When Peter, the last of the apostles to believe, finally confessed that he knew and believed that Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus responded that the information had been revealed to him by His Father. In view of the harmonized Loaves Narrative we compiled in Part 1, Jesus had identified Peter’s response as a fulfillment of Isaiah 54:13 — “all thy children shall be taught of the LORD” — just as his followers throughout the Loaves miracles had also fulfilled that same prophecy (John 6:45). As we noted in Part 3, Jesus’ promise to “build My church” upon “this rock” was plainly a reference to the “stone” foundation of His own Father’s Word, the solid foundation He had identified in Isaiah 54. His next statement — “the gates of hell shall not prevail” — as we showed in Part 4, was just one of many restatements of Jesus’ promise that people who believe His Father’s words would not perish: “He that heareth my word, and believeth … is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). We also showed that His promise to give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven—Knowledge and Faith—was a simple reference to the ministry of preaching that Jesus would confer upon the apostles after bestowing the Spirit. In sum, the entire conversation with Peter occurred in the context of Jesus completing His task to preach His Father’s Words, and His plan to commission His disciples to do the same. It is therefore no surprise that Jesus’ next words carried the same meaning: “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). Roman Catholicism has long desired to apply the power to bind and loose to a carnal, administrative ecclesiastical power to enslave the souls of men. But Jesus’ words mean nothing other than this: that He had received a task from His Father to preach the Good News, and had commissioned His disciples to preach that Good News after Him.

Continue reading Last to Know, Part 5 →

As we noted in our previous entry, it is assumed by Roman Catholics that Jesus promised to build His Church upon “this rock,” Peter. When that invalid assumption is allowed, Jesus’ next words — “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” — are infused with Petrine significance, as if the perseverance of the Church rested upon the shoulders of Peter and his successors.  And when that assumption is allowed, His next words about “the keys of the kingdom” and binding and loosing, are infused with Magisterial authority. However, as we demonstrated in our harmonization of the Loaves Narratives, Jesus’ response to Peter’s confession was made in the context of Isaiah 54, a context established by the Johannine account: “It is written in the prophets [Isaiah 54:13), ‘And they shall be all taught of God'” (John 6:45). In Matthew, Jesus confirms that context, explaining that Peter had converted because the Father had taught him (Matthew 16:17). The benefit of harmonizing the Loaves Narratives is that we need not wonder what Jesus was thinking when He responded to Peter’s confession. He was thinking about the preaching ministry described Isaiah 54. Isaiah 54 not only identifies upon which “rock” Jesus  would build His church, but also why the the gates of hell would not prevail against it. And when we see that the Apostles were commissioned, as Jesus had been, to preach the Word of the Father, we see plainly what Jesus meant by the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Continue reading Last to Know, Part 4 →