July 31 - Retrospect On Church Authority

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Matt. 16:19, NASB.

Those were the words of Christ as He set up His church on earth. But people have translated and interpreted them in various ways. The King James Version, for example, renders it "whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven," making it appear that heaven ratifies whatever the church decides here on earth. The New American Bible takes that line of thought even further when it renders the passage as "whatever ou declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you decalre loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Such interpretations miss what Jesus was actually saying. The Greek tense clearly indicates that we should translate the verb as "will [or shall] have been bound." Thus Jesus is saying that "it is the church on earth carrying out heaven's decisons, not heaven ratifying the church's decision." That is no subtle difference. And the two translations have led in church history or two different views on church authority.

The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary correctly reads the text when it notes that "to extend the meaning of 'bind' and 'loose' to the authority to dictate what members of the church may believe and what they may do, in matters of faith and prectice, is to read into these words of Christ more than He meant by them, and more than the disciples understood by them. Such a claim God does not sanction.

"Christ's representatives on earth have the right and the responsibility to 'bind' whatever has been 'bound in heaven' and to 'loose' whatever had been 'loosed in heaven,' that is, to require or to prohibit whatever Inspiration clearly reveals. But to go beyond this is to substitute human authority for the authority of Christ. . . , a tendency that Heaven will not tolerate in those who have been appointed to the oversight of the citizens of the kingdom of heaven on earth."

We have spent quite a few days meditating about church authority because it is an important biblical topic that affects us all and because most of us give it very little thought.

Rather than merely to accept or reject the church's authority, we need to understand both its theological base and its limitations and purpose.

We can be thankful that as Christians we are not on our own. We belong to a church that gives guidance within the framework of the Bible. Balanced chruch authority is one more thing we can praise God for.