Keys of the Kingdom  

Jesus has assigned great authority to His Church and it’s our privilege and responsibility to discover how He wants us to continue His ministry on earth. Let us consider Matthew 16:13-20 

When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. "And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ. NKJV

The Basis 

The statement of Jesus, ‘on this rock’ tells us what the true church is built on, namely the revelation that Peter had of Christ. About 600 years before this Nebuchadnezzar dreamt of a rock smashing a statue which represented four powerful empires and becoming a great maintain that filled the whole earth (Daniel 2:35). The glorious church that Christ is building functions on different principles than those that can make great empires.

The Paradox 

Many of the statements of Christ challenge our concepts of how things should be, for example, He said, ‘the first shall be last’, ‘give and it will be given back to you’, ‘lose your life to save it’, those who are great will be the greatest servers’ to name a few. Why is this so? Because the Kingdom of God is spiritual and not natural (carnal).  In Jesus Matthew 20: 25- 27 Jesus warned the disciples against thinking like the gentiles and basing power on a hierarchal system,  as if spiritual power came by status and position. Let’s consider the keys Jesus spoke of. 

Future Perfect 

The verbs to bind and to loose are in the future perfect tense and unfortunately most Bible translations don’t bring this out, more literally it should read, 'will have been bound' and 'will have been loosed'— this indicates the heavenly decisions to bind or loose have already preceded our exercising of authority. Youngs Literal Translation reads: “and I will give to thee the keys of the reign of the heavens, and whatever thou mayest bind upon the earth shall be having been bound in the heavens, and whatever thou mayest loose upon the earth shall be having been loosed in the heavens.”

So how do we does this?

It means we simply regard what God has promised as already done in the heavens. In Christ every promise of God has been granted for the believer. The whole of the New Testament is based on the finished work of Christ, He has already paid for every bodies sin, already healed every disease, already banished demons, already broken curses etc 
2Peter 1:2-3 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, for His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. NASB

God has already given, it’s our job to know it and then use the keys to make it reality. 

When my boys were very young we gave them hydrochromic pictures to play with, these are images concealed on a white page and when water is brushed on, a hidden image becomes apparent. The picture is always there - God’s narrative for many of the negative situations we encounter is already determined, the keys release the manifestation of the Kingdom. 

 

Subjective vs Objective 

To understand the Kingdom of God we need our concept of reality challenging, Jesus did this with the disciples (Matthew 16) Metaphorically Jesus mentioned leaven as a warning to  the false pharisaical teachings, however the disciples thought Jesus was hinting at the fact they had forgotten to bring bread. In response Jesus challenged their bad reasoning (no bread, no eating) by reminding them of the feeding of the five thousand – the point being made that Kingdom reality supersedes earthly facts. This is very radical especially living in the modern era where logic and reason are elevated to almost unquestionable status. We are also predisposed to regard life subjectively which is fine for natural things but is counteractive when it comes to the higher truths of the Kingdom. 

An important part of becoming a commercial pilot is becoming instrument trained, this is very important when flying at night and in adverse weather conditions. In such situations the pilot cannot rely on his vision or sense of motion rather the instruments provide the information he needs to successfully navigate the plane. To objectively believe is to regard the word of God over and above what we might be seeing and feeling. 

Only Believe 

In Mark’s and Luke’s gospels the story is told of a desperate man called Jairus whose daughter was gravely ill; he pleaded with Jesus to come and  heal her. As Jesus went  somebody intercepted them with the bad news that his daughter had died, Jesus responded,  "Do not be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well." Undoubtedly the negative news would have emotionally impacted Jairus (devastation, fear, despair etc), yet Jesus told him not to be afraid - how is this possible? 

In order to only believe we must be more convinced by what God has said than by what we are seeing/experiencing. Our natural selves cannot do this as Paul highlighted to the Corinthian believers (1 Corinthians 2: 14) , however the spiritual man can. Our regenerated spiritual selves have the capacity to successfully believe and with the sense of God’s peace in our hearts. 
 

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Isaiah 26:3