800-Pound Gorilla? Or The First Pope?

I must say that on the modern, highly individualistic Christian scene in America, at the beginning of the 21st Century, this is a hard saying. And, for those who find it a hard saying, they will often dismiss this verse – even though it comes from the Mouth of the Lord Himself – as yet another dispensable Pope-supporting snippet in our Lord’s teaching.

This is truly ironic. For one thing, there is no Pope in view in our Lord’s words in verse 18. And, so verse 19 cannot be granting magisterial powers to a Pope. There isn’t one in view to grant such powers to!

It is doubly ironic in the way that American Protestantism has typically functioned as far as its ecclesiology is concerned. On one hand, many Protestant congregations reject the Catholics’ belief that the teaching authority is vested in a single Pope. But, the Protestant alternative is NOT the absence of a Pope, but rather the PROLIFIERATION of popes. Protestants don’t have a single Pope. They have thousands of them. “Every Pastor a Pope!” seems to be the practical agenda for many Protestants. “Whatever Pastor Pope says is good enough for me!”

But, of course, whatever Pastor Pope says is – many times – no good at all, and so Protestants have a luxury which those impoverished Catholics never have – dead Popes, whose books they can read, and whose views on Bible and Theology they can follow.

Last night as supper, I was discussing with my children some of the distinctives of a branch of Protestants whose name for themselves is “The Truly Reformed.” One daughter notes that they all seem to follow John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion far more closely than anything written down in the Bible. For them, he is Pope John Calvin – practically so, that is, though they would get pretty snippy if you pointed this out to them.

But, back to Jesus words here: they are spoken to Peter: the word “you” is singular. Jesus says he will give him the keys to the kingdom of heaven; that what he binds on earth will be bound in heaven, and what he looses on earth will be loosed in heaven.

If this were the only verse like this, I acknowledge that it would be difficult to understand it as anything other than a divine grant of authority to a single man – Peter – and, by extension, to those who follow him. However, a couple of chapters later in Matthew, we find Jesus using the same terms when speaking to YOU (plural), meaning all the Apostles together. Jesus says to them all these words: “18 “Assuredly, I say to you [all], whatever you [all] bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you [all] loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

But, this only relieves part of what makes modern American Protestants anxious when pondering this passage. What is this ”loosing and binding” all about?

The terminology was very common in Jesus’ day to describe the effects of the teaching authority of the Jewish Rabbis. They were always binding things and loosing things. Jesus referred to this practice in Matthew 23:4 when he said this about the Pharisees: For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.”