he is conferring on Peter the authority to interpret divine law (i.e., Scripture), and promising him that heaven will back up his judgments.
Later in life, I was again shocked to discover how clearly Jewish scholars understand the profound authority that is being conferred on Peter in this passage. The Jewish Encyclopedia explains that the authority to “bind and loose” was not merely an academic or intellectual exercise, but a divinely given power. Prominent rabbis would “bind and loose” for ancient Jews, and it was not that the rabbis “merely decided what, according to the Law, was forbidden or allowed, but that they possessed and exercised the power of tying or untying a thing by the spell of their divine authority.” The Encyclopedia continues:
This power and authority … received its ratification and final sanction from the celestial [heavenly] court of justice (Sifra, Emor, ix.; Mak. 23b). In this sense Jesus, when appointing his disciples to be his successors, used the familiar formula (Matt. xvi. 19, xviii. 18). By these words he virtually invested them with the same authority as that which he found belonging to the scribes and Pharisees.5
So, let’s put this all together. Based on the background in Isaiah 22, we come to understand that bearing the “key of the kingdom” was the mark of office of the royal steward, the man over the palace and “number two” to the king himself. Therefore, Jesus’ words to Peter in Matthew 16:18–19 confer on him the role of royal steward in his (Jesus’) kingdom, and they also grant Peter the authority to make decisions about how to interpret divine law, particularly the Scriptures. In the Old Testament, the role of the royal steward was both priestly and paternal: it was filled by a man who wore priestly garments, and he was recognized as a “papa” by all the citizens of the kingdom. Moreover, this role was not a personal charism that died with the royal steward, but it was an “office” or “station” that was filled by another when the previous occupant died or was removed.
One has to be fairly blind not to see that this is model of the papacy!
During my journey into the Catholic Church, I began to realize this:
Jesus is both Son of God and Son of David; therefore, his kingdom is both kingdom of God and kingdom of David.
Once I realized that, all sorts of things about the Bible and the Catholic Church began to make sense!
Growing up, I never understood why the first two or three chapters of Matthew and Luke stressed so heavily Jesus’ connection to the royal line of David, and yet the Davidic kingdom idea seems to go nowhere for the rest of the Gospels and the New Testament.
Actually, I was terribly mistaken. References to David and his kingdom actually continue through the Gospels and into Acts and occur elsewhere in the New Testament, especially in Revelation. The connection of Jesus to the fulfillment of the promises to the royal House of David is actually a major theme in the New Testament generally, but to grasp it we have to see that the Church is the fulfillment of the kingdom of David. That’s why Jesus promises the Twelve that they will “sit on thrones judging the tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:30). When do they do that? When they rule authoritatively over the Church in Acts (see Acts 5:1–11, for example). The Church is the “Israel of God” (Gal 6:16).
The Catholic Church is the transformed kingdom of David. The Son of David, Christ the King, rules over it. On earth, the royal steward guides it, a priestly and paternal man, a man called “papa” or “pope” by the citizens of the kingdom. He can “bind and loose” by declaring what is in accord with divine law and what is prohibited by it. So, for example, when Paul VI judged in his encyclical Humanae Vitae that artificial contraceptives were prohibited by divine and natural law, it was an exercise of the power of “binding” given to Peter and his successors.
The doctrine of papal infallibility is already implied in Matthew 16:19 when we read it in light of Jewish religious culture and through Jewish eyes. We have already seen that the Jewish Encyclopedia understands “binding and loosing” as an exercise of divine authority, ratified and sanctioned by “the celestial court of justice.” This is precisely what Jesus means by saying “what you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.” Heaven will confirm the decisions of Peter on earth; and surely this implies that heaven will first guide the decisions of Peter on earth, because heaven cannot confirm error. That implies infallibility.
However, I did not come to affirm papal infallibility merely for scriptural reasons, although I did see that Scripture implied it. Rather, I came to accept papal infallibility when I saw its relationship to Church unity.
Here is my line of logic. You can judge if I am faithful to Scripture in my thinking:
1. Jesus desires visible unity of his Church.
2. Visible unity requires, ultimately, one “senior pastor.”
3. The job of the “senior pastor” is to maintain unity.
4. He can only maintain unity by stopping fights.
5. He can only stop fights if his word is final.
6. His word is final only if he can make an infallible judgment.
Did you follow that? Let me go through the steps with you, one by one.
1. Jesus desires visible unity of his Church.
Whether Catholic or Protestant, we Christians are not being honest with ourselves, church history, or the Scriptures if we deny this point.
I became convicted of the need for the visible unity of the Church when I had to prepare a sermon on John 17, the famous “High Priestly Prayer.” In the part of this prayer where Jesus prays for the whole Church, he says:
“I do not pray for these [i.e., the apostles] only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20–21, emphasis added)
I knew that the usual Protestant interpretation of this passage was that Jesus was merely praying for spiritual unity, but my gut reaction to that, even as a Protestant, was “cop out!”
I could not believe — and still cannot believe — that Jesus was praying for his followers to be divided into forty thousand different groups differing on every imaginable point of doctrine, as long as they were somehow “spiritually unified” in some airy-fairy way.
I am especially convinced of this because it dawned on me — all those years ago when I was working on this text in the context of urban ministry — that there was a connection between unity and mission. Notice how the prayer that “they may all be one” is followed by the purpose clause “so that the world may believe.” Therefore, the unity of the Church lends credibility to the Gospel and helps the world “to believe” that Jesus has really been sent from God. But the world sees only the external. The world cannot see some airy-fairy “spiritual” unity behind forty thousand or more bickering denominations. The world needs to see visible unity in order to be moved to belief. That’s why the Reformation has crippled the evangelization of Western civilization, and it has been downhill for Christianity in the West ever since.
2. Visible unity requires, ultimately, one “senior pastor.”
Almost all churches recognize this in practice. As I mentioned above, dual pastorships are occasionally tried, but they never work long term. This is especially true
