Keys to the Kingdom

[Richard King]

I always laughed at the audacity of the Pope claiming to hold the keys to the Kingdom.

Then I read this in the WCF:

CHAP. XXX. - Of Church Censures.

1. The Lord Jesus, as King and Head of His Church, hath therein appointed a government, in the hand of Church officers, distinct from the civil magistrate.

2. To these officers the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed; by virtue whereof, they have power, respectively, to retain, and remit sins; to shut that kingdom against the impenitent, both by the Word, and censures; and to open it unto penitent sinners, by the ministry of the Gospel; and by absolution from censures, as occasion shall require.


Educate me: How can mere humans have the power to shut or open the kingdom when we agree you cannot even save yourself?

 

[Scott]

A principal means is through the preaching of the Word. The Word enlightens men's hearts. The failure to preach keeps them out of the kingdom. See Luke 11:52, for example.

Another means is through church discipline (censure, excommunication, and the like). Consider John 20:21-23, one of the proof texts for the passage you cited:

Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." 22And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

See also Matt. 16:19; Matt. 18:17, 18. Anyway, the apostles are given this power. We see this power exercised elsewhere by the church in excommunication and the like. See, e.g., 1 Cor. 5:4-5.

So essentially, men can exercise this authority because God has delegated it to them. Now, this does not effect an ontological change in the person, but it is indicative of the authority of the church to make pronouncements.

 

[Scott]

BTW you see these ideas embodied in historial Reformed forms of excommunication.

This was used in French Reformed churches and was agreed on at the Synod of Alais in 1620:

We Ministers of the Word of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom God has given power on earth to bind and to loose . . . do cut off "œN" and hereby aforesaid from the Communion of the Church, do excommunicate him, and do cast him out from the Society of the Faithful, that he may be to you as a "˜heathen man and a publican,´ and that among true believers he may be Anathema and a Curse . . . . Which sentence of excommunication the Son of God will ratify and make efficacious to him, until the sinner, confounded and abased before God, glorifies Him by his conversion, and freed from the bonds of Satan, mourns over his sin with tears of penitence. Beloved Brethren, pray God that He may have mercy on this poor sinner, and that this fearful judgment which with regret and great sadness of heart we by the authority of God´s Son pronounce against him, may serve to humble him, and bring him back to the Way of Salvation, a soul that has wandered from it. Amen.

The Scottish form (1571) from the Book of Common Order reads:

We farther give over into the hands and power of the devil the said N., to the destruction of the flesh . . . . And his sin (albeit with sorrow of heart) by virtue of our Ministry we bind and pronounce the same to be bound in heaven and earth. . . .Thy Church from which this day (with grief and dolour of our hearts he is ejected.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Scott

 

[WrittenFromUtopia]

Matt 16:18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

 

[gwine]

My pastor says that "shall be bound" is better translated "shall have been bound", indicating a future action already determined in advance by God.

Thoughts?