”
: So what’s amazing here is it’s not promising physical healing because we do the anointing of the sick today, and people still die. It’s usually reserved for people who are dying. So the salvation that comes here, saving the sick man, is that the Lord will raise him up, he’ll have eternal life, his sins will be forgiven through the actions of the presbyteros, anointing him with oil.
: Then it goes on to say, within this context, “Confess your sins to one another.” And I don’t think that’s just a general prescription of, “Hey, tell your best bud what you did wrong so you won’t do wrong again.” Rather, what makes more sense is this is in the context of the elders of the church, the priests, and how they affect our salvation through the reception of sacramental grace.
: Now in 1 John 1:9, in fact, I will send you—Jonathan, I wrote a whole book on Catholicism, and I had a whole section I wrote on 1 John 1:9. But this actually is not talking about confessing sins to God. It’s talking about how we confess sin. We confess, make a confession to other people.
: So in 1 John 1:8, you know, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. That’s like if I tell Cy or other people, I’m sinless. And in verse 10, it says, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar.”
: So the word here, I think it’s “homologeo” or “exomologeo,” is the Greek word. It’s used almost every single time in the New Testament, except in one case, it’s used to talk about making a confession before other people.
: So I think that just as—so to summarize and get your thoughts—just as God gave us ministers to receive the sacrament of baptism, we don’t baptize ourselves. God gave us priests to stand in the presence of Christ, to be another Christ, to continue the apostles’ call. Their responsibility to go and forgive sins is what we see in John 20:23.
: I dropped a lot on you. I never mean to do that. What do you think of that?
Caller: I love your approach. That’s why I was calling into this show, actually. My wife was raised Catholic, and I was raised Protestant, and we’re coming to a point where we have a two-year-old and a four-year-old.
Trent: You do? I have. Are they boys or girls?
Caller: Two boys.
Trent: Two boys, yes. I have a four-year-old boy and a two-year-old boy. They’re the best of friends until they’re at each other’s throats, you know they are.
Caller: And the two-year-old, the four-year-old, the two-year-old starts. Seems to start it. And the four-year-old doesn’t deal.
Trent: Well, he does. He does. People always want to take my two-year-old still. He’s got—this is my fault genetically—he’s got a big horn head. So he still looks like a little baby. So everybody wants to give him—everyone wants to say, “Oh, you know, let Thomas have that.” I’m like, “Hey, wait a minute, Thomas started this stuff here.”