John 20:23

Ver. 23. The new work which is intrusted to them is here displayed in all its greatness; the matter in question is nothing less than giving or refusing salvation to every human being; to open and close heaven this is their task. The old covenant had a provisional pardon and a revocable rejection. With the coming of the Holy Spirit, the world enters into the domain of unchangeable realities. This power of pardoning sins (Matthew 9:6) or of retaining them (John 9:41; John 15:22; John 15:24), which the Son of man had exercised, will be theirs for the future by virtue of His Spirit who will accompany them.

The expressions which Jesus employs indicate more than an offer of pardon or a threatening of condemnation, more even than a declaration of salvation or of perdition by means of the preaching of the Gospel. Jesus speaks of a word which is accompanied by efficacy, either for taking away the guilt from the guilty or for binding it eternally to his person. He who is truly the organ of the Spirit (John 20:21) does not merely say: “Thou art saved” he saves by his word or “Thou art condemned” he really condemns, and this because, at the moment when he pronounces these words by means of the Spirit, God ratifies them. The present ἀφίενται (literally, are pardoned) indicates a present effect; God pardons these sins at the very moment. The perfect ἀφέωνται, which some Mjj. read, would signify: “are and remain pardoned.” This perfect was probably introduced for the sake of the symmetry of the clause with the following (κεκράτηνται). The copyists did not understand that in the first there is a question of a present momentary fact, the passage from the state of condemnation to the state of grace, while the second relates to a state which continues, the condemnation established forever.

The order of the two propositions indicates that the first of the two results is the true aim of the mission, and that the second does not come to its realization except in the cases where the first has failed.

It does not seem to me that anything gives us the right to see here a special power conferred on the apostles as such. The question is not of right, but of force. It is the πνεῦμα which is its principle. I do not see any reason, therefore, to apply this prerogative to the apostles alone, as Keil would have it. The disciples of John 20:18-19 are certainly all believers taken together; the two from Emmaus were present, and many others, not apostles, with them, according to Luke 24:33. And why should the gift of the Spirit be restricted to the apostles? They certainly have a special authority. But the forces of the Spirit are common to all believers. Weiss supposes that the prerogative here conferred by Jesus is no other than that of distinguishing between venial sins and mortal sins (1Jn 5:16). But this application is much too special and foreign to the context. Besides, the similar promise made to Peter, Matthew 16:19, had already been extended, in a certain measure, to the whole Church, Matthew 18:18.