The Unique Authority of the Local Congregations
Posted byI also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
-Matthew 16:18-19
Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.
-Matthew 18:18-20
What Does Jesus Mean?
In one sense, these are not particularly easy passages to interpret. What will one construe of the two different words petros and petra in the passage from chapter 16, and consequently, does this have to do more with Simon Peter personally, with his confession of faith, with the community of confessors in like manner, or with the person of Christ? What, precisely, are the “keys of the kingdom of heaven”? Are there any limitations or specific contexts in mind with regard to the “binding” and “loosing” language of these passages? What does it mean to speak of one who is ubiquitous and omnipresent as being “there in [the] midst” of some group of people?
Yet in another sense, Jesus’ words couldn’t be more plain. He is making sweeping promises. Those promises pertain to someone specific. To them, whoever they are, He is promising in some sense the intimacy of His presence. Furthermore, He is promising to them the very power and authority of Heaven itself to lie behind decisions that they are making and actions that they are taking.
Such sweeping promises ought to be a source of confidence and peace for the beneficiaries, whoever they might be. Yet the very fact that Jesus is trading here in divine authority—the fact that He has offered the greatest peace and assurance—has become the cause of so many exegetes dealing so nervously with Jesus’ words. For we are divided, we believers in Christ, and the outcome of our listening to Jesus’ words is pertinent to our disagreements. Understood one way, these words vindicate Leo X at the expense of Martin Luther and of all other non-Romans both before and after him. Understood another way, they erode away the foundation of the papacy and legitimize dissenters tortured and murdered across the span of two millennia.
There is, of course, a third option: Rather than understanding these verses one way or another, one may ignore these words, either by glossing over them blithely or by making every effort to explain them away rather than to explain them. This strategy will, no doubt, successfully kill off Romanism and Landmarkism alike, but one runs the risk of eliminating the lawn together with the weeds and exterminating New Testament Christianity (at least in the manner taught by Christ) along the way.
Having read these statements of Christ, having perceived their force and majesty, and having appreciated their significance and relevance for us, we do well to set aside wrong understandings of them and to hear Jesus rightly.
Who Are The Recipients?
The Roman Catholic Answer Set Aside
I am thankful that God in His great wisdom gave us several repetitions of this promise. Each gives important clarification with regard to the others. In Matthew 16, the authority of binding and loosing seems plainly to be conferred upon Simon Peter. Peter himself, however, had just instigated by his famous confession Christ’s founding of His church, and it remains ambiguous in the passage whether the “you” in these verses refers to Simon Peter personally or to Simon Peter standing in stead as the charter member of the churches for all of those who will make the same confession later and will likewise become a part of Christ’s invincible church.
In Matthew 18, clarification appears, for there we find the promise attached not to Simon Peter at all, but to the only character present in both pericopes, the churches. The singular “you” given in Matthew 16 (when only Simon Peter had made the confession) has shifted to the plural “you” in Matthew 18, and the nearest substantive word in context is our old friend ekklesia. The authority resides in the church.
This answer, of course, is acceptable to the Roman Catholic position, for the bones of Simon Peter are long since dust and it works well for Jesus to have conferred this authority to him officially rather than personally. At this very point non-Romans are tempted to wriggle away from the plain meaning of these words and diminish the idea of authority in Jesus’ words, for although we are quite content to be rebels against the See, may God forbid that we should be rebels against the proclamations of Christ! Fortunately, no such evasive maneuver is necessary for non-Romans (so long as they be not individualists in the radical modern sense).
The next two repetitions and extensions of the promise give even further clarification, and this clarification comes at precisely the question that Roman Catholics need to be asking anew: What is this “church” to which this authority has been given? Is it the Vatican? Is it the succession of apostolic authority in the bishops? Is it the church universal? No. None of these things.
The church comfortably consists of as few as “two.” These two are “gathered together”—they are a congregation. Their gathering is in the name of Jesus. These two “agree”—they are covenanted. Jesus’ words here clearly require no more than a gathered local congregation, or a church as we Baptists understand it.
The “Me Generation” Answer Set Aside
Jesus does, however, explicitly refuse to extend His promise to the singular believer. It is “two or three” and not “one.” Further underscoring this distinction is the context. Jesus reiterated these promises in Matthew 18, in the midst of a discussion about redemptive biblical church discipline. He has just painted a scenario in which the “one” has persisted in a wrongful assertion of his individual rights and soul competency and priesthood over against the judgment of the church. In narrating the scenario, Jesus sided unwaveringly with the many against the one. Indeed, the only sin given for which a person is excluded from the congregation is, rather than sexual immorality or the fomenting of unrest among the brethren or thievery or other scandalous behaviors, the act of the “one” refusing to “listen” to the authority of “the church.” It is in the very next breath that Jesus reiterates the “binding” and “loosing” authority of heaven behind not the “one” but the “two or three” in their efforts to discipline the “one.”
The individual believer abstracted from the gathered local congregation is nowhere from the lips of Jesus awarded this heavenly authority, nor can he appeal to his membership in any ungathered or unagreed notion of a universal church, for it likewise is nowhere in the New Testament the recipient of such authority from Christ. Only the gathered, covenanted, local congregation has been thus authorized by Christ. Whatever sense of the presence of Christ the individual believer experiences on his own (and there is a presence of Christ in this sense), it is a sense different from and less than the promised presence of Christ in the gathered church. Whatever implied or anticipatory authority an individual believer has as an adopted heir of the King, he does not possess the authority here vested to the local congregation. Disprove this paragraph, and the entire essay falls apart. Should they ignore this paragraph, critics are feigning at shadows rather than dealing with the substance.
The identifying mark of the hyper-individualist treatment of this passage is the instinctive effort to explain away Jesus’ words rather than to explain them. This is what I have styled elsewhere as the “Hoover Hermeneutic”—the method of biblical hermeneutics the aim of which is to disprove rather than to prove, to pull the teeth of the text, to silence God rather than to have His voice ring with volume and terrible force.
What Is the Activity in View?
Both passages speak of “binding” and “loosing” as the specific activity being discussed. The passage in Matthew 18 further specifies a promise with regard to agreement on a grammatically unfettered range of things to ask. The predominant language, however, deals with regard to “binding” and “loosing” by the church. The two passages occur in different settings and in different contexts, although some similarity between the two context is discernable.
In Matthew 16, Jesus’ promise comes in connection with the bestowal of “the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Upon tantalizing us with the mention of these keys, Jesus goes on never to mention them again. From the lips of Christ we will have no definition or clarification with regard to what these “keys” actually represent—not even a decent hint! We do, however, have the subsequent history of Simon Peter, and we note that Christ accorded to Simon Peter the privilege both of being the one to preach the gospel when the Jews first came into the churches (Acts 2) and of being the one to preach the gospel when the Gentiles first came into the churches (Acts 10). In the physical world, keys open things. Do the “keys of the kingdom of heaven” pertain to the opening of the kingdom of heaven to Jews and Gentiles—to the whole world—as the privilege of Simon Peter personally? Does the language of “binding” at least invoke the thought of connecting believers into the churches, if not imply it outright?
In Matthew 18, the aforementioned context is the template for exercising redemptive biblical church discipline. Does the language of “loosing” at least invoke the thought of undoing the bonds of membership in the local congregation? The connection seems to fit the context of Matthew 18, where both “loosing” (18:15-17) and a subsequent re-”binding” (18:21-35) of individuals vis-à-vis the gathered local congregation are the dominant focus of the pericope.
Granted, Jesus’ words in 18:19 necessarily imply that the authority being discussed here is not only the authority of bringing members into and sending members out of the congregation. We cannot safely place any restrictions here, other than to defend against any wrongheaded notion that humans are here empowered to make God act contrary to His nature or will. But without placing any limitations here, I am comfortable seeing the reception of people into the churches (and the converse exclusion of people from the churches) as the first example of this congregational authority.
What Is the Thing Promised?
It is all the vogue today to distance some notion of the “apparent church” from the “real church.” Favored terminology drives a wedge between the church as “organization” from the church as “organism.” Another, more theologically refined, manner of speaking is to promote markedly the “universal church” over against the mere “local church.” In these schemata, we are returned to the days of NeoPlatonism: The local church is ever the flawed, frail, copied “shadow” never to be confused with the eternal and heavenly “form” that is the universal church. The real spiritual things—conversion, baptism, communion, etc.—lie in the province of the universal ideal church, and not in the corrupt and fleshly local congregation.
One blogger gave voice to a common contemporary way of thinking when he wrote:
Lately I have been mentally trying to dissect the spiritual organism of the church from the structures and organizations that we know as the church.
In contrast, Jesus so forcefully identifies the gathered local congregation with the full authority of heaven and with His own presence as to startle and frighten us (or at least, to do so to me). Jesus’ words are disconcerting here. In my own carnality, I don’t much like them, for I have seen congregations ask for things when they should not have done so (IMHO), and I have seen them bind and loose wrongly (again, by my own judgment). For the sake of heaven, I would often like to distance heaven a bit from these churches.
Yet Jesus said what Jesus said, and I will not make of myself His editor. What God has joined together (local church and the authority and activity of heaven), let not man put asunder.
Do you want to experience more of the presence of Christ? Get thee to a gathered local congregation of believers assembled and covenanted in His name. There He has promised to be. Do you want to be a part of what heaven is doing? Be active in a gathered local congregation of believers assembled and covenanted in the name of Jesus Christ. Their activities are the activities of God, or at least that’s what Jesus said.
33 Comments
August 20th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Bart,
You present a very cogent, coherent, and consistent treatment of these passages. These words of our Lord are very precious and challenging indeed!
The bottom line for me is the centrality and importance of the visible assembly of Christ’s ekklesia. The New Testament instructions in letters to churches just do not work if primacy is placed on a universal church mentality. Accountability is key to my understanding of the church. Accountability only happens if there is an intentional, consistent assembly of believers in a local church.
Sola Gratia.
August 20th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Bart,
Kudos to you for a clear explanation of where you are coming from. It seems to me that you are trying to interpret “binding and loosing” in Matthew 16 in the light of Matthew 18. That’s one approach. However, if one tries to interpret “binding and loosing” in Matthew 18 in the light of Matthew 16, then I think one’s interpretation can come out looking like John Gill’s commentary on Matt. 16:19:
“And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven. This also is not to be understood of binding, or loosing men’s sins, by laying on, or taking off censures, and excommunications; but only of doctrines, or declarations of what is lawful and unlawful, free, or prohibited to be received, or practised; in which sense the words, rtwmw rwoa, ‘bound and loosed’, are used in the Talmudic writings, times without number…But Christ gave a greater power of binding and loosing, to his disciples, than these men had, and which they used to better purpose. The sense of the words is this, that Peter, and so the rest of the apostles, should be empowered with authority from him, and so directed by his Holy Spirit, that whatever they bound, that is, declared to be forbidden, and unlawful, should be so: and that whatever they loosed, that is, declared to be lawful, and free of use, should be so; and accordingly they bound some things which before were loosed, and loosed some things which before were bound; for instance, they bound, that is, prohibited, or declared unlawful, the use of circumcision…”
When one reads what happens later in the book of Acts, then I think Gill’s approach makes good sense.
I also don’t think if one does not accept your interpretation, then that necessarily makes one an individualist. As long as one accepts that the congregations is authorized by Christ to discipline someone for persistent sin, then one is holding a view in which the congregation’s final decision trumps the individual’s decision to persist in sin.
It seems to me that the practical outworking of the difference between your view and Gill’s is that you are giving the local church license to trump New Testament revelation if the local church agrees to do so whereas Gill’s view does not. Yes, I know that the local church would probably not explicitly say that is what they are doing, but that is nevertheless what your view seems to give the local church license to do in my opinion.
It seems to me that it is the possible scenario of either “local church trumps N.T.” or “N.T. trumps local church”.
God Bless,
Benji
P.S. To All–no matter what flavor of Baptist you would like to call John Gill, he was *still* a Baptist. Let’s not play “shoot down the message by shooting down the messenger” here [wink].
August 20th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
John Gill also has these interesting thoughts on Mattew 18:19 that relates to Bart Barber’s post:
“Ver. 19. Again, I say unto you,…. As the words in the former verse seem to regard the whole body of the disciples, whose decisions in cases brought before them, declaring them just or unjust, are determinate and unalterable; these seem to respect the one or two, that should join the offended person in the reproof of the offender, and are spoken for their encouragement; who might think proper either to premise, or follow their engaging in such a work with prayer:
that if two of you shall agree on earth, as touching anything that they shall ask; both in the case before mentioned, and in any other thing: whether it be for themselves or others; to assist them in the ministry of the word, and give success to it, for the conversion of sinners; and in the performance of any miracle, for the confirmation of the Gospel; in the administration of ordinances, for the comfort of saints; and in laying on of censures, for the reclaiming of backsliders; or be it what it will that may be done, consistent with the glory of God, the purposes of his mind, and the declarations of his will, and the good of men, provided they agree in their requests; though they are here on earth, and at such a distance from heaven, from whence their help and assistance come:
it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven; with whom nothing is impossible; and who, as he regards the effectual fervent prayer of any righteous man, so more, of two agreed together in anyone thing; and still more, of a church and community of saints in their united requests: a great encouragement this to social prayer, though ever so few are engaged in it.”
August 20th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Benji,
Two weeks ago I was standing at the grave of John Gill. Perhaps I should have checked with him then before I posted!
I direct you to my wording in the original post: “We cannot safely place any restrictions here, other than to defend against any wrongheaded notion that humans are here empowered to make God act contrary to His nature or will.”
I’m willing to categorize any trumping of the New Testament as falling well within the concept of humans being empowered to make God act contrary to His nature and will, for the New Testament is nothing but the revelation of God’s nature and will.
The weakness in the approach you advocate herein, it seems to me, is the entire lack of apostolic restriction we would apply to all of the remainder of the Matthew 18 pericope. Are the apostles alone able to follow the template of church discipline? Of course not. We believe that this pertains to all churches. Are the apostles alone required to forgive an offending brother seventy times seven times? Of course not. We believe that this pertains to all believers in all churches.
Likewise, the Matthew 18 passage explicitly refers simply to “two or three [who] are gathered in [Christ's] name.” How can this refer exclusively to apostolic authority? Only if one brings that presupposition to this text from outside this text, as far as I can see.
Simon Peter and the other apostles certainly qualify as “two or three” gathered in Christ’s name, but not all groups of “two or three” gathered in the name of the Lord qualify as apostles. Thus the Matthew 18 declaration cannot reasonably be interpreted in light of the Matthew 16 passage as Gill suggests, yet the Matthew 16 passage can quite easily be understood in the light of the Matthew 18 passage.
August 20th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Benji,
I just read your second comment. In it I see that Gill even in this immediate context applies all but the “binding” and “loosing” passage to the local congregation of believers. I think this makes my case all the stronger that context requires the whole thing to be applied to the churches rather than to the apostles per se.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
I would make two observations, Bart. One is practical, the other exegetical.
First, I think there are more options than just the two extremes – local church exclusivity and “me-generation” individualism. I prize the importance of the local church fellowship, but I think that we also need to prize the church catholic as well.
I think you would say you do that. We would probably differ mostly on how much value we give to each.
I guess I am sensitive to this, since I have been the main target here at this site of accusations of trumpeting individualism (and see some of my words echoed at this post in a negative light). But I think there is a middle ground that includes and balances the value of both the local and universal church. You’ve already read, I believe, my exegetical basis for that in my blogs, and I know you don’t see eye to eye on it, so I guess we need not rehash.
But I maintain that I do not have to embrace “me-generation” individualism to disagree with your view of the importance of the local church. We can value soul competency and the priesthood of the believers and still value the local church fellowship.
You said, “He has just painted a scenario in which the “one” has persisted in a wrongful assertion of his individual rights and soul competency and priesthood over against the judgment of the church.” Where do you get the idea that Jesus (in Matthew 18) was painting a scenario about someone’s wrongful assertion of soul competency or priesthood? That seems to be twisting a biblical scenario to make a point. Clearly, the issue is this passage is talking about a dispute between two brothers, and there is no mention of the assertion of these historic Baptist doctrines.
2) I do not see your exegetical proof that the Matthew 16 passage is primarily focused on the local church. Jesus said, “on this rock I will build my CHURCH,” singular, universal, the dreaded “ungathered or unagreed notion of a universal church.” Jesus seemed to see his church as one, the (singular) Body of Christ. That universal church meets in local fellowships, but the presence of local fellowships does not deny the reality of the universal Body.
In closing, I would challenge one more statement you made. “This is what I have styled elsewhere as the “Hoover Hermeneutic”—the method of biblical hermeneutics the aim of which is to disprove rather than to prove, to pull the teeth of the text, to silence God rather than to have His voice ring with volume and terrible force.”
Wow! To disagree with your view on this is to pull the teeth from the text, to silence God while refusing to have His voice ring with volume? Kind of makes it hard to express a disagreement with you, doesn’t it?
I guess I do not understand why you and those who share your position have to use rhetoric like this – calling into question the spiritual integrity or purpose of those who disagree.
Since I have been a main target of the ire of the contributors at SBC Today because of my recent posts and comments, I guess I am taking this a bit personally. But I DISAGREE with you, while also valuing your views and respecting your insights. I do NOT wish to “disprove” the text or silence God! There is a difference, you know between disagreeing with you and disrespecting the scriptures. My desire is to understand the text, even if that leads me to a different position than you come to. But “pull the teeth” of the text? That’s pretty harsh, sir. And I think those of us who disagree with the prevailing opinion here might react a little to the harshness of your accusation.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Bart,
“Two weeks ago I was standing at the grave of John Gill. Perhaps I should have checked with him then before I posted!”
Well, of course brother:). We must honor our Baptist forefathers [wink].
I understand what you are saying about the immediate context of Matthew 18. However, I think there are some other things to consider.
1. I think the broader context of the entire N.T. fits better with Gill’s view: The language of the Apostles being the “foundation” of the church fits very nicely with the “Petros/petra” and “binding & loosing” language of Matthew 16; the role the Apostles played in Acts 15; the “binding” nature of the Apostolic word in the light of Christ’s logic in John 16:13-15 being some examples.
2. Since Christ addressed “all” the Apostles and Peter as an individual answered Christ’s question, then it does not seem far fetched to take Peter as a representative of the Apostolic word in Matthew 16 to me. Accordingly, it would make sense for Christ to build up the church on that rock of the Apostolic word and take the “binding & loosing” language that comes later on to be FURTHER EXPLANATION OF WHAT CHRIST MEANT IN THAT IMMEDIATE CONTEXT [I don't know how to italicize. Help!].
3. Perhaps the “binding & loosing” should be already understood from the Matthew 16 context so that it functions in the Matthew 18 context as THE STANDARD [which would come later on in written form] by which the church is to judge what is and what is not a sin as it practices church discipline.
4. While I understand the exception that you give [i.e., “any wrongheaded notion that humans are here empowered to make God act contrary to His nature or will”], the text itself DOES NOT GIVE THAT OR ANY OTHER EXCEPTION. Therefore, this fits better with taking the binding and loosing to be the Apostolic word since that binding and loosing would not need any exception.
God Bless,
Benji
August 20th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Dave,
Good afternoon. First, with regard to your recent dialogue on this blog and elsewhere, I note for the readers that I was out of the country or otherwise occupied at the time, and did not take part at all, to my recollection. I would say that in my mind the primary target of my “Me Generation” hyper-individualism thoughts would be more George Barna (“Revolutionaries”) than Dave Miller, although having heard about the recent dust-up I confess that I wondered whether one side-effect of my posting this would be an ensuing dialogue with you. Although I do not believe that you occupy precisely the same position as Barna’s book on this question, I see you as closer to his position than I am. If I was shooting beyond you, there was the risk of projectiles whizzing by close to your head, I suppose.
If Barna reads us, I don’t know about it.
I’ll likely interact with your comments in reverse order, since I can see the bottom while I’m typing this in the form, but can’t see the top without scrolling (pick the low-hanging fruit first, right?). I’ll also be breaking up my response into separate comments.
Not all disagreeing with me is the “Hoover Hermeneutic.” The post clearly attributes that particular kind of hermeneutic only to one of the exegetical positions that it bothers to refute. So, even in this essay, which neither pretends nor attempts to exhaust the topic, there are people with whom I disagree, but whom I do not accuse of employing the “Hoover Hermeneutic.” Thus, to allege that I am saying that “to disagree with [my] view on this is to pull the teeth from the text…” is not to read very carefully.
The Roman Catholic interpretation does not employ the “Hoover Hermeneutic.” They exit the text with Jesus having actually imparted honest-to-goodness binding heavenly authority to some conception of the church. They have done so wrongly, I believe, but they have seen rightly that the text cannot mean anything other than such a bestowal, and they have made one. On the other hands, hermeneutics that make of the churches mere human institutions rather than institutions founded by the Lord Jesus Christ…to whom do they have Jesus inveighing heavenly authority here? No one I know of. Such [non-]ecclesiologies must explain why this passage does NOT involve Jesus conveying heavenly authority solely to the churches they despise, so they must argue that the passage does not mean what it clearly seems to mean. In the place of the meaning that they reject, do they have any meaning to add by which this passage has any implications for anyone? Not that I see.
Is there such a thing as believers who congregate who have been authorized collectively by Christ in a manner that no believer individually has been authorized? Many may say that this is indeed the case, and then go on wrongly to identify who those congregations actually are. This kind of error is not the “Hoover Hermeneutic,” but it is erroneous nonetheless.
The “Hoover Hermeneutic” comes about when an interpreter sees nothing in this text regarding the congregation of believers being promised the presence and authority of heaven in a way that is promised to nobody other than the congregation of believers. For these basic facts are inescapable in the text, and the only way to avoid them is to empty the text and leave it saying nothing, or to avoid speaking about this text at all.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Dave,
Now, with regard to your complaint that I have failed to deal with the “Universal Church” in Matthew 16.
I will first say with regard to the “Universal Church” that I see New Testament ecclesiology in the same way as it is described in the Baptist Faith & Message. The church does sometimes refer to the congregation that will someday gather in eternity—the entire Body of Christ.
This universal concept of the church is indeed built upon the profession of faith modeled first by Simon Peter. But the “you”s in the passage refer to Simon Peter. They are in the singular, these “you”s are, all throughout the Matthew 16 passage. They cannot grammatically refer to the Universal Church.
It is Matthew 18 where the authority is conferred upon the plural “you,” and there the wording is an iron-clad conferral solely upon the gathered local church. It’s all right there in the words of the Bible. “Two or three.” “Gathered.”
August 20th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Dave,
Now, with regard to my assertion that Matthew 18 is a contest between the soul competency and priesthood elements on the one hand and the authority of the local church on the other.
First, let me make clear that I am not suggesting that the text of this passage means to set up for us by name a contest between “soul competency” and “priesthood of the believer” on the one hand and the authority of the local church on the other. This is an impossibility, for there is no mention either of “soul competency” or “the priesthood of the believer” anywhere in the Bible. These, as often purveyed today, are extra-biblical developments.
The Bible does speak of the collective royal priesthood of all believers, tying this concept to the offering of spiritual sacrifices and the proclamation of the glorious nature and deeds of God, but it offers not even a whiff of the modern concepts. I certainly am not arguing that this passage of the Bible deals by name and directly with names and concepts that I believe not to be in the Bible anywhere!
Nevertheless, I would take issue with your characterizing Matthew 18 as merely the story of “a dispute between two brothers.” Certainly it starts that way. But the beginning of the thing vanishes early in the text. The culmination is a disagreement between the entire church on the one hand and one solitary individual on the other hand. The church asserts that he must repent. He asserts that he has the right not to do so. I have brought in these phrases so misused in our day and time because so many individuals have in our day rejected the disciplinary verdict of their fellow believers by attempts to wave the banners of “soul competency” and “the priesthood of the believer” as if the church has no right to come to judgment of their individual opinions.
My point in this passage is to demonstrate what is plainly evident in the reading of this text: In a general discussion of cases in which one person has asserted individual autonomy over against the voice of the many, Jesus, without caveats, firmly landed against the “one” and gave heavenly authority to the word of the “two or three.”
August 20th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Dave,
Finally, as I have stated elsewhere, I do affirm the existence of the Universal eschatological congregation, the anticipatory mention of it in the New Testament, and its colossal importance. Not only do I find it important—I plan to travel a long way to be in attendance! Oh, Lord, I want to be in that number!
What I am showing in this post is that, although I do not deny the existence of that universal sense of the church, Jesus has conveyed the promise of His presence and the authority of heaven specifically to the local congregation—to those congregations of at least two or three who are gathered and agreed in His name.
If I have echoed words of yours here, I testify before the Lord that it can only be because the words and phrases you employed are not very unique to you. Yours was not the blog I quoted. Yours is not the book I mentioned above.
What’s more, I said not a word about the Yankees.
Blessings, Dave, and have a great day.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Benji,
You’ve made me less certain of my argument without making me any more prone to embrace yours. Do you count that as progress?
You’re right. My limitation upon this authority does not arise out of the text. That’s a problem for me.
Unfortunately for you, it is also a problem for you. Simon Peter is the recipient of this apostolic authority if you and Gill are right, yet he apparently bound and loosed wrongly (Gal 2:11) at least sometimes. Peter trumps the New Testament, or the New Testament trumps Peter?
So, I think that either of us is going to wind up with extra-textual limitations playing some role in our theological understanding of all of this.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
In reality, Bart, I enjoy discussing and even arguing with you. As I have said before, I believe you and I agree on far more than we disagree, though those things on which we disagree are the things that we tend to blog about.
I profit from reading what you write, even when it provokes me.
I hope you understand why I read a personal barb in what you said, based on recent history.
I have not made an in depth study of Barna, but from what I have heard of what he believes, I may be closer to him than you are, but I hope I’m not very close.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
By the way, Benji, you ought to make every effort to journey over to Bunhill Fields if you haven’t done so. Gill’s grave is difficult to identify without help, and some graves were lost forever in the ferocious bombings of World War II (including, to my great regret, that of Praisegod Barebones!), but for anyone who has studied the field as you have, it is a momentous visit.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
And I am looking forward to the millennium in which the Yankees will win 1000 consecutive World Series and 162,000 consecutive regular season games.
What a day that will be.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Dave,
Ahh, so you do believe in the Tribulation.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
That started in 2004 when the Boston Red Sox won the world SEries.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Dave,
The Tribulation has already begun? Write a book about it and John Hagee will surely publish it for you.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Actually, I’m one of those pre-mil, pre-trib dinosaurs, so I don’t believe we are actually in the tribulation. But 2004 and the Boston Satans tested my beliefs.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Dave,
I, too, enjoy our conversations.
I heard second-hand that you had experienced some high-tension conversations online while I was overseas. I had already determined to author this post, and I was not targeting you, although it is likely that, whatever you said, I would disagree with it (for I know something of who else has disagreed with it).
Theology is personal. Our efforts at separating “theological dialogue” from the personal routinely fail. What is more personal than our faith? Now, we need not be mean-spirited, but we cannot avoid being personal.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Indeed, I should mention that this post has been in the cache for a while awaiting my scheduled date. I needed to work ahead because of calendar constraints.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Bart,
This was an interesting read,…and I am not trying to undo your paragraph, but I think it is important to understand authority and its extension. So I have enjoyed reading the back and forth…..
From the Gospels…written by the Apostles,…as they were writing about their time with Christ it does appear they were clear as to the genesis and extension of authority and all have testified that Christ, in His own words, was given authority.
John 5:26-27 “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; (27) and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.
John 2:18-19 The Jews then said to Him, “What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?” (19) Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. (19) “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, (20) teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
There is not sufficient warrant to extend any authority to the “church” in either of these passages, ….since “all authority” is given to Christ alone. The church is given a different charter resting in the authority of Christ. The placement of the key’s are important as the key’s represent the confession under the authority, so that the giving of the keys is not to relinquish any authority to any man or group, but to demonstrate the Acts of the Apostles and subsequent disciples effected in the authority of Christ alone through the power and person of the Holy Spirit…. a prophetic looking forward to Pentecost. The slaves of Christ, the bride of Christ is the helper, not the authoritative owner, only Christ has been entrusted with this designation.
When Peter answered….
Matthew 16:16-17 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (17) And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
He is affirmed by the Authority through the Spirit revealing to Peter that He is Christ as the Son,..but not a transfer authority,…only a realization that the truth that Peter will be announcing at Pentecost is the way, truth, and life…and no one escapes.
Matthew 16:18-19 “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. (19) “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”
So, then upon this confession, the called out ones (ekklesia) live under the protection of Christ as head, the author and finisher of the faith once for all delivered to the Saints. The Apostolic binding and loosing is given as an affirmation of the heavenly calling and the Apostles, who carried the infallible instruction by Apostolic authority in order to bind and loose error and truth…is not the same authority that disciples alone are given, nor can any vote within the body produce. As it has been said, the calling of an Apostle is a gift, not an office. Christ has not given any more of those specific gifts (Apostleship) to the church.
As our Lord and Authority continues to inform the Apostles, who are individuals / elders belonging to the church as well through adoption, Matthew 18 further illuminates the power of the relationship of a believer to another believer to further restoration, expanded upon by the analogy just previous of the truth given by our Lord at Matthew 18:35….
Matthew 18:35 “My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”
In other words, where else will heavenly binding and loosing take place except among believers who gather with the express intent to worship and to restore sinful relationships based in the right doctrines of which the Apostles were given the authority to write and expose to all.
The Authority of Christ is never relinquished, but is extended though the Holy Spirit in the Apostles alone, so that the infallible writings of scripture are made available to the Saints. We learn from these writings, yet we place trust in Christ the only authority.
Blessings,
Chris
August 20th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Chris,
1. I am nowhere arguing that Christ has relinquished His authority. I am merely saying that His ultimate and unbridled authority extends to include the authority to authorize! He can give authority without giving it away from Himself.
My parents sometimes left my older sister in charge of us younger ones (an action I always considered to be a grave error [smile]). They did not relinquish any of their authority. Rather, they authorized her to act under their authority.
In like manner, God has authorized in some contexts the state (Romans 13, for example), in other contexts the master, and in this context, the voting assembly (ekklesia). He does not lose authority in conferring it in delegation.
2. The Matthew 18 reference simply cannot, by any grammatical gymnastics, be construed to refer to the apostles. Jesus could not more plainly have referred to the any two or three united by their gathering and agreement in the name of Jesus.
August 20th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Bart,
“Simon Peter is the recipient of this apostolic authority if you and Gill are right, yet he apparently bound and loosed wrongly (Gal 2:11) at least sometimes. Peter trumps the New Testament, or the New Testament trumps Peter?”
No, no, no…Peter “acted” inconsistently with the Apostolic word that we now have in written form. In other words, Peter did not practice what the Apostles preached if you will.
Did ya take a picture of Gill’s grave that you could post up for us all to see?
August 20th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Bart,
This is the kind of back and forth that I like by the way. Thanks for how you have been interacting.
August 20th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Benji,
I am enjoying our dialogue as well.
I think you have to bring a lot to the text to arrive where you are suggesting. Between the two passages, one explicitly speaks individually to Peter (which I why I specifically mentioned his own actions), while another explicitly speaks to any two or three gathered and agreeing believers. A reference to the collective apostles or to the Bible must be construed here, mustn’t it?
Admittedly, I am construing the gathered local church into Matthew 16, but I am doing so out of what Matthew 18 explicitly says. To construe the collective apostles or the text of the New Testament upon these passages seems to me to be a construal from neither passage onto both.
In summary, it just seems to me that you’ve taken a personal conferral of authority that reads to me explicitly as Jesus authorizing people to act, and you’ve made it a personal authorization of nobody in particular, but instead to an abstract “apostolic word” that is difficult to construct from the actual text.
Finally, I did in fact take some photographs, but they are no substitute for making the journey yourself. Seeing James I will cost you £16 to travel through Westminster Abbey. The Nonconformists, still unappreciated even in their death, will cost you not a farthing to see them tucked away in the corner of a city park.
August 20th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
To all,
Tonight I lead an ordination council to consider a young man whom we are ordaining this week. Thus, delighted as I am to participate in this joyous task, I cannot say that I regret being unavailable. I can, however, announce that I will not be able to dialogue further at this time, for I must get ready for that event.
August 20th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Bart,
One correction needs to be made here.
While you were gone studyin’ up on how to become an English Sissy what happened between Dave Miller and Wes Kenney and their supporters was not a “dust-up.”
A “dust-up” is what happens when I have to get on to Tim R, Wes, Robin or Scott G. for missing the real story and going out chasing rabbits with a half-trained Beagle.
What happened between Dave, Wes and their supporters was a real live “Set-To.” And it was a pretty good one, I must say.
Your post here has all the makins’ of a fine “Set-To” of the first order. I just wish someone would call David Rogers’ attention to you post. Then the table would be set proper for a true, No-Holds-Barred, sure-nuff Set-To.
Bart, I trust you are not offended toward me for correcting you. My goal is to help you regain your “Southern Culture” so you will forget all about becoming an English Sissy.
I hope I have corrected you in time, else, I fear you might become a proponent of European-style, National Health Care.
cb
August 20th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Brother Bart,
“2. The Matthew 18 reference simply cannot, by any grammatical gymnastics, be construed to refer to the apostles. Jesus could not more plainly have referred to the any two or three united by their gathering and agreement in the name of Jesus.”
That is not my point… the text was given by Christ directly to the Apostles, but the activities discussed are not exclusive to them. My point is that it is only individuals given the Spirit who can engage in the activities of the gathered church in earnest. ….So that the Holy Spirit, the life of Christ in the believer is at work to bring about restoration. The focus of the passage is not on the gathered (church),…the church as she gathers are used only as an instrument to bring the focus of restoration back to Christ and to His glory…. not to bring attention to themselves as if they have any authority or reason to boast concerning their power or control.
Blessings,
Chris
August 20th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Bart,
“I think you have to bring a lot to the text to arrive where you are suggesting.”
If I am bringing concepts that “go beyond” the New Testament, then that is one thing. However, since I am bringing in the broader context of the New Testament, then I think this is a justifiable move.
“In summary, it just seems to me that you’ve taken a personal conferral of authority that reads to me explicitly as Jesus authorizing people to act, and you’ve made it a personal authorization of nobody in particular, but instead to an abstract ‘apostolic word’ that is difficult to construct from the actual text.”
No, I am saying Jesus did authorize the Apostles “personally” to bind and loose and what they bound and loosed has been written down in concrete form–whether that be the Gospel of John, Ephesians, 1 Peter, etc.
I think you are basically viewing Matthew 16 through the lens of Matthew 18 whereas I think I am basically viewing Matthew 18 through the lens of Matthew 16. Accordingly, I think my view fits better with the entire N.T.
While I do believe that the local church has the authority to practice church discipline, I think your view gives way too much power to the local church so that the practical outworking of your view–despite your exception–presents these danger [as I see it]:
1. The temptation to rob the New Testament of its practical authority is much too great.
2. The local church becomes a sphere in which different groups engage in power politics in order to win a majority vote since THAT IS WHERE THE AUTHORITY PRACTICALLY IS.
3. The justification of what is right ends up being what the majority of the church says [period!] instead of what is rightly interpreted from the New Testament.
God Bless,
Benji
August 20th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
CB, you are a real live mess.
August 20th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Bart,
I did want to clarify one thing. Of course, Peter’s action is a part of the Apostolic word, but it is not what the Apostolic word “approves” of. Obviously, the example of Peter is given as an example for the church NOT to follow. So, what I am talking about is the church basing its beliefs and practices upon the “foundation” of what the apostolic word approves of.
And, of course, that is exactly what you see the church doing in Acts 2:42.
August 31st, 2009 at 12:03 am
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