Recently, on
the Reason and Theology youtube page, they had a roundtable discussion about
the aftermath of Vatican 2 (1962-1965):
Interestingly, Tim Flanders, one of the participants, gave an interpretation of Matt 16:18 which is very "Mormon":
First and foremost, the gates of Hell did
prevail in a literal sense against the body of Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ
was dead and buried. He was literally dead. His soul separated from his body.
The gates of Hell prevailed. He went to Hell. He went to Hades. And so, in the
very beginning, we see and when we consider the disciples, they were totally
despairing, but we have the resurrection. (beginning at the 59:36 mark)
Compare his
comments with the following from D. Charles Pyle, a very knowledgeable
Latter-day Saint:
Jesus promised that his Church would not be
prevailed against by “the gates of Hades” (Matthew 16:18, NET Bible). Many have
interpreted this verse to mean that the Church on earth would not die. But this
is not what Jesus meant. People have not understood. These also do not realize
the function of the gates of Hades. Their function was to keep in Hades those
who died, and keep them dead, thus prevailing against all who entered thereby.
They were not defensive gates. Most never follow through to this real meaning
of the promise. It is only through death that the promise might be fulfilled,
for in death is how one faces the gates of death. The Church was to die but
Jesus promised that she would not be
prevailed against. She would live again! (D.
Charles Pyle, I
Have Said Ye are Gods: Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of
Deification in Patristic Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New
Testament (Revised and Supplemented) [CreateSpace, 2018], 390-91,
italics in original)
Terryl Givens wrote the following about the text which meshes in nicely with what Pyle wrote:
When Jesus referred to the establishment of
his church in the gospel of Matthew, he promised an apostolic authority to
“bind” and “loose” on earth with the guarantee of heavenly recognition for
those actions. In the same pronouncement, he promised that “the gates of Hades
[would] not prevail against” his church. For Mormons, those assurances are
interconnected, the crucial point here being twofold. First, gates do not in
the normal course of events function in an active sense. It is rather curious
to imagine gates “prevailing against”—or failing to prevail against—anything.
Gates don’t function actively, but what gates can do is keep inhabitants within
or intruders without. Since no one is likely to attempt to infiltrate hell
(Christ’s “harrowing” aside), a reasonable reading of the Savior’s words would
be the promise that the gates of hell would fail to keep its inhabitants
forever in bondage, remote from the saving church.
Second, Mormons find in this verse a warrant
for the theological foundations to their sociable heaven: the sealing referred
to, in other words, is for Latter-day Saints an eternal bound or connection to
other human beings, within the kingdom of God. The power intimated is an
apostolic authority to render human relationships eternal; “until death do you
part” becomes “for time and eternity.” Together, the two assertions (authority
to bind and permeable gates) create the basis of Mormon temple theology. God
has thereby vouchsafed to human representatives a power stronger than death or
hell, to reunite in everlasting bonds of love and association all the living
and death who comply with the sacraments of temple “sealing.” Elijah was
uniquely qualified for this bridging role since he was, according to scripture,
taken into heaven without tasting death. As such a “translated” being, he
united both realms in his own person. Smith was familiar with the original
sense of sealing in its conventional Christian meaning of a pledge or assurance
of salvation. However, he also developed the term in a uniquely Mormon was as
Elijah loomed larger and larger in his theological understanding. (Terryl L.
Givens, Feeding the Flock: The
Foundations of Mormon Thought—Church and Praxis [New York: Oxford
University Press, 2017], 180-81)
For more, see my post: