I want to reflect a bit more on what Jesus means when he says "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." I offer that this word "bind" (δεω) might have three meanings.
- Classic medieval: The binding, along with the loosing, refers to the keys of heaven which are given to the church (see Matthew 16:19). These keys of loosing and binding will open and close the door. As the church chooses to absolve or not absolve sins, people are moved in or blocked from heaven.
- Rabbinic: A movement has picked up in recent scholarship to view the "binding" and "loosing" referring to the Rabbinic practice of determining, within a community, what was "bound", that is "sinful" and what was "loose", that is ''permitted."
- Pastoral: The binding refers here to the act of restoring a lost sheep by binding sins to Christ.
I want to unpack each of these, describe the Scriptural argument for each, its implications and its shortcomings.
Classic Medieval
In a nutshell: The classic understanding of the office of the keys is nicely summarized by Martin Luther in his small catechism:
What is the Office of the Keys? The Office of the Keys is the special authority which Christ has given to His Church on earth: to forgive the sins of the penitent sinners, but to retain the sins of the impenitent as long as they do not repent.
(See footnote for a longer passage of Luther)
It is worth noting that the medieval Roman Catholic church and Luther were in agreement about what the keys did (see Aquinas on the office of the keys belonging to the church). Luther disagreed about whether the keys belonged to the "holy Roman Catholic church" or the "holy catholic church, the communion of saints" and how the keys were dealt with through the sacramental system.
Biblical support: All of this understanding arises from Matthew 16, Matthew 18 and John 20, in which Jesus gives the apostles authority to forgive sins and retain them. It is worth noting that the wording is different in Matthew and John, with Matthew using the words "bind" and "loosen" and John using the words "forgive" and "hold/retain/grasp."
Implications and Shortcomings: The mission of the church becomes clear: act as a gate keeper for who is in and who is out of the Kingdom of God. This clarifies and perhaps simplifies the task of the church in an age when the objectives often seem political and social.
However, the church doors, physically and spiritually, become hard boundaries of God's mercy on earth. As discipleship in Jesus moves from a Jewish renewal movement to an inter-continental institution, this boundary becomes a wall and the institution abuses its power, time and time again.
It also makes the point of life "getting into heaven" rather than experiencing eternal life, which begins here and now, as Jesus comes to us.
Rabbinic
In a nutshell: This way of thinking might be new to some. The binding and loosing, in this view, refer to the process by which community leaders, Rabbis, would determine what was morally permissible (or not) for a community. A good article I found online by the author Kindalee Pfremmer De Long outlines it. As she writes
In this practice of [rabbinic] binding and loosing, rabbis uphold the law as eternal and universal but recognize that new contexts require new decisions about how to bind or loose particular behaviors.
Biblical support: In the article by De Long, she delves more deeply into historical and linguistic support of this interpretation, which she acknowledges is solid but not exhaustively conclusive. It is not a strictly biblical argument, per se, but one in which extra-Biblical sources allow us to better understand what the original authors (or in this case, the original speaker, Jesus) likely meant.
De Long also does not dismiss the classic way of understanding this passage. She offers that both people may be bound or loosed (classic) and that laws or ethical standards may be bound or loosed (rabbinic). I resonated with De Long's article, not simply in substance, but also tone. She wrote in a generous spirit - rather than a "everyone got it wrong because we/I've discovered this social science data from the 1st century that upends everything you knew", she approached it with a "there is likely another layer to this that has impact for ministry" attitude.
"We possess these two keys through Christ's command. The key which binds it the power or office to punish the sinner who refuses to repent by means of a public condemnation to eternal death and separation from the rest of Christendom... The key which binds carries forward the work of the law. It is profitable to the sinner in as much as it reveals to him his sins, admonishes him to fear God, causes him to tremble and moves him to repentance and not to destruction." ("The Keys", pg 372, LW 40)
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