🔰GOD IS NOT THE ONLY ONE ABLE TO FORGIVE SINS🔰

“Jesus actually begins his public ministry with the famous story of the healing of the paralytic in which he tells this man, who’s paralyzed, ‘My son, your sins are forgiven.’

“And when he says that the scribes and the Pharisees react by saying, ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ Right?

“Now, although Jesus doesn’t say, ‘I am God,’ he’s making an implicit claim to divinity by doing something in a Jewish context only God can do, namely, forgive sins, and his Jewish contemporaries get it—like they, the scribes, recognize it because they say, ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’”

—Brant Pitre, Pints With Aquinas YouTube

This one of the most forced and most dishonest arguments, which Pauline apologists make about Jesus’ so-called divinity. It’s predicated on beliefs about Pharisaic Jews, which are simply false.

The only one who can forgive a sin is the one who was hurt — outside of the laws between man and God enforced by Orthodox Pharisaic Judaism.

For Biblical sins between man and God, the Hebrew Bible has several mechanisms, which empower the sinner to obtain forgiveness—two types of sin offerings for unintentional sins, sincere repentance, and Yom Kippur.

The phrase “only God can forgive sins” is predicated on a misrepresentation of Orthodox Pharisaic Judaism—on a false and fictional “Hollow Man” caricature based on sheer ignorance and absolute fantasy.

It’s bizarre to see apologists appeal to what they THINK Pharisees believed — but didn’t — instead of what Pharisee Jews actually believed, preached, and practiced, such as:

“Transgressions between a person and his fellow — Yom Kippur does not atone until he appeases his fellow”

—Mishnah Yoma 8:9

“Sins between a person and his fellow — such as one who injures his fellow, or curses him, or steals from him, or the like — are not forgiven until he gives his fellow what he owes him and appeases him. Even if he pays him what he owes, he is not forgiven until he appeases him”

—Hilchos Teshuvah 2:9

According to the actual beliefs of Orthodox Pharisaic Judaism, God doesn’t forgive if one doesn’t try to amend the harm when sin involves the violation of other people and their rights.

In either event, the individual is the one in control of their forgiveness — something supported by Jesus when he is alleged to have taught, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6.14-15).

When it comes to forgiveness, the reason Toxic Christians will appeal to Jesus is to go around the people who were hurt, to dismiss them, ignore their pain, reframe the situation in order to vilify their concerns, and paint them — the victims — out to be the villains for not forgiving.

The reason people try to use Jesus to carry out DARVO, to Deny, Attack, & Reverse the Victim and Offender, is because they are EVIL, and they are committed to committing evil.

Using Jesus to bypass other people’s choices, decision, autonomy, and lives experiences is EVIL in a way that makes them exceptional from other human beings—their evil is not something that makes them merely human.

If forgiveness rests solely with a Higher Power — not the victim — EVIL abusers can claim they're already forgiven — then accuse victims of defying God for refusing to move on.

The person harmed holds the power to forgive — not God and not Jesus.

Full video from Pints with Aquinas here:

https://youtu.be/rmkrADGoBz4?si=AlOoD8m9rfNsROds