Study & Discussion Guide

The Curtain Is Torn

A study on confession, absolution, and the torn curtain — must grave sins go through a priest to be forgiven, or straight to God? Weighing the claim against Scripture.

Companion to: the sermon The Curtain Is Torn Passages: John 20:19–23; Matthew 16:18–19 Format: one sitting

Every one of us is carrying something — a secret sin, a private compromise, a thing we've never fully said out loud. And we don't just want to be forgiven for it; something in us wants to say it, out loud, to someone, and hear back that it's really gone. That instinct isn't weakness — it's from God. So the question of this study is not whether to confess (the Bible could not be louder that we should), but to whom: when you finally kneel with that heavy thing in your hands, who has the authority to look at you and say, "it is forgiven, go free"? This guide is written in a clear spirit — attack the error, love the person, and check yourself last. We're not here to swing at anyone's grandmother who has knelt in a booth her whole life; we're here to measure a man-made wall against the Word, and say plainly where it doesn't belong.

The claim, stated fairly

Grave sins must be confessed to a priest, who — standing in the place of God — hears them, pronounces the absolution, and assigns a penance; without that channel a person cannot be sure they are forgiven. It's anchored in the words of Jesus himself: John 20:23 (“if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven”) and the “keys” given to Peter in Matthew 16:18–19. These aren't held by foolish people — they're held by sincere, God-hungry people reaching for something real: the assurance that the weight is actually gone.

What the text actually says

John 20:23 is a sending, not the install of a caste. Look at the room: not ordained clergy, but the frightened, ordinary, gathered disciples — the seed of the whole church. And look at what Jesus says right before he hands them this authority: “As the Father has sent me, I also am sending you” (John 20:21), then he breathes the Spirit on them. This is a commission of his whole sent people, and the one tool they're given to “forgive or retain” sins is the gospel. When the church proclaims the good news and a person receives it, their sins are truly forgiven; when a person refuses it, their sins are retained. The church doesn't generate forgiveness — it announces it, carrying a pardon the King already signed in his own blood.
The same authority is given to ordinary believers. Two chapters earlier, over an everyday conflict between two or three believers, Jesus says the identical thing — “whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven…” (Matthew 18:18). So whatever John 20 means, it can't be a private priestly power ordinary believers don't share, because Jesus already gave them the same words.
The “keys” are the gospel — and watch how Peter uses them. Whether the “rock” is Peter or Peter's confession (honest people divide, and it doesn't change the point), a key opens a door — the authority to open the kingdom to people by announcing the way in. Want to see Peter use the keys? At Pentecost he doesn't set up a confession line; he preaches: “Repent, and let each one of you be baptized… for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38) — and the door swings open for three thousand at once. The keys open the door for everyone; they don't lock mercy in a booth.
After the cross, every believer is a priest. This is the hinge. Under the old covenant a priest went behind the temple curtain because ordinary people couldn't. But the New Testament, after the resurrection, calls Christians “a holy priesthood… a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5, 1 Peter 2:9) — you are the priesthood now. And it never once lays the word “priest” on a Christian pastor or elder as a separate office standing between you and God. The middle office the claim depends on is simply not in the book.
God tore the curtain from his side. At the moment Jesus died, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Matthew 27:51) — the ancient barrier no ordinary person could pass, ripped open from God's end, not ours. Hebrews says Jesus opened “a new and living way… through the veil, that is, through his flesh” (Hebrews 10:19–22). To require a priest-channel is to try to sew shut the curtain Jesus tore with his own body.
One mediator — one seat, and it's filled. “There is one God, and one mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Not one plus a network of required human mediators. One.

Handle with care — the answer is not “confession is bad”

Don't let the group swing to the opposite error and conclude they should never say their sins to another living soul. The longing to confess out loud is holy, and the people in the booth are reaching for something real. And here's the beautiful part: as the sent people of God, the church really does get to look a repentant, believing brother in the eyes and announce heaven's verdict — “in Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven.” A pastor can say it, a friend can say it, a spouse can say it. That's not inventing forgiveness; it's declaring it, and it heals. The only thing being torn down is the wall — the idea that forgiveness must run through one specific human caste or it doesn't count. Aim people at the God the text is actually about, not at a man in the middle, and not at their own bottled-up silence.

Dig into the Word — how the Bible actually aims confession

Three directions, and there's no wall in any of them:

Up — straight to God. 1 John 1:9 (“if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous… to forgive” — no middle man in the sentence); Psalm 32:5 and Psalm 51:4 (David, straight to God); the tax collector who went home justified after seven words to heaven (Luke 18:13–14); the prodigal pouring it out on his father's chest (Luke 15:21). Even Jesus' enemies admitted it: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7). God says it himself: “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions” (Isaiah 43:25).
Sideways — to one another. James 5:16 — “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” Mutual, reciprocal, level ground at the foot of the same cross — not a one-way line to a man who never confesses back.
Boldly — to the throne. Hebrews 4:16 — “approach the throne of grace with boldness.” Not creep up, not send a representative — approach it yourself, head up, by the blood of Jesus (Hebrews 10:19–22).

Discussion

Be honest: is there a “heavy thing” you've never said out loud to anyone? What has made it hard to know who you're even allowed to tell?
Read John 20:19–23 together. Who is actually in the room, and what does Jesus say right before verse 23? How does “as the Father has sent me, I am sending you” change what “forgive… retain” most likely means?
Peter “uses the keys” by preaching in Acts 2:38, and 3,000 walk through the door. How is that different from a private channel one person controls? What does it tell us the keys are for?
The New Testament calls every believer a priest (1 Peter 2:5, 9) and never calls a pastor one. Why does that single fact matter so much to this whole question?
Picture the curtain tearing “from top to bottom” — from God's side (Matthew 27:51). What is God saying by tearing it? Where in your life have you been living as if the way to him were narrower than the cross made it?
James 5:16 says confess to one another. What would it look like, this week, to actually obey that — safely and wisely — without turning it into a wall of your own?

Live it out this week

Come straight to God — now. Don't wait for an appointment or a booth. Take the heaviest thing you're carrying directly to the throne today, trusting the promise: he is faithful and righteous to forgive (1 John 1:9).
Then say it to a brother or sister too. Find one trusted, mature believer and confess it out loud to a human being as well, and let them pray you into the healing James promised (James 5:16). Both — up to God, and out to a brother.
Announce the pardon over someone. This week, look a repentant fellow believer in the eyes and remind them of heaven's verdict: “In Jesus, you are forgiven.” You're not brokering grace — you're carrying the pardon the King already signed.

“…the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.”Matthew 27:51