Question 83. What are the keys of the kingdom of heaven?
Answer: The preaching of the holy gospel, and Christian discipline, or excommunication out of the Christian Church. By these two the kingdom of heaven is opened to believers, and shut against unbelievers.
Matthew 16.19: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
For your personal reflection:
What did Jesus mean when He told Peter and the Apostles that He was giving them the “keys of the Kingdom”? We see almost immediately in the Book of Acts (as well as in the Epistles) the answer. When Christ poured out His great gift of the Spirit on Pentecost Peter explained to the gathered crowd the meaning of this strange sign – and upon hearing his words the crowd was “cut to the heart” (Acts 2.37). Crying out they asked what they must do, to which Peter replied, “repent, be baptized and receive the promised gift of the Spirit.” Those who submitted to the Word received the Kingdom. The first key to the Kingdom is faithful preaching.
Secondly, there is the matter of church discipline – an almost unheard of phenomenon in the modern church. Why is this so? Because church members simply leave their fellowship and transfer to another church rather than submit themselves to the godly direction of their priests and elders. Contrast this with the New Testament witness where a sense of healthy fear and reverence settled upon the local body as godly discipline (discipling) was exercised (cf. Acts 5 & 1 Corinthians 5).
How do we know what Jesus meant by “the keys of the kingdom?”
How do these keys work together?
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