Matthew 16:19 and the meaning of "keys," "binding," and "loosing"

The following is a response to Dave Bartosiewicz in this video on the meaning of the terms “keys,” "binding," and "loosing" in Matt 16:19.

Firstly, Dave Bartosiewicz states that he will be getting out of his "ministry" to focus on other things. Considering how much of a beating he has received from me and other LDS apologists (e.g., click here), I don't blame him.

Secondly, Bartosiewicz states that, for Evangelicals, the "rock" of Matt 16:18 is Christ. While some do hold to that view, many Protestants in the modern era actually reject that interpretation, instead arguing that the "rock" is Peter and/or his confession of faith, such as D.A. Carson and Chrys C. Caragounis. In fact, a Petrine interpretation fits better due to the wordplay between πετρος and πετρα in the verse (σὺ εἶ Πέτρος, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ ["you are Petros and upon this petra"]). While much could be said on this issue, Kevin L. Barney wrote the following which is rather a propos within an LDS context:

The question is, does "this rock" refer to Peter, and if not, to what does it refer?  . . . most modern commentators are of the view that it [refers to Peter]. LDS generally follow Joseph Smith in seeing "this rock" as referring to "revelation"; but note that either interpretation works well from an LDS perspective. If the referent were Peter, as preeminent among the apostles, then the thought is essentially the same as Eph 2:20, where the foundation is taken as the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Cf. also Rev. 21:14. Therefore, the sectarian debate on this point between Catholics and some conservative Protestants need not concern LDS.

Fourth, Bartosiewicz then proceeds to offer the “popular level” understanding of Matt 16:19:

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. (NRSV)

The argument is basically that the keys are nothing to do with authority, but merely a symbolic way of speaking of how the Gospel would be opened up to the Gentiles, not just the Jews. However, this ignores the meaning of “binding” and “loosing” when this took place and when Matthew wrote his gospel. In a scholarly commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, we read the following from two Protestants:

19. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Cf. Isa 22.22; 1.18 and 3.7 (Jesus has the keys of Death and Hades as well as the key of David); 3 Bar. 11.2 (the angel Michael is the ‘holder of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven’); 3 En. 18.18 (‘Anapi’el YHH the prince keeps the keys of the palaces of the heaven of Arabot); 48 C 3 (Metatron has the keys to the treasure chamber of heaven). Heaven was conceived of as having gates or doors . . . . and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. C. 18.18 and Jn 20.23. Peter is the authoritative teacher without peer. He has the power to declare what is permitted and what is not permitted. Cf. 23.13: ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut people out of the kingdom. For you do not go in nor allow those who want to go in to do so’. Here, as the context proves, the scribes shut the door to the kingdom by issuing false doctrine. The image is closely related to 16.19, and the inference lies near to hand that just as the kingdom itself is taken from the Jewish leaders and given to the church (21.43), so are the keys of the kingdom taken from the scribes and Pharisees and given to Peter. Supportive of this is the broader context of Peter’s confession. In the immediately preceding 16.5-12 Jesus warns: ‘Beware of the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees.’ Matthew takes this to be about the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. It would make good sense for the evangelist, in the very next paragraph, to tell a story in which Jesus replaces the Jewish academy with his own ‘chief rabbi’. (W.D. Davis and Dale C. Allison, Matthew: A Shorter Commentary [London: T&T Clark International, 2004], 270-71)

Oscar Cullmann, another Protestant, wrote the following about “binding” and “loosing”:

What do the expressions “bind” and “loose” signify? According to Rabbinical usage two explanations are equally possible: “prohibit” and “permit,” that is, “establish rules” or “put under the ban” and “acquit.” (Peter: Disciple, Apostle, Martyr [Westminster, 1953], 204-5)

Jesus is establishing a teaching authority that would authoritatively comment on doctrines in this passage. Such is consistent with LDS theology, but not Bartosiewicz due to his sub-biblical ecclesiology.

Craig S. Keener, another Protestant, wrote:

That authority is exercised in binding and losing, which were technical terms for the pronouncement of rabbis on what was and was not permitted (to bind was to forbid, to loose to permit). This verse therefore probably refers primarily to a legislative authority in the church. (IVP Bible Background Commentary New Testament [Downers’ Grove, Illin.: Intervarsity Press, 1993], 90)

To quote another non-LDS scholar in a scholarly bible dictionary:

Binding and Loosing The Hebrew phrase for “restricting” and “permitting,” with respect to interpretation of the Torah.

Historical Usage

By Jesus’ time, the language of binding and loosing was commonly used to signify restricting or permitting a given action according to the Torah. Ancient rabbinic texts speak of binding (forbidding) certain wedding practices or Greek lessons for a child (m. Sotah 9:14) and of loosing (allowing) someone to drink broth even if the person had made a vow to abstain from meat (m. Nedarim 6:5–7).

In explaining the close ties between Queen Alexandra and the Pharisees during the first century bc, Josephus writes that the Pharisees “bound and loosed [men] at their pleasure” with their virtual royal authority (Jewish War 1.5.2). While Josephus may mean that the Pharisees “bound and loosed [men]” from prison rather than from Torah observance, the Pharisees also manipulated the populace by binding and loosing commands (Bivin, New Light, 98–99).

Biblical Relevance

Jesus mentions binding and loosing twice in the book of Matthew—each time giving his disciples the authority to do these things.

In the first instance (Matt 16:13–19), Jesus asks His disciples about His identity. Simon Peter replies with his famous confession of faith, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus responds by blessing Peter and saying that whatever Peter binds or looses on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven.

The second case occurs during a larger discourse on the kingdom of heaven, as Jesus gives the disciples instructions for confronting someone who has sinned against them. Jesus again indicates that whatever they bind or loose on earth will be treated likewise in heaven (Matt 18:15–19).

In both instances, Jesus gives His disciples authority to govern the church by restricting or permitting certain behaviors with divine support. In the first passage, Jesus seems to give Peter authority to set the church’s teaching and practice—which the disciples did in Acts 15:1–20 in establishing requirements for Gentile believers (see Acts 15:10). In the second passage, Jesus’ words appear to grant believers authority in matters of church discipline. These texts align with the known understanding of the terms binding and loosing, as the disciples had to work out which elements of the Torah were applicable (or not) in the newly revealed kingdom of God (Powell, “Binding,” 438–45).

Interpretive Issues

Bivin notes that the verbs describing what is done “in heaven” are in the perfect tense, indicating that they could be rendered “whatever you bind/loose on earth will have been bound/loosed in heaven.” This would suggest that the disciples should confidently make decisions, knowing that God would guide them (Bivin, New Light, 100). The implication—that some of Jesus’ contemporaries were not binding and loosing properly or with the authority of God—seemingly provides the rationale for Jesus to give special sanction to His disciples. In Jesus’ famous “seven woes” passage against the Pharisees, Jesus condemns His audience for binding heavy loads on the shoulders of others while not stopping to help carry the burden (Bivin, New Light, 99–100).

Granting authority to bind and loose is not the same as giving the disciples license to decree as they saw fit. Rather, Jesus trusted His disciples to accurately continue His teaching. As both passages in Matthew refer to the context of “the church,” the disciples have authority to bind and loose not as individuals, but as leaders of the church (Powell, “Binding,” 438, 445).

Hiers identifies several other senses in which Jesus could have used the phrases “binding” and “loosing.” One possibility is that is He is referring to casting someone out of the community. Although this idea is related to the concept of church discipline, it does not capture the full sense of Jesus’ use of these terms. Hiers dismisses the options of empowering His disciples to forgive (or not) or to bind in judgment for the future (Hiers, “Binding and Loosing,” 233–35). Instead, Hiers affirms “binding” and “loosing” as terms related to Torah interpretation, while also suggesting that they might indicate power over demonic forces (Hiers, “Binding and Loosing,” 235–39, 250) (Ridley, B. (2016). Binding and Loosing. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, … W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.)

Such fits well the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 where the Church leadership made the final, authoritative decision vis-à-vis circumcision and Gentile membership into the New Covenant. It also fits Matt 18:18 were the language of binding and loosing is used for the rest of the apostles and their disciplinary authority to condemn and absolve sins:

Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. (note: the "you" here is plural [ὑμῖν], unlike the "you" [σοι] of Matt 16:18-19)

The "binding" and "loosing" in Matt 16 and 18 cannot be reduced to Peter et al. preaching the gospel to open the gates of heaven to the Gentiles.

 Why does Bartosiewicz have to argue in such an eisegetical manner? In a facebook comment on this video from another Evangelical, Randal Cox, on Bartosiewicz’s facebook page, we find the true reason:

Mormonism has the keys to a false priesthoods, but not the Royal Priesthood that is inherited by those of us that had accepted Jesus as described in the bible, His gift of sacrifice for our sins. There is none other.

Firstly, “Mormonism” has the keys to the true priesthoods. See this page for a listing of relevant pages discussing this issue, including The Biblical Evidence for an Ordained, Ministerial Priesthood in the New Covenant from the Last Supper Accounts.

Secondly, with respect to the "Priesthood of All Believers," such comes from the following passages:

Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine. (Exo 19:5)

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Pet 2:9)

The Evangelical Protestant interpretation of this concept can be refuted in two ways.

First, note that it is an established fact from Hebrews that Christ is the High Priest of the New Covenant, just as there was a High Priest (Aaron) in the Old Covenant (e.g., Heb 4:14). This shows us that not all priests are of the same rank, something inconsistent with the Evangelical claim. Secondly, we know that there was a Levitical priesthood that was of a lower rank than the High Priest but still superior in rank to the "priesthood of all believers" and thus one would be justified in expecting this second rank (members of an ordained, ministerial priesthood) of priests to be paralleled in the New Covenant along with the clear presence of the first (the great High Priest, Jesus) and third rank ("Royal Priesthood").

This is further substantiated by the fact that even after Moses calls the people a royal priesthood, he goes on to put them into different categories (those of priests and laity):

And the Lord said unto Moses, Go down and charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish. And let the priests also, which come near to the Lord, sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them. And Moses said unto the Lord, The people cannot come up to mount Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount and sanctify it. And the Lord said unto him, Away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the Lord, lest he break forth upon them. (Exo 19:21-24)

Clearly, there is a second class of priests, and these are members of a ministerial priesthood.

That the New Testament authors understood this correspondence between the Old and New Covenant priesthoods can be seen in Jude 11:

Woe to them! For they go the way of Cain, and abandon themselves to Balaam's error for the sake of gain, and perish in Korah's rebellion. (NRSV)

In this verse, Jude warns the Christian community to respect the priest-laity division, noting that there will be disobedient members of the community who will be modeled after Cain, Balaam, and Korah who engaged in such a rebellion. All these situations were sins involving the priesthood. Korah's rebellion, for instance, is the most noteworthy of the three; in Num 16 Korah, serving as an equivalent of a deacon, gets upset and gathers a group of friends and engages in a rebellion:

And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord? (Num 16:3)

Moses then rebukes Korah and says to him that he would be thankful that he is a deacon, but that he should not seek to raise himself to the level of a priest:

And he hath brought thee near to him, and all thy brethren the sons of Levi with thee: and seek ye the priesthood also? (Num 16:10)

Funnily enough, Evangelicals would side with Korah on this! They would say to Latter-day Saints and others who hold to a ministerial priesthood in the New Covenant, "you raise yourself above everyone else; everyone is equal!"

The only way Jude's warning of a modern Korah-like rebellion makes any sense is if there will be Christians who will try to usurp authority and "move up" in the New Covenant priesthood--it makes no sense if the Evangelical understanding of the "priesthood of all believers" is correct.

Second, many Protestant commentators will admit that this is a grossly eisegetical interpretation of the relevant passages. Commenting on 1 Pet 2:4-10, Lutheran New Testament scholar, John H. Elliot wrote:

(1)  As is evident from its structure and content and from the accentuation of the election of both Jesus Christ and the believing community, 1 Pet 2:4-10 is designed as an affirmation of the elect and holy character of the believing community, which, through faith, is one with the elect and holy Christ. Election rather than priesthood is its central focus. The theme of election that extends from the letter’s beginning to its end (1:1; 5:13) receives here its most profound articulation. The passage, in fact, constitutes one of the most elaborate statements on Christian election in the entire NT.

(2)  The covenant formula of LXX Exod 19:6, which included the terms basileion and hierateuma, in accord with prior Israelite interpretation of this text was one of several OT texts employed by the Petrine author to explicate the elect and holy character of the covenantal people of God as once affirmed at Sinai and now affirmed of God’s people at the end time.

(3)  The term hierateuma, like the other honorific epithets for Israel with which it is joined here (“elect stock,” “holy people,” “people of God”), is a collective noun designating the believing community as community, as is true of other collective terms as well. The substantive basileion, “royal residence” (v 9b), likewise is applied to the believing community in its entirety and it interpreted as the “house(hold) of the Spirit” (v 5d)

(4)  In both 1 Peter and its source, Exod 19:6, “priestly community” expresses the holiness of the covenant community and the immediacy of its relation to God, both of which are distinctive qualities of the believing community that the author stresses throughout the first major section of the letter with other language as well (1:2, 3-5, 14,16, 17-21, 22; 2:5 [“holy priestly community”], 9-10; c. also 3:5, 18c; 5:7a, 10). The action of the believers as priestly community is to offer “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God” (2:5f), a cultic image that occurs only here in 1 Peter and that is not elaborated on anywhere else in the letter. Similarly, neither hierateuma plays no independent role in the ecclesial thought of the letter. The appearance of hierateuma in 2:5 and 9 is due solely to its place in the covenant formula of Exod 19:6, which is used by the Petrine author to affirm the election and holiness of the household of faith.

(5)  No mention is made in 2:4-10 of baptism or any baptismal “ordination” or “consecration” to priesthood on the part of the believers.

(6)  Nowhere in 1 Peter is there any reference to the priesthood of Christ or any suggestion that believers share in the priesthood of Christ by virtue of their constituting a “priestly community.” In the book of Hebrews, on the other hand, Jesus Christ is identified metaphorically as a priest (Heb 7:15, 21,; 8:4; 10:21) or high priest (Heb 2:17; 3:1; 4:14-15; 5:5, 10; 6:20; 7:26; 8:1; 9:11). In Revelation, Christians are denoted metaphorically as priests as well (Rev 1:6; 5:10; 20:6). In other NT writings, cultic metaphors occasionally are used to describe the proclamation of the gospel (Rom 15:16), the gift of material support (Phil 4:18), or aspects of salvation (Heb 4:16; 8:1; 9:11-14, 23-28; 10:10, 19-22; 13:10-16). No single NT author, however, makes any attempt to integrate these random images into a unified teaching on Christian priesthood, and this certainly includes the author of 1 Peter. To attributes these various motifs to 1 Peter is to impute alien notions to this text and to distort its focus. IN 1 Pet 2:4-10, the association of believers with Christ is that of “living stones,” who through faith are one with Christ, the “living stone,” and who are “elect” as he was “elect” in God’s sight. (John H. Elliot, 1 Peter [Anchor Bible 37b; Garden City: Doubleday, 2000], 451-53).

As with the doctrine of sola scriptura, the Protestant conception of “the priesthood of all believers” is without exegetical warrant. Protestantism truly is the emperor with no (theological) clothing. 

As he moves into a new venture ("Jesus made Simple") one will hope that Dave will improve his arguments by acquainting himself with biblial exegesis and the basics of logic so he won't embarrass himself as he does on the topics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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