Many Christians today have isolated the New Testament from the Old Testament. This heresy, called Marcionism, divided the Old Testament from the New Testament because the God of the New Testament was so much different than the Old.
This heresy, which was taught around 144 AD, is alive and well today. Many Christian scholars read the New Testament without understanding the Old and in so doing, come up with teachings that are either absurd on one side or hollow on the other side.
Pentecost and Confirmation are such teachings. Many Christians are so Christocentric that they forget the Holy Spirit Who comes to do three things. First – and most important – Jesus sends his Spirit to renew the Covenant.
Christianity is a covenantal religion in which God physically and spiritually, through His Son, exchanges His love for us. In so doing, He makes us new, giving us a new heart — a new life. Jeremiah reveals this new covenant when He writes. “See, days are coming—oracle of the LORD—when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah” (Jer 33:14). In this new covenant, God will “place his law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer 33:15).
The second teaching is the power to forgive sins. Jesus tells his Apostles explicitly:
“Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, whose sins you retain are retained” (John 20:19).
This gift to forgive sins is given to the apostles and their successors. Sadly, many deny this claim and worse do not want to confess their sins, that is expose sinful behavior to Jesus. Yet this is exactly what heals us.
Every self-help group today demands that individuals who are struggling with something need to expose it. They need to talk about it and reveal it in order to be healed of it. So too with the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we expose our woundedness and brokenness asking for healing from our sins so we may find peace in our hearts.
The power to forgive sins comes from the Holy Spirit and is given to those ordained to hear and heal sin. Priests act as a conduit of the Spirit to renew the heart of the sinner for He acts in the person of Christ.
Finally, the Spirit teaches us all truth and
“When he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth” (Jn 16:13).
Plus,
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you” (Jn 14:15).
We pray that the Holy Spirit fills the hearts of each Christian to live in the New Covenant in which we love freely as Jesus loved us. In this love, Jesus restores us by his priestly power to forgive sins, and teaches us to be faithful, living in his Spirit.