Matthew 16:18

κἀγὼ : emphatic, something very important about to be said to Peter and about him. πέτρος, τέτρᾳ, a happy play of words. Both are appellatives to be translated “thou art a rock and on this rock,” the two being represented by the same word in Aramaean (כֵיפָא). Elsewhere in the Gospels Πέτρος is a proper name, and πέτρα only is used in the sense of rock (Matthew 7:24). What follows is in form a promise to Peter as reward of his faith. It is as personal as the most zealous advocates of Papal supremacy could desire. Yet it is as remote as the poles from what they mean. It is a case of extremes meeting. Christ did not fight to death against one form of spiritual despotism to put another, if possible worse, in its room. Personal in form, the sense of this famous logion can be expressed in abstract terms without reference to Peter's personality. And that sense, if Christ really spoke the word, must be simple, elementary, suitable to the initial stage; withal religious and ethical rather than ecclesiastical. The more ecclesiastical we make it, the more we play into the hands of those who maintain that the passage is an interpolation. I find in it three ideas: (1) The ἐκκλησύα is to consist of men confessing Jesus to be the Christ. This is the import of ἐπὶ τ. τ. π. οἰκοδομήσω μου τ. ἐκ. Peter, believing that truth, is the foundation, and the building is to be of a piece with the foundation. Observe the emphatic position of μου. The ἐκκλησία is Christ's; confessing Him as Christ in Peter's sense and spirit = being Christian. (2) The new society is to be = the kingdom realised on earth. This is the import of Matthew 16:19, clause 1. The keys are the symbol of this identity. They are the keys of the gate without, not of the doors within. Peter is the gate-keeper, not the οἰκονόμος with a bunch of keys that open all doors in his hands (against Weiss) κλειδούχου ἔργον τὸ εἰσάγειν, Euthy. Observe it is not the keys of the church but of the kingdom. The meaning is: Peter-like faith in Jesus as the Christ admits into the Kingdom of Heaven. A society of men so believing = the kingdom realised. (3) In the new society the righteousness of the kingdom will find approximate embodiment. This is the import of Matthew 16:19, second clause. Binding and loosing, in Rabbinical dialect, meant forbidding and permitting to be done. The judgment of the Rabbis was mostly wrong: the reverse of the righteousness of the kingdom. The judgment of the new society as to conduct would be in accordance with the truth of things, therefore valid in heaven. That is what Jesus meant to say. Note the perfect participles δεδεμένον, λελυμένον = shall be a thing bound or loosed once for all. The truth of all three statements is conditional on the Christ spirit continuing to rule in the new society. Only on that condition is the statement about the πύλαι ᾅδου, Matthew 16:18, clause 2, valid. What precisely the verbal meaning of the statement is whether that the gates of Hades shall not prevail in conflict against it, as ordinarily understood; or merely that the gates, etc., shall not be stronger than it, without thought of a conflict (Weiss), is of minor moment; the point is that it is not an absolute promise. The ἐκκλησία will be strong, enduring, only so long as the faith in the Father and in Christ the Son, and the spirit of the Father and the Son, reign in it. When the Christ spirit is weak the Church will be weak, and neither creeds nor governments, nor keys, nor ecclesiastical dignities will be of much help to her.