Couple of years back I came across a teaching, based on passages in Matthew 16 and 18, which equated binding to bringing someone into Church membership and loosing to excommunications. Following are the verses used to support this view:
- Matthew 16:19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”
- Matthew 18:19-20 “Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”
Turns out this teaching is common within the Catholic Church. Per the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Page 363
The words bind and loose mean: whomever you exclude from your communion, will be excluded from communion with God; whomever you receive anew into your communion, God will welcome back into his. Reconciliation with the Church is inseparable from reconciliation with God.
However, I heard this in a Southern Baptist Church! How come? Turns out, that this teaching is considered Gospel Truth within certain circles of the Protestant Church. For Example, an excerpt from Jonathan Leeman
What does it mean for a church to exercise the keys by binding and loosing on earth … receive and remove members.
While the above view point may be as historic as the Catholic Church, it is not the only historical view. For example, John Gill in his commentary on the Matthew passage says:
This also is not to be understood of binding, or loosing men’s sins, by laying on, or taking off censures, and excommunications; but only of doctrines, or declarations of what is lawful and unlawful, free, or prohibited to be received, or practised;
Who is right on this? John Gill or Jonathan Leeman? Time to follow The Berean Way (Acts 17:10-11) and go right back to the Scriptures look at these passages in context.
Context
To really understand any passage of the Scripture, context is critical. Sometimes the context may be few verses before or after the passage in question and sometimes it may be several chapters away and perhaps in a different book of the Bible. In this case, the context is earlier on in Matthew, and has to deal with an interaction between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. This interaction with the Pharisees, followed by Jesus talking about “the leaven” is repeated, almost in full, both in Matthew and Mark. However, Luke reveals a bit more about this interaction
The Key of Knowledge
In Luke, when the Lawyers are offended with Jesus words (Luke 11:45), Jesus responds by stating that they had taken away the key of knowledge!
Luke 11:52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.”
What is the key of knowledge and how did the lawyers take it away?
Doctrines of Men
Luke 11:46 But He said, “Woe to you lawyers as well! For you load people with burdens that are hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
These lawyers (and Pharisees and Sadducees), were binding burdens too hard to bear, that they themselves wouldn’t actually touch with one their fingers! How do we know that “load people with burdens” is binding? This verse is repeated in Matthew.
Matthew 23:4 And they tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as their finger.
Older versions of the English Bible, such as Geneve from 1587, make it even more clear:
Matthew 23:4 For they binde heauie burdens, & grieuous to be borne, and lay them on mens shoulders, but they themselues will not moue them with one of their fingers.
So how were these folks binding these heavy burdens? Jesus explains in Matthew, in the interaction preceding the discussion about the leaven:
Matthew 15:2-3 2 “Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” 3 And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves also break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?
Jesus also quotes a prophecy from Isaiah:
Matthew 15:9 And in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
There we have the full sense of what was happening here. Pharisees and Scribes (and lawyers) had the authority (key) to explain the Scriptures and declare what the Israelites were supposed to do. They misused this authority and chose to teach as doctrines, the commandments of men. They bound heavy burdens on people, which they themselves would not lift, hence Jesus calls their leaven or teaching hypocrisy (Matthew 16:6, Matthew 16:12, Luke 12:1).
Examples of Binding
We see an example of what binding means, in Romans:
Romans 7:1 Or do you not know, brothers and sisters (for I am speaking to those who know the Law), that the Law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?
What does binding mean in this context? One is bound to do it! In this case, the law is binding, as long as one is alive and under the law. On the other hand, when the woman is not bound any more because her husband died, it doesn’t mean she is less under the law or ceases to be under the law or ceases to be a jew. Instead, she is free from obeying that portion of the law. In this context, it does not have the positive / negative implications of reading binding and loosing as membership and excommunication.
Here’s another example that confirms again this understanding of binding, from the old testament. In this case, a man decides to bind himself:
Numbers 30:1 Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the sons of Israel, saying, “This is the word which the Lord has commanded: If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to put himself under a binding obligation, he shall not break his word; he shall act in accordance with everything that comes out of his mouth.
In summary, binding is the act of either self committing to do something or being committed to do something by those who held the keys to the knowledge: Pharisees, Sadducees and Lawyers.
In this context, Jesus moves the authority over the keys of the Kingdom, from Pharisees, Scribes and Lawyers, to Peter first and to the rest of the apostles. What is this authority? Simply to explain what (not who) should be bound and what (not who) should be loosed. Whatever is bound are those things that we as believers must do and whatever is loosed are those things that we as believers don’t have to worry about.
Conclusion
A T Robertson, Professor of New Testament Interpretation in Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in his book Word Pictures in the New Testament states on Matthew 16:19
To “bind” (δησηις) in rabbinical language is to forbid, to “loose” (λυσηις) is to permit. Peter would be like a rabbi who passes on many points. Rabbis of the school of Hillel “loosed” many things that the school of Schammai “bound.”
Unfortunately, the Catholic Church has bound believers with doctrines of men based on misinterpretation to shore up abusive papal authority which lead to the reformation. How ironic and sad that after 500 years, the reformed are going straight back to the doctrines and misinterpretations of the Catholic Church, once again binding heavy burdens under the guise of Church discipline, on unsuspecting sheep, the believers.
In the second part of this series, we will take a look at the implications of this wrong teaching and the true application of Matthew 18.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
