Home Recent Previous Series Phil's background Creation and science Miscellaneous Links Contact Phil

The Rock

Part 4

The keys of the kingdom

2nd December 2016

We've been looking at these words from Matthew's Gospel:

Matthew 16v13-18
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven." And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."

Now let's move on to the next verse, where Jesus told Peter:

Matthew 16v19
"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Like verse 18, this is a difficult saying to understand. Some people have a rather fanciful idea of Peter leaning on the gatepost at the entrance to heaven, wearing a pair of wings, letting people in and out of heaven. That's not what Jesus meant. Peter isn't a sentry at the pearly gates.

Keys are the things that give you access to something. When Jesus said, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven" He meant, "I'll give you the means by which people will be able to enter the kingdom of heaven". That, of course, is the gospel.

The good news about Jesus: that He's God come in the flesh; that He died for you; that His blood was shed on the cross to pay for your sins; that He rose from the dead; and that - as a result - you can be reconciled with Father, be filled with His Holy Spirit and live for eternity in His presence, are the keys to the kingdom of heaven. And Jesus told Peter, "I will give you the ability to preach this good news in such a way that people will accept and believe it."

He's given YOU the keys, too. All Christians have the God-given power to tell our friends about Jesus and see them born again into His glorious kingdom. But Peter was the first.

And then we get an even more difficult saying. Jesus said, "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." People have very strong views about what that means. I'm not sure I fully understand what it means, but here's my analysis:

In the previous verse, Matthew 16v18, Jesus said, "I will build my church". The word "church" occurs many times in Acts, many times in the letters, and many times in Revelation. But in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John it occurs just twice - once here and once two chapters later, in Matthew 18v15-18. Here's that passage:

Matthew 18v15-18
"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
"I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

You'll have noticed a second similarity between Matthew 16v13-19 and Matthew 18v15-18. In Matthew 16v19 Jesus says, "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven". And that phrase also only occurs twice - in the whole Bible - and, again, the only other occurrence is in Matthew 18v15-18.

Surely the fact that these two ideas - "the church", and "binding and loosing" - only occur in these two passages in all the gospels, is significant. The two ideas seem to be bound up together.

So Peter's God-given authority to bind and loose might be something to do with church discipline, deciding whether to exclude somebody from the church for refusing to repent of their sin. Or it might be about forgiveness, that to loose somebody is to forgive them, and to bind somebody is not to forgive them. Or it might be both, since the ideas are related.

And here's something else we learn by comparing these two passages. In Matthew 16:19 Jesus told Peter, "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven" and in Matthew 18v18 he told all the disciples the same thing. So it's not just Peter - it's all of us.

So all the three very significant things Jesus said about Peter - that he's the Rock, that he will be given the keys of the kingdom, and that he can bind and loose - are also true of us all. Peter was the first believer, and so was told all these wonderful things first, but they apply to every Christian.

Finally, this idea about binding and loosing concerns me a little. Who are we to decide what is bound and what is loosed? Heaven is not beholden to us; we are beholden to heaven. We can't do what heaven isn't doing. But I'm told that the Greek doesn't actually say, "will be bound" and "will be released"; it actually says, "will have been bound" and "will have been released" in heaven. That seems right to me. So this saying might mean, "We preach the gospel. Some people will be saved and some won't. The ones who are saved will be the ones heaven has decided will be saved."