The biblical passage that makes reference to the “keys of the kingdom” is Matthew 16:19. Jesus had asked His disciples who people thought He was. After responding with several of the more popular opinions, Jesus aimed His question directly at His disciples. Peter, responding for the twelve, acknowledged Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God. After this great confession, Jesus replied:
“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 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” (Matthew 16:17-19).
Keys are used to lock or unlock doors. The specific doors Jesus has in mind in this passage are the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus is laying the foundation of His church (Ephesians 2:20). The disciples will be the leaders of this new institution called the church, and Jesus is giving them the authority to either grant or bar access to the Kingdom. The authority of the keys is to open and shut the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven. Precisely how do the keys to the kingdom work? Biblically speaking, how does one enter the Kingdom of Heaven?
Jesus tells us that unless one is born again, he will not see the Kingdom of Heaven (John 3:3). One is born again as the Holy Spirit works through the Word of God to bring about new life in dead sinners. So the faithful preaching of the gospel is one of the keys to the kingdom. The other key is church discipline. In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus gives us the guidelines for church discipline. He specifically mentions in that passage the same “binding and loosing” language we find in Matthew 16. Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 5:1-13, Paul urges the Corinthian church to ex-communicate the man caught in adultery. Church discipline was considered by the Protestant Reformers as one of the marks of a true church (along with the preaching of the pure gospel and the administration of the sacraments).
Both of these keys—the preaching of the gospel and church discipline—function in opening and closing the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven. Through the preaching the gospel, those who respond in faith and repentance are allowed access to the Kingdom of Heaven; yet those who continue to harden their hearts and reject the gospel of God’s saving grace are shut out of the Kingdom. Similarly, through church discipline, the person who is caught in sin and remains unrepentant is barred access to the means of grace—the Word, the sacraments and fellowship with the community of believers. However, if the sinner repents, he or she can be allowed back into church and given access to all the means of grace therein.
So, the keys to the kingdom are the preaching of the gospel and the exercise of church discipline. When these are rightly administered, i.e., in a biblical church with duly appointed elders, access to the Kingdom of Heaven is ably guarded. However, when the keys are not used correctly through obscuring the message of the gospel or the lack of exercising church discipline, the results are disastrous. Consider Jesus’ warning to the Pharisees: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in” (Matthew 23:13). If the gospel message is distorted or ignored, or if unrepentant sin is not adequately disciplined, the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven are being shut in people’s faces. When either of these two things occur, people in the church are either believing in a false gospel or they have not truly repented of their sin. In both cases the result is weeds growing in the wheat field of the church (Matthew 13:24-30).
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Jesus’ parable in Mt. 13:24-30 about the weeds in the wheat is sometimes used to say the church should not discipline, since the weeds are not to be pulled up until the harvest. But in 13:38 Jesus says the field is the world (not the church); his parable is about not ridding the world of weeds (evildoers) as part of the coming of his kingdom now (until the end).
Also, in Mt. 18:15-17 the discipline works according to one person, then two or three more, and finally the whole church confronting the one who sinned. The whole church is the final step (not a group of elders, though they may be included in the earlier steps). Throughout Mt. 18 Jesus is trying to make his disciples (who want to be great) see that leading in (and even entering into) his kingdom involves a humble lowliness (like that of children), which does not lord it over others and cause “little ones” to stumble and fall, and does not despise them. This truth can be lost in churches that elevate certain leaders, whether it be elders or pastors or others.
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Highlights Of Matthew Chapter Thirteen
Contents: Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. The sower, tares and wheat, grain of mustard seed, leaven, hid treasure, pearl, drag net.
Characters: Jesus, disciples, Satan, Isaiah.
Conclusion: The present age will be marked to its end by the presence of both professors of religion and possessors—sinners and saints. The believer’s work is to sow the Word of God in faith, not expecting thereby to convert the whole world, but in expectation of Him, who at the end of the age, will come with His angels to separate the good and the bad—to make an end of sinners and set up His glorious Kingdom.
Key Word: Kingdom mysteries, v. 11.
Strong Verses: 12, 41, 42.
Striking Facts: Some make the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven to teach the conversion of the whole world in this age by the preaching of the gospel. This view is explicitly contradicted by Jesus’ interpretation of the parables of the wheat and tares and the drag net—therefore there is something wrong with the popular interpretation of the leaven and mustard seed. Leaven means “corruption” and is always used in Scripture as a symbol of evil. The mustard seed parable pictures an abnormal and unsubstantial growth of the outward church. See Dan. 4:20–22.
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