Commenting
on Matt 16:17-19, F. Henry Edwards, (1897-1991), a British leader in the
then-Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (now Community of
Christ), and at the time of publication, a member of the RLDS First Presidency, wrote the following:
The interpretation of this conversation has occasioned
commentators considerable difficulty. It is clear, however, that the church was
already in process of being built, and for this reason as well as for many
others, we cannot interpret the passage to mean that the church was to be
founded on the man, Peter, as though he were a rock strong enough to provide a
sure foundation for such an edifice. Nor can the foundation have been the
understanding which Peter now possessed that Jesus is the Christ, for this
understanding was to be enriched on subsequent experience; especially at the
first Easter and during the period of the ascension. It seems, therefore, that
the only tenable interpretation is that the church is built on the conviction
born in the souls of men by the revelation of God that Jesus is the Lord’s anointed,
that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6), that in him “we live
and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), and that he therefore has rightful
and final authority in the lives of good men by reason of their own wiling
surrender to his direction. Such a revelation as this is an adequate
foundation, for it is renewed in the lives of successive generations, and
quickened as experience is enlarged and interpreted under the influence of the
Spirit of God. Such a conviction as this holds men close to the heart of God
and makes possible the progressive achievement of his purpose among men.
There is a sense in which the church of Jesus
Christ is a new Israel, and in much the same sense ancient Israel that was the
prototype and forerunner of the church of Jesus Christ. It is in this sense
that Stephen referred to “the church in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38). This
already existent church, the people of God was not completely discountenanced
by Jesus. Instead, it was caught up in a new movement and was thereby fulfilled
in much the same way as the old law was caught up and fulfilled in the law of
the gospel. The Jews had proved rebellious, for they had refused to hear the
words of Jesus. The Master therefore said to them: “I say unto you, the kingdom
of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits
thereof” (Matthew 21:43). All the authority and excellencies attaching to the
old covenant were transferred to this new “nation” so Paul could later write: “He
taketh away the first, that he may establish the second” (Hebrews 10:9) and “if
that which was done away was glorious, much more than which remaineth is
glorious” (2 Corinthians 3:11). On this point Dr. Smith says:
From the illustrations adopted by St. Paul in
his epistles, we have additional light thrown upon the condition of the church.
Thus the Christian church is described as being a branch grated on the already
existing olive tree, showing that it was no new creation, but a development of
that spiritual life which had flourished in the patriarchal and the Jewish
church. (Smith’s Bible Dictionary, 1:454)
It is important that we understand this combination
of continuity and discontinuity between the people of Israel and the church of
Jesus Christ. The church was a continuation of Israel in the sense that here
the purpose of God which and been pursued in Israel was pursued still further
and on a larger scale. The church was a discontinuance, on the other hand, in
the sense that the authority of the old was transferred to the new, and that
those who persisted in rejecting Jesus as the Christ were themselves rejected,
and their authority annulled, and their law superseded. The Christian church
from the first believed itself to be the old Israel reconstituted. Paul boldly
appropriated the ancient Jewish heroes as the “fathers” of the new movement (1
Corinthians 10:1 or in his argument in Galatians 3:16 and Romans 9:6 and 11:5,
16) in much the same way as a naturalized American regards Washington and
Lincoln as belonging to him as well as to native Americans. The same assumption
lies behind the ministry of James (Acts 15:14-18), Peter (1 Peter 1:1) and
John, the letter to the Hebrews and the Book of Revelation. James addressed the
Christians as the “twelve tribes” (James 1:1).
The reconstituted church, the one which Jesus
told Peter he would build on the sure foundation of his revealed and rightful
leadership, was being brought into being during this period. There was
evidently a time when the two overlapped for Jesus himself said that John was
outside the kingdom (Matthew 11:11), yet he himself was baptized by John and so
were many of his disciples. The crisis between the old and the new seems to
have been reached somewhere about the time of murder of John the Baptist. By
that time Jesus had set forth the good news of the kingdom throughout Galilee
and he had been rejected by the Jews as a whole and by their leaders. Either
they would not accept him at all, or they would accept him only on their own
terms. All this took place just before the conversation at Caesarea Philippi,
the scene of Peter’s confession and the promise of the Lord Jesus, and from
that time forward it is clear that Jesus gave himself with the utmost care to
the training of the twelve as his apostles, rulers and pastors of the Israel
that he was to be.
One of the chief reasons why the people of
ancient Israel were about to be rejected and their place taken by the new
Israel, was that their leaders had “made the word of God of noneffect by their
tradition” (Mark 7:13). Quite naturally, therefore, Jesus followed his
statement that he would now build his church by provision for the authorized
leadership of that church saying: “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom
of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven:
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew
16:19). The Jews well understood that Jesus meant by this authority to “bind”
and to “loose” the official right to prohibit or to permit, the right of
government in harmony with the terms of their appointment. This right was
confirmed on the apostles after the resurrection (John 20:21-23).
It is possible to read the statement of Jesus
to Peter with several different emphases, each of them tending to stress a
different aspect of what the Master here undertook to do. First we may read: “I will build my church,” emphasizing the
fact that the church of Jesus Christ must be built by Jesus, the Lord, and can
be built by no other. All who assist in the building are his agents only, and
act in his name. Or we might read the sentence as, “I will build my church,” in which heaven we stress the determination of
the Master to build against all kinds of opposition. Such an interpretation is particularly
appropriate in view of the implacable opposition of the conservers of the
status quo, the leaders of the Jews who were determined that the new Israel
should not come into being. It is also possible read this promise as, “I will build my church.” If we do so, we stress
the determination of Jesus to bring his church into being as a wide master
builder, organizing every part in relation to every other, setting the whole structure
on a good foundation, and thereby making it safe from the winds of passing
circumstance. Or, finally, we may stress the fact that Jesus was to build his
church: “I will build my church.”
This is a particularly appropriate emphasis today, when some who claim to
represent the Master and to be his ministers have so far lost faith in his
church as a divinely ordained instrument in the building of the kingdom, that
they have turned from it, even while retaining the title of “church” and have
applied that title to a philosophic society, a social organization, or some
other caricature of the body of Christ.
There is no doubt that Jesus did organize his
church and authorize and train his apostles to lead that church after his own earthly
ministry had ceased. There is a sense in which the church as thus conceived is completely
identified with the kingdom (Matthew 11:11, 12; Luke 7:28; Luke 16:16, etc).
Jesus used the present tense quite definitely in the Beatitudes, e.g. “Blessed
are the poor in spirit for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Other sayings of the Master indicate that the
kingdom is essentially progressive, and is to be achieved gradually (Mark 4:26,
32; Luke 13:18, 19); while yet again the kingdom is referred to as a future and
perfect (Mark 9:1; 14:25; Luke 13:28, 27). The reconciliation of these
divergent uses of the term “kingdom of God” seems to be that the church at its
best does merge into and become the kingdom, but that the kingdom in its richest
and finest sense lies ahead as a goal to which the church is always
progressing. The kingdom must come to gradual maturity, just as Jesus himself
did. As the church realizes her destiny, and a greater portion of its members
are “born of the spirit” as well as being “born of the water” (John 3:3-5) the
church will become more and more truly the kingdom of God. (F. Henry Edwards, Studies in the Life and Ministry of Jesus
[Independence, Miss.: Herald Publishing House, 1957], 128-31, italics in
original)
