# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1848 02 08_S91
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— had come [before the others]: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," the Lord grants him the promise: "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven," Matthew 16:19. Peter receives the promise first as the reward of grace for the good confession he had made, and he is indeed also the apostle who, after the Lord's resurrection, first came forward as an apostle, Acts 1:15; 2:14, and who first opened the kingdom of heaven to Jews and Gentiles. But he did not receive that promise exclusively, just as in general he does not appear, either in the Acts of the Apostles or in the epistles, nor does he present himself, as one who would have any precedence of rank over the other apostles. Rather, the Lord, after his transfiguration on the mountain, grants the same promise to all the disciples. For the words of Matthew 18:18 are addressed to the apostles — or, according to others, to all Christians together (by virtue of their spiritual priesthood): "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" — words by which the keys of the kingdom of heaven are conferred upon them, although no explicit mention is made of them; for the power to bind and to loose belongs to the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

For the keys are, in fact, the designation of a manifold power. The Lord himself has the key of David, that is, the highest power in the kingdom of heaven, and can open so that no one can shut, and can shut so that no one can open (Rev. 3:7); he has the keys of hell and of death, for he has overcome both for the salvation of his own, Rev. 1:18. The exercise, then, of this highest power in the kingdom of heaven, which Christ possesses as its King, he transfers — insofar as the church needs a visible exercise of it — to the apostles, and in them to teachers in general. Just as in the Old Testament, Isaiah 22:22, Eliakim receives the keys to the house of David and thereby the highest power under the king, so Peter, in the keys of the kingdom of heaven, receives an official power subordinate to the Lord Jesus, the eternal, sole-ruling, ever-present King of his kingdom. It is not said how many keys are given to him; in any case, the key of the knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom belongs to it (Luke 11:52), as does the key of the preaching of the Gospel; only the power to loose and to bind is expressly named, which in the language of the church, in the narrower sense, is called the power of the keys. That the sending of the apostles — itself compared to the sending of Christ (John 20:21) — and likewise the keys of the kingdom of heaven, do not signify exclusively the power to loose or to bind, is also acknowledged by the Augsburg Confession, when it says (Art. 28): "Now our people teach thus, that the power of the keys, or of bishops, is, according to the Gospel, a power and command of God to preach the Gospel, to forgive and retain sin, and to administer and dispense the sacraments." Peter did not receive these keys immediately (the words run: "I will give unto thee," etc.); he received them after the Lord's resurrection; the power of the keys entrusted to the teaching office is, as Hieronymus Weller remarks, one of the most glorious fruits of Christ's resurrection.

To the power of the keys granted to Peter belongs the power to bind and to loose; and since this is conferred by the Lord upon the disciples in general, it is to be regarded as a privilege granted to the New Testament teaching office as such. This power of the keys, in the narrower sense, is one single power, but it exercises itself in the twofold manner of binding or loosing, and the church accordingly speaks of a binding key and a loosing key. That which is bound or loosed is, as the Lord himself explains, John 20:21, sin together with its consequences, which lies upon man as a heavy burden, Isaiah 38:5; Rev. 2:24. It is bound when it is retained for the impenitent — that is, not forgiven, but given to him to feel in its whole weight with its baleful effects. It is loosed when it is forgiven — that is, taken away from the conscience together with its sorrowful effects — so that in the sinner there arises the living conviction that his sins are, as it were, blotted out before the holy eyes of God, that they are no longer imputed to him, that there is nothing damnable in him, and that they shall not be remembered in the final judgment.

"Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth," says the Lord, Matthew 18:18, "shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven." The truth of this saying and the importance of the matter are emphatically underscored by the preceding words: "Verily I say unto you." But how can a fallible human being forgive or retain sins in such a way that his judgment is afterward acknowledged in heaven by God himself? Is it not God alone who can bring about such effects in the innermost life of the soul as this binding and loosing is, and who can open to the soul entrance to the actual enjoyment of all the blessings of salvation of the kingdom of heaven, either through forgiveness of sins, or close it through retention of sins? Whoever asks this has as yet no correct conception of the office of the keys. The binding and loosing of the priest and of God himself are not two different things, such that the one occurred beforehand and the other afterward. It is God himself who, in accordance with the household of grace ordained by himself, wills to relieve the soul by means of the office of the keys, or to burden it grievously therewith — to bring home to it either his grace or his wrath, either the effects of his Law or of his Gospel. For just as teachers in general, in all their official acts, are God's fellow-workers (1 Cor. 3:9), and just as, insofar as they move within the bounds of their office and act in accordance with it, the Spirit of the Father speaks through them (Matt. 10:20) and Christ works through them (Rom. 15:18), so it is likewise God himself who, in the administration of the binding and loosing key, makes use of them as instruments of his own self-active working. Just as God, through them, has his Word preached and the sacraments dispensed, so too he wills, through them, either to loose souls from the bonds of sin or to bind them fast therewith, either to assure them of his grace or to give them over to the feeling of his wrath. For what God accomplishes on earth through the office instituted by himself, he cannot act contrary to in heaven; rather, God's order on earth and God's decree in heaven stand in the most perfect harmony. Absolution is his word on earth and as such is also valid in heaven; the impenitent sinner, who resists his order, finds no grace in heaven either. This is in accordance with the clear pronouncements of the divine Word. The doctrine of our church is, namely, as the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article 4, says: "that it is God's command, the right use of the Gospel, that we believe the absolution and hold it for certain among ourselves that our sins are forgiven us through Christ without merit of our own, and that we also, as truly as we believe the word of absolution, are as certainly reconciled to God as if we heard a voice from heaven." To a penitent soul applies, in its fullest force, the assurance of our Luther: "See to it that you by no means doubt that it is so, and you should rather die sooner and many times over than doubt the priest's judgment. If you can believe this, then your heart must laugh for joy, and you must love the power of the priest and praise and thank God that he has thus comforted your conscience." And: "People are to be taught to confess to Christ, that Christ absolves through the mouth of the servant, for the servant's mouth is Christ's mouth, the servant's ear is Christ's ear. One is to look to the Word and command of God, and not rely upon the person. Christ sits there at confession, Christ hears it, they are Christ's words, not the words of men, which are there heard and spoken from the confessor's mouth."

So, then, the administration of the binding and loosing key, just as much as the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments, belongs among the essential and inalienable duties of the New Testament teaching office, as an office of righteousness which avails before God (2 Cor. 3:9), an office of the Spirit and of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18). It belongs to the surpassing glory of this office, and, because it belongs to it by divine right, cannot be wrested from it by human right — still less may those to whom this office is entrusted themselves relinquish it, if they are to be found as Christ's servants and stewards over the mysteries of God (1 Cor. 4:1), and are not to act contrary to the directive of that office...