Read your King James Bible and several times you’ll run across the word “sackbut.”
Say that today and somebody will feel insulted.
Back in 1611 people knew it was a musical instrument. Language changes as centuries pass.
That can happen with theological vocabulary too.
Take the word “keys.” Listen hard to sermons, to your Christian friends, or to Christian media. Is anybody talking about keys?
Back in 1563, when the Heidelberg Catechism was written (that much-loved and widely used Reformed summary of Biblical Christianity about which I blog so relentlessly) everybody knew it was a theological term.
It goes back to a conversation with Jesus and Peter in Matthew 16:
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 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.”
This connection was so obvious that when they started talking about the keys the writers of the Catechism did not even bother to give a footnote the passage.
The question for Christians in the 16th century was not whether this was a “key” faith topic (sorry), but what exactly the “keys” were about which Jesus spoke.
Roman Catholicism and newly separate Protestantism differed on who held the keys: were the keys given to Peter personally, and passed to his heirs as bishops of Rome (the Popes), or given to the Church built upon his faith. In the generally peaceable Heidelberg Catechism, that argument does not come up.
The Catechism wants us to focus instead on what the keys actually are — and what it is that they lock up or open.
Here is the initial reference to the keys from the Heidelberg Catechism with a little emphasis added for clarity:
83 Q. What are the keys of the kingdom?
A. The preaching of the holy gospel and
Christian discipline toward repentance.
Both of them
open the kingdom of heaven to believers
and close it to unbelievers.
Whoever holds the keys, the thing they should be opening or closing is salvation — forgiveness, eternal life, heaven itself in the presence of God.
We are charged with bringing the good news of salvation to the world. That is our mission. We long to make sure people know the door is wide open. That is one way preaching, or telling about Jesus and his love, functions as a key — though going through the door requires faith and repentance, so the act of preaching can also effectively lock some out.
“Discipline,” too, is a key, says the Catechism. That sounds a bit more negative to modern ears.
It is probably easier for some to use the word “accountability.” Others would do better to think of the community of faith paying loving attention to the growth of its members.
More on that another time, but whatever you call it, discipline, like preaching, both opens and closes the door.
In our culture it seems impossible that we would consider anything keeping that door closed. There are two more questions on the keys in the Catechism, and I’ll eventually post on those too. I suspect that both opening and closing are reasonable and useful functions of the keys.
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Meanwhile I would love to hear from you in the comments: In your experience of the faith, what has functioned to open and close the door to the kingdom of heaven?
joe pruett says
April 8, 2015 at 6:33 AMDr. Hansen, you know I’m not sure I have ever heard a sermon or even any discussion of the “keys” in church. Kind of wondering now why that’s never been discussed? I think that we as a member of the church and a member of Jesus do possess these keys and are as he said to Peter given the authority to share this message of repentance and the Kingdom of Heaven to others, so I say, what’s holding us back from sharing this glorious message?
Gary Neal Hansen says
April 8, 2015 at 6:51 PMThanks Joe. I think what may hold us back is that people don’t perceive it as so glorious. That is, our post-modern culture is full to the brim with suspicion of anything judgmental, anything that might tend to exclude anyone for any reason — maybe not from anyTHING (you do have to be able to play football to be on the team) but certainly from the church.
Myra Schouten says
September 5, 2020 at 2:51 PMI don’t think that Matthew 18:15-20 is the written for the purpose of church discipline based on what I understand the teachings of Jesus to be. No. 1, the word church wasn’t used for at least 20 years after the resurrection. No 2, to send out the sinner to the gentiles and tax collectors was the main people that Jesus was with, and in fact was highly criticized by the leaders. No 3 to put these verses in context with the verses following tells me that Jesus was speaking with the 12 disciples because of their bickering and infighting. Why else would Peter ask, How many times must I forgive someone who sins against me. No 4 these are strangely the same instructions already given by Paul when the gospel was written. And Matthew was a tax collector.
I think that this is about forgiveness and how many times do we forgive, 70 x 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 and on. The best translation comes from The Message, when they are told they will have to start over from scratch and keep on confronting the sinner with the need for redemption and offer again Gods forgiving love.
Gary Neal Hansen says
September 7, 2020 at 2:49 PMHi Myra!
Nice to hear from you. (I think you intended to post this on last week’s “Monday Meditation” on Matthew 18:15-20.)
Whether Jesus intended these words to be about church discipline or not, the Church across the ages has regularly applied these words to such issues. And I’m not surprised, though I argue in the post that we should apply it more carefully to instances where we ourselves have been harmed, and not as an excuse to hunt out the sins of others.
As to the word “church” and more importantly the Greek word behind it, “ekklesia” and its variations are used by Jesus himself three times (two in this passage) and it occurs over a hundred times in the New Testament. Only maybe three of those occurrences in the NT are secular, the rest being clearly about Christian congregations or about the whole Christian body.
In the text Jesus doesn’t have the final step of discipline to “send out” someone to the gentiles and tax collectors. Rather he has people treat unrepentant offenders as if they were gentiles and tax collectors — and your comment and my post both note that those are people Jesus actively and continually loved.
I quite agree as to the context. Mostly he speaks to the “disciples,” and in then privately to Peter. But I would say that this does not argue against the topic being the church and its attempt to keep people behaving like disciples, which is what discipline actually is.
Blessings,
Gary