Power of the Keys

Let us consider one of the most striking parallels between Jesus Christ and the good King Hezekiah.  We read in 2 Kings 20 that the King is mortally ill and that he prays to the Lord.  Then the Lord speaks through his holy prophet Isaiah that the king is to go up to the temple on the third day and his life will be saved and the city will be saved as well.  Thus, Christ’s own resurrection on the third day was foreshadowed and how He brought His own Body back to Life and saved the city, the New Jerusalem, the Church.

A very important thing happened in the life of King Hezekiah that Jesus Christ later alludes to.

Isaiah 22:19-23

“I will thrust you from your office and pull you down from your station. On that day I will summon my servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah; I will clothe him with your robe, and gird him with your sash, and give over to him your authority. He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open. I will fix him like a peg in a sure spot, to be a place of honor for his family”

Compare Isaiah 22 with Matthew 16:18-19 which states:

“And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

 

This title, or position was also known in non-Jewish governments and we can see that the power that the holder of the keys actually has can be determined by reading Gen 41:39-40 “So Pharaoh said to Joseph: ‘…You shall be in charge of my palace,…Only in respect to the throne shall I outrank you.’”  Gen 41 seems to suggest that he ruled not by exercising his own private judgment, but rather was in charge of executing the will of the king.

We see this confirmed in Isaiah 22:22 when we read that the Master of the palace will rule such that when “he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open.”  This passage presupposes that he will just be executing a judgment in keeping with the will of the king, or else it would have said, “what he opens, no one shall shut, except for the king.”  The Master of the palace is, so to speak, the agent or mouthpiece for the king.

One important point in Isaiah 22 is that it is the transfer of the keys that designates Eliakim as the new master of the palace, “I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder…”  King David had been dead many years when this took place.  Therefore, this verse shows that the office of key holder/master of the palace, was an office with successors just as the office of king was.  It was the transferring of the keys that denoted the transfer of power to the new successor of this office as the king’s representative, his regent, the master of the palace.

It was God the Father who had picked Peter to be the one to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah.  And it was upon hearing this that Jesus alludes to that passage in Isaiah 22 above and gives the keys to Saint Peter. Matthew 16:13, 19 “‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God... , you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’”

The keys represent absolute power to rule.  They are owned by the King of Israel who entrusts them to his representative the "master of the palace."   Christ is the true King of Israel.   Just as in Isaiah 22 above where the keys are handed down to the successors of the king’s prime minister we see Christ giving His keys to his designated   "master of the palace,"  his chief minister, his vicar, St. Peter.

That the "gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it" also implies succession for Peter’s office just as the holders of the keys of David had successors.  Peter died. Yet, Christ’s promise is true.  Peter who became the Bishop of Rome has a successor.    The future tense used in Matthew 16, "will build"   and "will give you the keys," refers to what Christ will give to St. Peter after the Resurrection.

We find many instances Jesus comparing the kingdom of heaven to a field, a mustard seed, leaven, and a net (Matt 13:24-52).  This demonstrate that the kingdom Jesus is talking about the universal Church on earth, not the eternal state of glory. Jesus comparing the kingdom of heaven to ten maidens, five of whom were foolish (Matt 25:1-2), further shows that the kingdom is the Church on earth.  This kingdom cannot refer to the heavenly kingdom because there are no fools in heaven!  Again, the “kingdom of God” is like the seed which grows and develops (Mark 4:26-32).  The heavenly kingdom is eternal, so the kingdom to which Peter holds the keys of authority is the earthly Church.  The one Jesus Himself founded.

Let’s put it all together with what we’ve learned today. God promises to establish the Davidic kingdom forever on earth (2 Sam 7:16; Psalm 89:3-4; 1 Chron 17:12,14) and Matthew clearly establishes this tie from David to Jesus in the first lines of his Gospel when he describes the genealogy from David to Jesus Himself.  Jesus is the new King of the new House of David, and the King will assign a chief steward to rule over the house while the King is in heaven.  We see that the keys of the kingdom pass from Shebna to Eliakim (Isa 22:22).  Thus, the keys are used not only as a symbol of authority, but also to facilitate succession.  We see in the early Church that successors are immediately chosen for the apostle’s offices (Acts 1:20).  Just as the Church replaced Judas, it also replaced Peter with a successor after Peter’s death.  The keys of Christ’s kingdom have passed from Peter to Linus all the way to our current Pope with an unbroken lineage for almost 2,000 years.

God Bless
Nathan

Peter the Rock

In Matthew’s parallel section of this week’s Gospel reading we find Jesus changing Peter’s name from Simon.  In response to Simon’s (ie Peter) answer the Jesus the Christ, the son of the living God Jesus tells Peter that he is indeed blessed and on the Rock of Peter that His Church will be built (Matt 16:16-18).  Here’s a short exchange on how to defend the Catholic position that Jesus made Peter the first Pope on that day...

For a layman, I suppose I was reasonably well informed about my faith—at least I never doubted it or ceased to practice it—but my own reading had not equipped me for verbal duels.

Then, one day, I came across a nugget of information that sent a shock wave through the next missionary who rang the bell and that proved to me that becoming skilled in apologetics isn’t really all that difficult. Here’s what happened.

When I answered the door, the lone missionary introduced himself as a Seventh-day Adventist. He asked if he could "share" with me some insights from the Bible. I told him to go ahead.

He flipped from one page to another, quoting this verse and that, trying to demonstrate the errors of the Church of Rome and the manifest truth of his own denomination’s position.

Some of the verses I had encountered before. I wasn’t entirely illiterate with respect to the Bible, but many verses were new to me. Whether familiar or not, the verses elicited no response from me, because I didn’t know enough about the Bible to respond effectively.

Finally the missionary got to Matthew 16:18: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church."

"Hold it right there!" I said. "I know that verse. That’s where Jesus appointed Simon the earthly head of the Church. That’s where he appointed him the first pope." I paused and smiled broadly, knowing what the missionary would say in response.

I knew he usually didn’t get any defense of the Catholic position at all as he went door to door, but sometimes a Catholic would speak up as I had. He had a reply, and I knew what it would be, and I was ready for it.

"I understand your thinking," he said, "but you Catholics misunderstand this verse because you don’t know any Greek. That’s the trouble with your Church and with your scholars. You people don’t know the language in which the New Testament was written. To understand Matthew 16:18, we have to get behind the English to the Greek."

"Is that so?" I said, leading him on. I pretended to be ignorant of the trap being laid for me.

"Yes," he said. "In Greek, the word for rock is petra, which means a large, massive stone. The word used for Simon’s new name is different; it’s Petros, which means a little stone, a pebble."

In reality, what the missionary was telling me at this point was false. As Greek scholars—even non-Catholic ones—admit, the words petros and petra were synonyms in first century Greek. They meant "small stone" and "large rock" in some ancient Greek poetry, centuries before the time of Christ, but that distinction had disappeared from the language by the time Matthew’s Gospel was rendered in Greek. The difference in meaning can only be found in Attic Greek, but the New Testament was written in Koine Greek—an entirely different dialect. In Koine Greek, both petros andpetra simply meant "rock." If Jesus had wanted to call Simon a small stone, the Greek lithos would have been used. The missionary’s argument didn’t work and showed a faulty knowledge of Greek. (For an Evangelical Protestant Greek scholar’s admission of this, see D. A. Carson, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984], Frank E. Gaebelein, ed., 8:368).

"You Catholics," the missionary continued, "because you don’t know Greek, imagine that Jesus was equating Simon and the rock. Actually, of course, it was just the opposite. He was contrasting them. On the one side, the rock on which the Church would be built, Jesus himself; on the other, this mere pebble. Jesus was really saying that he himself would be the foundation, and he was emphasizing that Simon wasn’t remotely qualified to be it."

"Case closed," he thought.

It was the missionary’s turn to pause and smile broadly. He had followed the training he had been given. He had been told that a rare Catholic might have heard of Matthew 16:18 and might argue that it proved the establishment of the papacy. He knew what he was supposed to say to prove otherwise, and he had said it.

"Well," I replied, beginning to use that nugget of information I had come across, "I agree with you that we must get behind the English to the Greek." He smiled some more and nodded. "But I’m sure you’ll agree with me that we must get behind the Greek to the Aramaic."

"The what?" he asked.

"The Aramaic," I said. "As you know, Aramaic was the language Jesus and the apostles and all the Jews in Palestine spoke. It was the common language of the place."

"I thought Greek was."

"No," I answered. "Many, if not most of them, knew Greek, of course, because Greek was the lingua franca of the Mediterranean world. It was the language of culture and commerce; and most of the books of the New Testament were written in it, because they were written not just for Christians in Palestine but also for Christians in places such as Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, places where Aramaic wasn’t the spoken language.

"I say most of the New Testament was written in Greek, but not all. Many hold that Matthew was written in Aramaic—we know this from records kept by Eusebius of Caesarea—but it was translated into Greek early on, perhaps by Matthew himself. In any case the Aramaic original is lost (as are all the originals of the New Testament books), so all we have today is the Greek."

I stopped for a moment and looked at the missionary. He seemed a bit uncomfortable, perhaps doubting that I was a Catholic because I seemed to know what I was talking about. I continued.

"We know that Jesus spoke Aramaic because some of his words are preserved for us in the Gospels. Look at Matthew 27:46, where he says from the cross, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ That isn’t Greek; it’s Aramaic, and it means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

"What’s more," I said, "in Paul’s epistles—four times in Galatians and four times in 1 Corinthians—we have the Aramaic form of Simon’s new name preserved for us. In our English Bibles it comes out as Cephas. That isn’t Greek. That’s a transliteration of the Aramaic word Kepha (rendered as Kephas in its Hellenistic form).

"And what does Kepha mean? It means a rock, the same as petra. (It doesn’t mean a little stone or a pebble. What Jesus said to Simon in Matthew 16:18 was this: ‘You are Kepha, and on thiskepha I will build my Church.’

"When you understand what the Aramaic says, you see that Jesus was equating Simon and the rock; he wasn’t contrasting them. We see this vividly in some modern English translations, which render the verse this way: ‘You are Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church.’ In French one word, pierre, has always been used both for Simon’s new name and for the rock."

Text copied from http://www.catholic.com/tracts/peter-the-rock

God Bless
Nathan