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The word “church” is first mentioned in the Bible in Matthew 16, when Jesus tells his disciples (indirectly) through Peter (directly) that Jesus will build His church. We’ve been deconstructing this passage and laying it against what exists today in our modern culturally contrived version, or what I like to call…Churchianity.

It’s really important for modern people to understand, as best as we can, what was in the mind of Christ when he described this gathering, or assembly of people, or congregation. Was Jesus envisioning this community of believers to become the worlds largest religion and then live at war and competition with other world religions? Was his intention to rebuild the Jewish temple under a new format that would be replete with paid clergy, priests, pastors, and holy people? Was the work of this group of people to go out and stand against the culture and wait for two thousand years for Jesus to come back and destroy whatever is left of the mess we’ve made out of everything?

If this series has done anything so far, it has revealed that the modern church has become entrapped in its modern design and power plays, and as such, it is increasingly failing in its mission to be salt an light in a dark world, and it has truncated the gospel and its power, relegating it to an evacuation strategy before all hell breaks loose. In the same way that the Israelites insisted that Samuel give them a king to rule over them (1 Samuel 8:6), so the modern religious mind struggles to understand the freedom of Christ when it is divorced from religious or institutional power. My goal is that people of all religious frameworks would discover that Jesus’ message will ultimately subvert our love of religion, and the two cannot be built simultaneously. As we are transported back to these words, how do we justify full-time ministries, land ownership, building campaigns, or denominational disagreements? If the true Church is to be restored, we must deconstruct it and rebuild it according to the blueprint.

“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. 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”. (Matthew 16:18-19)

At this point in the series, you now understand the context of this passage, the audience (primarily Peter, but indirectly the other disciples), the definition of church, the meaning behind the gates of hades, and now we will consider both the Keys of the Kingdom, and this action of binding and loosing.

1. The Keys of the Kingdom

Modern Christian theology remains divided over the idea of the “Authority of the believer.” One perspective is that Jesus is giving the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven to all the disciples and by extraction to all believers, and another perspective is that he is giving this primarily to Peter. Let’s consider both.

Textually speaking, it would be hard to argue that Jesus is not exclusively or at least primarily speaking to Peter. “I tell you, you are Peter….” is not only textually very clear, but the use of “this” in scripture (this rock) is widely understood by interpretive scholars that when there is a “this” or a “therefore” that it refers to that which immediately precedes it. An example would be Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God…” In these types of writing, the Greek is referring to the antecedent, in this case…faith. So textually, and contextually, Jesus is primarily speaking to Peter.

If Jesus is speaking primarily to Peter, there is additional scriptural support for how this can be interpreted. Namely, that Jesus is referring to the work Peter (and the other eleven: Acts 2:14, 37) will do in the early work of the assembly (church) of people who will gather after Jesus’ death. Interestingly, Peter himself, while addressing this early assembly makes this statement in Acts 2:39: “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” Thus, the scriptural bend is that through Peter, (especially in the Acts discourse) or through Peter’s example, access to God is NOT found in religion nor tradition, but by faith in Christ.

So Peter having the keys to heaven is not that he stands at the gates and lets some people in and other not. The key seems to be that Peter’s life and example open all comers up to the truth that the Kingdom of God comes not to the morally superior (Peter was anything but), nor to the religiously obedient (Peter again was a working class fisherman), but to those who imperfectly place their faith in Christ. Through Peter, we can all see that Heaven is not far off, but eminent.

May this truth settle into our minds and displace the fallacies that have overgrown this in our understanding.

2. Binding and Loosing.

The Mishnah is a collection of Jewish oral traditions and teachings. The term rendered in this verse reflects this idiom which would have been understood by Jesus Jewish audience. The phrase means “to forbid by an indisputable authority and to permit by an indisputable authority.”. Thematically, this fits with the giving of the keys in that Jesus is giving a measure of his authority to Peter and the disciples, and then through Peter, extended to others who will come to faith in Christ.

An interesting point is that both dedeménon (binding, prohibiting, compelling, restricting) and leluménon (set free, permitting, untie, loose) are both in the passive voice and perfect, nominative tense. This nuance means that even though this is rendered “future” in modern translations, the frame of reference is that of immediacy. Thus, what is bound or loosed on earth will have been immediately bound our loosed in Heaven. This becomes a portal through which we understand the proximity of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus’ understanding is that Heaven is immediately realized, not “one day” off in the future when we all die. There is no value in giving Peter, the disciples, or any of us this authority if is to only affect a kingdom which will come two thousand plus years later, or one which is distinct from that of the earth. Heaven has come to earth, we are not leaving earth in order to get to heaven. The deferral of God’s Kingdom is to completely miss Heaven and the point of Jesus’ blueprint for the church.

This means that action done in faith here and now, has or is already happening in Heaven here and now. Let this marinade into your frame for living.

Implications from this text.

I started this series by revealing that the first watershed is ontological…(who do you say that I am?) Peter answered this question and his answer (given to him by the Father in Heaven) becomes the rock, the foundation upon which Jesus’ true Church is established. Yes Peter (petros) is similar to rock (Petra), but those who gather (church) are those who also share this ontological (being, identification) grasp of who the Christ actually is. Remember, the jews were awaiting their promised messiah and they rejected Jesus (and still do to this day) because they were expecting the Christ (anointed one) to restore Israel to political and religious power. Jesus not only did not restore Israel as a State, but he profoundly subverted its authority and claim to be the vehicle to God. Jesus led a counter movement, away from the temple, to liberate his followers from the oppression of religion and state. This is why he warned his disciples to be careful of the leaven of the pharisees and of Herod (religion and state).

This framework is (in my opinion) the most contextually accurate framework through which to understand the scripture. All of this is comprised in Chapter 16 and the texts following these verses of consideration reflect that Jesus knows that his subversive movement will get him killed by institutional power. This means Jesus is offering a new framework of authority, not the one of institutional powers that Satan offered Jesus during his temptation, but an authority based on the immediate proximity of heaven and earth among the those who hold faith in Christ. Christ gives his body authority, not institutional power.

This means that the Gospel of modern churchianity is a form of “Red Rover Red Rover” and is a conversion strategy to get people into what institutional power insists is the ONLY true religion. I’ve proven that this is completely out of sync with Jesus own blueprint. Jesus was not starting a new alternative religion, he was liberating all comers from the overreach of religion and State. The alternative to institutional power is the assembly of people (Church) who share this framework of not being named by such powers, but discovering that our true selves (our ontology) is hidden in Christ and found in God. And that perfectly comports with all of Jesus’ teachings.

If there is any part of Christianity that holds fidelity to Jesus’ own words, it must begin the work of extracting itself from the bulk, ego, money, and PowerPlays of institutional power and return to a gathering that is found in God and imbued with the Keys to the Kingdom. A return to the true Gospel is not found in traditional alignment, denominational attestation, nor any adherence to the teachings of any church father, historical figure, or movement. Instead the Gospel can be found, immediately, for all comers, who hear the voice of Christ calling their true name, inviting each of us out from the tomb of our favorite religion, and into a life of following Christ where we begin to experience Heaven, here and now, today, in the midst of our broken world. We’ll discover that the sharing of each of our lives (not religion) is the framework through which we see Christ at work. This is the framework of the Gospel that the rest of the world cannot ignore or dismiss.

Jesus said that if we are to understand him, we must put his “new wine” into a new “wineskin” or framework (Mark 2:22) because what He is giving us will destroy the old frameworks. For over a decade, my work as been leading all comers out of religion and into their own life where they can truly experience and understand Christ and his power. If this sounds scary, unconventional, risky, dangerous, or subversive to all that you’ve come to believe through your religion, then I invite you to come back and keep listening. Don’t just reject this outright. Test everything I say against the voice of scripture and compare it to the message of your religion, then decide if you want religion or God.

Come back next time, when we see what happens to the church after Jesus is killed.