Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 16:19

"I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." — Matthew 16:19 (ASV)

I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven — Two distinct trains of figurative thought are blended in the words that follow.

First, the palace of a great king implied the presence of a chief officer, such as a treasurer or chamberlain, or to use the old Hebrew phrase, one "over the household." The key of office—the key to the gates and the treasury—was the recognized symbol of this role, as in the case of Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah (Isaiah 22:22). In the highest sense, that key of the house of David belonged to Christ Himself as the King. It was He who opened and none could shut, who shut and none could open (Revelation 3:7). But that power was now delegated to the servant whose very name, as an Apostle, marked him as his Lord’s representative. The later history of Peter’s work, when through him God opened the door of faith to the Gentiles (Acts 14:27; Acts 15:7), was the proof of his faithful discharge of the office thus assigned to him.

Second, with this there was another thought, which in the later clause of the verse becomes the dominant one. The scribes of Israel were thought of as stewards of the treasures of divine wisdom (Matthew 13:52). When they were admitted to their office, they received, as its symbol, the key of knowledge (Luke 11:52), which was to admit them to the treasure-chambers of the house of the interpreter, the Beth-Midrash of the Rabbis. Christ had been training His disciples for this work, and Peter’s confession had shown that the training had so far done its work. He was qualified to be a scribe instructed for the kingdom of heaven, and to bring forth out of its treasures things new and old (Matthew 13:52); and now the "key" was given to him as the token of his admission to that office.

It made him not a priest (that office lay altogether outside the range of the symbolism), but a teacher and interpreter. The words that follow about "binding" and "loosing" were the formal confirmation of that symbolic act. For they, too, belong to the scribe’s office and not the priest’s, and they express an entirely different thought from that of retaining and forgiving sins. That power was, it is true, later bestowed on Peter and his fellow apostles (see Note on John 20:23), but it is not in question here. As interpreted by the language familiar to the Jews, the words pointed primarily to legislative or interpretive functions, not to the judicial treatment of individuals. The school of Shammai, for example, bound when it declared this or that act to be a transgression of the Sabbath law, or forbade divorce on any ground but adultery; the school of Hillel loosed when it set people free from the obligations thus imposed.

Here, too, the later work of Peter was an illustration of the words' meaning. When he resisted the attempt of the Judaizers to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples (Acts 15:10), he was loosing what was also loosed in heaven. When he proclaimed, as in his Epistle, the eternal laws of righteousness, holiness, and love, he was binding those laws on the conscience of Christendom. It must be remembered, finally, that the power thus bestowed on him was later conferred on the whole company of the Apostles (Matthew 18:18), or more probably on the whole body of the disciples in their collective unity, and with an implied extension to partially judicial functions (see Note on Matthew 18:18).

A few words, it is believed, will be sufficient to place the claims and controversies originating from these words on their proper footing. It may be briefly noted:

1. That it is at least doubtful (not to claim too much for the interpretation given above) whether the man Peter was the rock on which the Church was to be built.
2. That it is doubtful (though this is not the place to discuss the question) whether Peter was ever in any real sense Bishop of the Church of Rome, or in any way connected with its foundation.
3. That there is not a syllable pointing to the transmission of the power conferred on him to his successors in that supposed Episcopate.
4. That, as just stated, the power was not given to him alone, but equally to all the disciples.
5. That the power of the keys, no less than that of "binding" and "loosing," was not sacerdotal, but belonged to the office of a scribe or teacher.

As a matter of interpretation, the Roman Catholic argument from this verse stands on a level with that which sees the supremacy of the successors of St. Peter in the two great lights of Genesis 1:16, or the two swords of Luke 22:38. The claims of the Church of Rome rest, such as they are, on the greatness of her history, on her association with the imperial city, on the work done by her as the "light of the wide West" in ages of darkness, and on the imposing aspect of her imagined unity. But to build these claims upon the promise to Peter is merely the idlest of fantastic dreams, fit only to find its place in that Limbo of vanities which contains, among other abortive or morbid growths, the monstrosities of interpretation.