Forgiving and Retaining Sins

Related Bible passages

• John 20:22-23

Related ideas

The Sin Against The Holy Spirit

He said: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” If you forgive the sins of anyone they are forgiven, and if you retain the sins of anyone they are retained.” He breathes upon them and gives them the Holy Spirit. (The words, “breath,” “wind,” and “spirit,” are one, the same word, both in Greek and Hebrew.) So he breathes upon them. I will tell you what it is. It is the most intense vibration you have ever felt. There is nothing comparable to it, that breath which transfers to you the gift God promised, the gift of the Holy Spirit. It awakens you. It took place in the “upper room.” If you read it correctly, they were gathered together in the upper room. Suddenly he appears and breathes upon them and gives them the power to hold, or release. I tell you: you can exercise this faculty right now. You can take someone in your world and represent them to yourself as you would like to see them. To the degree you are self-persuaded he is such a being, he becomes it. You are actually freeing him, and not holding him enslaved forever by seeing in your mind’s eye the being that is limited. That is your privilege.

The power to forgive or retain sins, granted by the Holy Spirit, is the power of imagination. To 'forgive' a sin (missing the mark) is to imaginatively see a person as they *should* be, thereby releasing them from their undesirable state. To 'retain' a sin is to continue to see them in their limited, undesirable state, thus holding them captive.

Read The Sin Against The Holy Spirit on MyNevilleGoddard.com