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You would be wrong. The key is the Spirit of knowledge and understanding contained in the Living Word of God.
Try not to make the same mistake as those lawyers did who hindered others from entering by way of their own lack of knowledge and understanding.
Luke 11:52
Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
You would be wrong. The key is the Spirit of knowledge and understanding contained in the Living Word of God.
Try not to make the same mistake as those lawyers did who hindered others from entering by way of their own lack of knowledge and understanding.
Luke 11:52
Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
Friend, when you are sitting at the feet of Jesus you have the Holy Spirit speaking to you. The Father and the Son both have the same Spirit. And we are given assurance of this when Jesus was baptized. The Holy Spirit descended upon the Lord in a visible manner, that everyone could see that he had the Holy Spirit. John (the baptist) even testifies of this event. Yes, absolutely! The Holy Spirit is necessary for any man to understand the truth of God and we also know that before the first apostles were sent out into the world to fulfill their commission, that the Holy Spirit also came down upon them in a visible display that people then and people now would know that they had the Holy Spirit.
Now, one might argue that, "Well, then they didn't really understand all the truth of God until Pentecost." And I would give some creedence to that understanding because of the many times that Jesus rebuked them for being dull and unable to understand, but even that allows that by the time they went out and began using the 'keys' of the kingdom that Jesus had given unto them in his teaching, that they did fully understand what it was they were teaching and believing as the truth. Because they then had the indwelling Holy Spirit! This is part of my argument that we need to be very careful in accepting the words of men after these that try to tell us what it is that God desires of us. I don't have any such assurance that someone 100 years or 200 years later has the indwelling Holy Spirit to understand the things of God, as I do of the first apostles.
As a matter of fact, it was to these very men that Jesus said, "When the Holy Spirit comes to you, he will lead you into all truth." He then instructed them to wait for the Holy Spirit before they began their task of teaching and preaching the 'keys' to the kingdom. So, yes, I would agree that there may well have been some parts of Jesus' teaching to them that they may not have fully understood until the day of Pentecost, but not before they began to use the 'keys' to the kingdom that Jesus had given them that, yes, I understand was the wisdom and knowledge of the things of God that he shared with them.
I hope that you fully appreciate the time that Jesus spent with his apostles. This was not some 9 to 5 job where everybody got in their cars and went home to their families at the end of the day. This band of men traveled together, day and night, all over Israel learning at the feet of the Savior. Surely, in the evening, as they ate and readied themselves for a night's rest they spoke to one another and asked many questions and received many answers. When they traveled from town to town as a group, Jesus spoke to them of many truths and explained to them many things that other people of that day were not privey to. We have at least two times that we are told Jesus sat with his disciples privately and explained to them a parable that he had told the people.
Now, in three years, I imagine that this happened a lot!! So, yes, these men knew the truth and it had all been explained to them, but the total and complete comprehension of all that Jesus had told them may not have really sunk in and been made a part of 'who they were' until the day of Pentecost. Obviously, at the time of Jesus' trial, Peter didn't fully understand who Jesus was because he denied knowing him, but by the time Peter was martyred for his faith, I doubt that he even batted an eye or took one moment of hesitation in explaining to his persecutors that, yes, he knew Jesus and he stood with him.
God bless you.
IN Christ, Ted
We don't hear that very often.
"The keys are the cross."
God be gracious to me a sinner.
Ah, but knowledge like circumcision must be of the heart - knowledge of this kind can come by encounter, which is the sacramental life Ortho speaks of.
why do we need keys if the gate is flung open?
we need a map!
Can you not give your opinion without saying something like... You would be wrong... and Try not to make the same mistake as...
It's really condescending, and eventually your going to make a mistake around here and people are going to eat you alive.
It's very ignorant and I wish you would refrain.
God be gracious to me a sinner.
The gate isn't flung open, it's a narrow road that very few find.
The gate isn't flung open, it's a narrow road that very few find.
Can you not give your opinion without saying something like... You would be wrong... and Try not to make the same mistake as...
It's really condescending, and eventually your going to make a mistake around here and people are going to eat you alive.
It's very ignorant and I wish you would refrain.
God be gracious to me a sinner.
I think it's more that the way is narrow than the door is locked...unless you think that everyone who cries Lord, Lord enters the Kingdom.
but you forget that Jesus Christ taught paul the apostle, who did not even know Christ according to the flesh.
Hi noxot,
No, I'm not forgetting that, but I know that Paul received the Holy Spirit shortly after his meeting with the risen Lord in Spirit, when he was baptized after Annanias removed the scales from his eyes. So, the time he spent learning, he himself had the Holy Spirit.
yeah the cross!
there are 2 kinds of offense, one is from heaven and one is of the earth. anyone who reads the scriptures would be able to see that! it is so hard to see the inside of peoples hearts and it is hard to stop obeying our perceptions of people. people with inward problems that think most people think badly of them are going to feel that way if people think badly about them or not for instance. if our perception of people is better we might start to think they are saying what they say with love and care rather than in a lesser manner. it takes a wise and discerning person to be able to know how someone is feeling on the inside when they say something. we can listen to the evil angel or the good one! and we can be often be deaf to things that offend us, if they are real or not.
Hi,
I'm not going to make any dogmatic claim as regards what the keys are, but I have an idea of where you are headed with this and I'll just say that I don't understand the Scriptures as putting them in the hands of any 'church'.
Marty may very well be correct and it is something that I am going to put on my prayer list for wisdom and knowledge. We know, because the writings of Peter and John and Matthew and Mark are now included as part of the 'Scriptures', that Jesus, in his three years of living with and teaching face to face gave unto them the 'keys' to know how to find eternal life. We know, that of any human being alive in that day, that they alone had the greatest blessing of being taught at the master's feet all that God wanted them to know. Even Jesus told them that his very words were not of his knowledge and understanding, but that they had been given him by the Father.
I can certainly find support that the 'keys' spoken of here may well refer to these things that Jesus taught them that they might know, and explain to others, the way to eternal life. Just as today one might say, "Well, the 'key' to understanding how to work out the Rubik's cube is..." Jesus gave unto his disciples the 'keys', yes there is more than one truth, to eternal life.
I am not convinced that that claim was ever intended to be passed on to future generations; that now some 2,000 years later someone still has these 'keys' in their possession handed down through the centuries. I believe the 'keys', understood as a basis of knowledge, was given to the first apostles and while that knowledge was still passed on through the proclamation of the gospel, this idea that someone today still has these 'keys', apart from them just knowing, understanding and believing the same thing the apostles did, is not a part of my understanding.
I understand the same thing to apply to the binding and loosing. It was a gift given to the first apostles because Jesus knew them and understood what they knew, after all the Scriptures give evidence that he could read men's thoughts. He understood that this gift of being able to bind or loose was in good hands with them, but the working of that gift ended with their lives and their ministry. Just as we see Peter give a beggar back his legs, we can 'assume' that the first apostles had much of the same 'power' over life that Jesus had, and that power, provided by the way, through the Holy Spirit that we know they possessed from the day of Pentecost, was the same power that Jesus had to bind and loose.
God bless you.
In Christ, Ted
Obedience does impart grace.
What I am hearing you say is you believe the "keys" to be the sacraments but REALLY you believe the "keys" to be grace. We could not enter the Kingdom without grace, but we could enter the Kingdom w/out the sacraments. You just believe we have to do something in order to receive grace and your choice are the sacraments.
Accurate?
There are strong Old Testament overtones. Abraham was the 'rock' from which the Jewish race "was hewn, and the quarry from which [the Jews] were dug" (Isaiah 51:1). God also is a 'rock': 'Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord God you have an everlasting rock' (Isaiah 26:4). The Church is the new people of God who will he built upon the bedrock of Peter.
The 'gates of Hades [hell]' refers to the powers of evil that oppose the new people of God.
The reference to the keys draws on an incident described in Isaiah (22:15-25), where God tells the prophet to confront and remove Shebna, the steward (prime minister) of King Hezekiah. The keys (to the palace), the symbols of office, are taken from Shebna. As steward with authority, Peter is given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. As possessor of the keys he can 'bind and loose.'
These terms come from the rabbinical tradition and refer to the rabbinical decisions to allow opinions to be held, or to outlaw them. The term also refers to the rabbis' ability to bind (that is, to impose excommunication) and to loose (that is, to absolve from excommunication). The role of the apostle is to witness to the resurrection and to lay the foundation of Church. Peter has a primary role in each of these functions.
You maintain that this unique apostolic work cannot survive beyond the time of the apostles. You deny that there can be successors to Peter. He is the rock upon which the foundations of the Church are laid.-snip-
You were singing Row Row Row Your boat to Isa 26:4 and jumped to Mary had a Little Lamb. IOW, not sure how you got from one sentence to the next.
Different set of keys. Christ still has these (Rev).
They were all given the power to bind and loose.
Primary because he first preached to Jew and Gentile. Once the door was opened, it remains open.
Christ is the rock as you yourself said above.
But thanks for sharing your "party line' again.
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