Jesus’ words about the keys of the Kingdom have had an enormous influence upon the entire history of the Christian Church. In a real sense Christendom today is divided into two major branches—Romanism and Protestantism—by divergent interpretations of Matthew 16:18, 19: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.… And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Views of this Passage

The extravagant claims of the Roman Catholic church are based ultimately upon these two verses, and without them the whole dubious structure of Rome crumbles to dust. According to that view, Peter is said to be the personal possessor of the keys whereby men gain or are refused access to heaven. This has been taught so assiduously and for so long that even we ourselves sometimes refer to heaven as a place guarded by pearly gates, with Peter as the gatekeeper carrying the keys in his hands. This is a distinctly Roman Catholic picture. Moreover, the Roman church insists that this divine prerogative of Heavenly Gatekeeper has been transmitted to all those whom they call the “successors of Peter”—the bishops of Rome, the popes.

All of this we roundly reject, “for there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). However much our Lord may have loved and honored the big fisherman, Simon Peter, Jesus certainly did not abdicate his own prerogatives as only mediator and assign them to another.

What then may a conscientious Protestant make of these verses which have been so troublesome within the family of Christians? For one thing, Protestants are in general agreement that these words were not intended for Peter alone. Rather, Peter was the spokesman for the whole group of disciples, and Jesus answered the whole group through him. When Jesus asked the disciples, “Whom say ye that I am?” (Matt. 16:15), it was Peter who spoke in answer, but he spoke for the whole group: “We believe you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus’ response to this, though addressed to Peter, was directed to the whole company who believed as Peter did. The keys of the Kingdom were delivered into the hands of the whole band of disciples. Whatever they bound on earth would be bound in heaven, and whatever they loosed on earth would be loosed in heaven.

Not only so, but what Jesus said to Peter and the other disciples, he also says to you and to me: “Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

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What did Jesus mean when he committed to you and to me the keys of the Kingdom? There is some difference of opinion among Protestants. One popular and rather modern interpretation makes much of the fact that certain rabbis in Jesus’ day sometimes used the words “binding” and ‘loosing” in the sense of “forbidding” and “permitting.” Thus, it is assumed, what Jesus was saying to his disciples in essence was this: “I now bestow upon you the authority of officially forbidding or permitting what men shall believe and practice in the church.” These interpreters tell us that Jesus is talking here about the ecclesiastical prerogatives of church leaders in deciding matters of faith and life (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 7, loc. cit.; The Abingdon Bible Commentary, loc. cit.; The Moffatt New Testament Commentary; and others).

This popular and recent interpretation, however, seems strangely blind to the fact that what Jesus really said was, “Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Surely God in his heaven is not bound by the decisions of church courts, or of ministers, or of church leaders.

Far sounder is the classical Reformed view, enunciated four centuries ago by John Calvin, and expressed more recently and in popular form by Elton Trueblood in The Yoke of Christ (Harper, 1958). According to Calvin and the bulk of the Reformed tradition, the “keys of the kingdom” do not refer to special prerogatives at all. They refer instead to special responsibility. Our Lord has not abandoned his own prerogatives and given them over to Peter, or to you and me, or to the highest courts of the church. Jesus is not speaking here of ministerial prerogative, but of Christian responsibility.

The awesome responsibility of loosing the chains that bind all mankind has been committed into our hands—your hands and mine. Whatever, by God’s grace, we are enabled to loose on this earth, will be set free forevermore. And whatever, by our own indolence and selfishness and coldness of heart, we never get around to unloosing, shall never be loosed—either in this life or the next, either in time or eternity.

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Classical Reformed View

What is this key, committed into our hands, that unlocks the chains which bind men? It is none other than the Good News about Jesus. In all the history of man, no other key has ever been able to unshackle the chains that bind men in their ignorance, sin, and despair.

Let the Bible speak for itself. In the passage before us, Jesus turned to the disciples and said, “Whom do you say that I am?” They answered, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Note well that answer, for it is the turning point of the whole passage. Everything else that Jesus says here is based upon it.

In reply to that Great Confession—“thou art the Christ the Son of the living God”—Jesus said three things. First, he said, “On the rock of this kind of a profession I am going to build my church. Not on the rock of any man or organization or material power … but on the rock of the profession ‘Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God’ I will build my Church. And nothing in all creation, not even the defenses of hell itself, will be able to stand up against it.”

The second thing that Jesus said, in response to the disciples’ Great Confession, was this: “Into your hands who make such a profession, I commit the testimony to what you have affirmed—the testimony which has power to bind and to loose, both here and hereafter, both now and forevermore. The keys of the kingdom I place in your hands.”

The third thing that Jesus said in response to their Great Confession was, “Now I can begin to show you that the Son of Man must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.” He began to explain to them what it would cost him to provide this deliverance.

The key, then, which opens the Kingdom to men, and which has been placed in our hands, is composed of two parts: a testimony of who Jesus is—“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”—and a telling of what he has done for us in his suffering, death, and resurrection. This is the key placed in our hands, the key which unlocks the chains that bind.

The King has come! He has done battle with the enemy, and has won! The New Age has begun. Jesus now reigns, whether men acknowledge that reign or not. This is the testimony that liberates men from the chains that bind. This is the testimony that reconciles man to God, and man with man. This is the testimony that saves. All over the world today, blighted hearts and darkened minds are being lighted with faith and hope and truth through this simple testimony of who Jesus is and what God has done in him. This is the Good News! It is the key to the kingdom of Heaven.

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Moreover, this key is the only key. There is no way of salvation other than telling and hearing what God has done for us in Jesus. There is no other way, no other key.

A heathen’s sincerity in the practice of his pagan religion is no alternative justification before God. A pagan’s faithful performance of the best that he knows is no substitute key to the Kingdom. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me” (John 14:6). As the Apostle Peter put it, “Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

The Gospel of what God has done in Jesus is the only key into the kingdom of God’s love and peace and presence. This key has been delivered into your hands and mine. Whatever we leave bound on this earth by not applying this key, will remain bound in heaven. Whatever is loosed by this key that is in our hand, will be loosed both by time and for eternity.

The Missionary Imperative

The application should be plain. You and I are under a missionary imperative, every one of us, to go into all the world and make known the Good News to every creature. This ought to be plain enough from the Great Commission.

Somehow there has grown up a way of thinking among us that cuts the nerve of the missionary imperative. Somehow men do not seem as sure as once they were that the eternal destiny of countless souls rests squarely upon you and me, in our faithful telling of what God has done for us in Jesus. Somehow we do not seem to be shaken any more by the awesome imperative that whatsoever we bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatsoever we loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Somehow we seem no longer moved by familiar lines that we often sing:

Behold how many thousands still are lying

Bound in the darksome prison house of sin,

With none to tell them of the Saviour’s dying,

Or of the life he died for them to win.

Perhaps we have heard so often of the love of God—the great and gracious love of God—that we find it strangely difficult to think of thousands of men and women perishing because someone has never told them what God has done for them in Jesus. But they are perishing! Look about the world and see. The marks of their perishing are plain for all to see—they are written on the front pages of our newspapers. Moreover, they will continue to perish until you and I, and the whole Christian Church rise up and tell in every place what great things God has done for them.

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Where did the notion come from that there is some kind of “second chance”? Where did we find the idea that the pagan is judged differently than we, on the basis of his pagan sincerity? Certainly we did not find this in the Bible. On the contrary, it is a product of freelance sentimental thinking, dreamed up, it may well be, in order to salve our restless consciences in the face of our unwillingness to yield to the imperative of the Great Commission which lies upon every one of us.

Yet, what about the love of God? Can God really love these who have never heard, if he allows them to perish in their ignorance? Yes God loves them! He loves them enough to send his only begotten Son into the world to die for them. Indeed, our Lord has called you and me to be Christians, not because he loves us more than he loves them. He has called you and me precisely because he loves them, in order that we might carry to them the Good News of what God has done for them. He has not called us as his pets to special privilege. He has called us to special service, as his messengers.

The missionary imperative is not a select and highly specialized calling that rests only on a few. The missionary imperative rests equally upon every man, woman, and young person whom Christ has redeemed. Robert E. Speer, the great missionary statesman, has written a remarkable pamphlet titled, “What Constitutes a Missionary Call?” While the pamphlet runs to some thirty pages, this is the substance of it: We all stand under the missionary imperative—the Great Commission. “Go ye,” Jesus said. “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). This was spoken to the entire band of disciples, both then and now. We are all called, every Christian among us. We need no strange and special revelation in order to fall under this general Christian responsibility. On the contrary, we need a special revelation to show that we are exempt from the claims of the Great Commission. It is not a special justification to go that we need—we have our Commission. We need a special justification if we do not go—one which we can present to the Saviour when we meet him face to face.

Every one among us is called to missions—specifically and personally. The call of God is upon us! Who will obey? The trumpet call of the Kingdom has sounded! Who will rally to the King’s service?

He comes again: O Zion, ere thou meet him,

Make known to every heart his saving grace;

Let none whom he hath ransomed fail to greet him,

Through thy neglect, unfit to see his face.

Publish glad tidings, tidings of peace,

Tidings of Jesus, redemption and release.

Central Presbyterian Church

Bristol, Virginia

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