NOTES for Mat 18:18

The Lord Jesus Christ tells this to His disciples the first time in Matthew 16:19. The Church in the person of Apostle Peter, who then just confessed Christ as the Son of the Living God, is given there what belongs only to God: the power to forgive people’s sins. The Lord Jesus gives here again to His disciples – the first Christian community – the power to forgive sins, and emphasizes that forgiveness given by the Church is been fulfilled not only on earth, but also in heaven, that is in eternity.

It’s understandable and logical, when things done by the Lord in heaven reflect in people’s earthly life. But here we can see that the Lord wanted to establish a different relationship in the Church: what the Church accomplishes here extends till heaven. The church delivers to people the divine forgiveness and then the sin, confessed in the church’s sacrament of penance is forgiven, and exists no more.

Usually we think that the Lord speaks about power as a right or ability, a power to give forgiveness. But he speaks of an entirely different nature of power in the Kingdom of Heaven. Rather, His words must be understood as that He entrusts the church a service, which the essence is to impart His forgiveness. This is the purport of the existence of the Church and its sacraments, because Christ Himself gives forgiveness through the apostles’ hands.

There is again a very important meaning of these words: terrestrial time of our lives is priceless, we can build relationships with people only here, while we still have time. Whilst we live on earth, we can try to rectify something, to forgive and to open our heart to those who have offended us, to ask for forgiveness ourselves to those we have offended too. Therewith we will die with the spiritual “assets” we have accumulated. Well, if we die with unforgiveness in our hearts, how can we find ourselves in the Kingdom of forgiveness and love?