Imagine a convicted criminal, sentenced and bound in chains, somehow getting hold of the jailhouse keys. She unlocks her own cell. She walks past the guards. She locks the warden out of his own office. Then she sits down at his desk, puts her feet up, and starts running the prison. She rewrites the rules. She decides who comes and goes. She acts as though the sentence never happened. That is not freedom or justice. That is a coup. And every day she sits in that chair, the crime compounds.
That picture may sound extreme. But it describes exactly what would happen if a disciplined church member seized the authority that Christ gave to His church. It would be the theft of something sacred. Not property. Not money. The keys of the kingdom.
The Keys Belong to Christ
Jesus built His church. He said so plainly. "I will build My church." Not Peter's church. Not the denomination's church. Not any man's or woman's church. Not the current pastor's church or the former pastor's church. His church. The church belongs to Christ, and He governs it by His Word through the officers and members He has placed in it.
When Jesus spoke of giving the keys of the kingdom to Peter, He was not handing authority to one man alone. The broader context of Scripture makes this clear. In Matthew 18:18, the Lord extends the same language of binding and loosing to the gathered church:
The keys represent the authority of the local church to open and shut, to receive and exclude, to declare the terms of the gospel and to apply those terms through discipline. This is not human authority dressed up in religious language. It is authority that comes from the Head of the church, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And it is exercised according to His Word, not according to the preferences or feelings of men.
Isaiah understood this principle centuries before Christ spoke these words. The Lord told Isaiah concerning Eliakim:
The one who holds the key holds the authority. When he opens, no one shuts. When he shuts, no one opens. That authority is not up for grabs. It is placed, deliberately and specifically, by God Himself.
Binding and Loosing
The binding here represents what continues to be held against an offender. The loosing represents what is forgiven. If an offender refuses to repent after the efforts of the church, she is bound. If she truly repents, she is forgiven and loosed. Jesus expected this and He encourages it in our text. He built the mechanism of church discipline into the very structure of His church.
The process is not arbitrary. Jesus Himself laid out the steps in Matthew 18:
Private confrontation first. Then witnesses. Then the church. Each step exists to bring the offender to repentance. The goal is always restoration. But notice carefully: Jesus is addressing a private matter between individuals. The offended brother goes alone first because the matter is not yet public. The process escalates only as the offender refuses to hear.
Paul's instruction to the Corinthian church addresses a different scenario entirely. The sin at Corinth was not private. It was public, scandalous, and already known to the whole congregation:
There was no need for private confrontation or two or three witnesses. Everyone already knew. The sin was open, flagrant, and the church had done nothing about it. Paul picks up where Jesus left off in Matthew 18, but he skips straight to the final step because the nature of the offense demands it. The sinner at Corinth needed to be excluded without delay. Paul commanded them to "deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 5:5). Even that severe act was an act of love. Severe love, but love all the same.
Jesus and Paul were addressing different scenarios, but they were not in conflict. Private sins follow the graduated steps of Matthew 18. Public sins that are already known to the body call for immediate action. Both are acts of binding. Both are exercises of the keys.
As long as that discipline occurs with the proper attitude, proper steps, and proper goals that Scripture outlines, we can anticipate the same binding and loosing in heaven as in the church. That is staggering. The local church, acting under the authority of Christ and according to His Word, renders decisions that heaven itself ratifies.
When the Bound Seize the Keys
But consider what would happen if the one who has been disciplined, the one who has been bound were to get hold of the keys.
She would not merely escape discipline. She would seize the very instrument of authority that Christ entrusted to His church. She would unbind herself. She would lock out the ones who held the keys lawfully. She would sit in a seat that was never hers to occupy. She would receive people as though she had the authority to receive them. She would teach as though she had the authority to teach. She would act as the church while standing in open rebellion against it.
The worst part? She would do all of this while the sentence of heaven still stands.
The binding on earth was a binding in heaven. She may think to steal the keys from the church, but she cannot steal them from Christ. Heaven does not forget. Heaven does not move. She would still be bound.
Christ Still Holds the Keys
No human act of rebellion could overturn what Christ has established. A disciplined person could seize a building. She could gather people to herself. She could call it a church. But if the discipline was carried out by a true church acting according to the Word of God, the binding would remain. Heaven does not adjust its records because someone places a chain and a padlock on the door.
The risen Christ spoke to the church at Philadelphia and declared Himself to be the one "who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens" (Revelation 3:7). The ultimate authority over the keys belongs to Christ alone. He delegates that authority to His churches. He does not delegate it to those who have been put out of them.
When Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the repentance of the man who had been disciplined, he told them to graciously forgive, comfort, and reaffirm their love for him (2 Corinthians 2:7, 8). That is how loosing works. The church forgives and receives. But the forgiveness came through repentance, not through seizure. The man did not break out of his chains. He submitted. He repented. The church then loosed what had been bound.
That is the pattern. Repentance, then restoration. Not rebellion and self-reinstatement.
The Keys Are Not for Sale
If the keys cannot be stolen by force, neither can they be purchased with money. The church is not for sale. Do not misunderstand. The church building may be sold. But not the church. Neither the church nor its authority is a commodity that changes hands through negotiation or transaction. Simon the magician learned this when he watched the apostles lay hands on believers in Samaria and saw the Holy Spirit given. He reached for his wallet. Peter's response was immediate and devastating:
Simon wanted authority. He was willing to pay for it. But Peter told him plainly: you have no part in this. The gift of God is not obtained with money. Neither is the authority of Christ's church. No sum of money, no legal maneuver, no transfer of property conveys the keys of the kingdom. Christ alone grants that authority, and He grants it to His churches. Anyone who thinks church authority can be bought reveals the same heart Peter diagnosed in Simon: bitterness and bondage.
A Word to the Church
If you belong to a church that practices biblical discipline, you belong to a church that is obeying Christ. It is not popular. It is not comfortable. It often comes at great cost. But the same Lord who gave the keys is the one who said, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The church that binds and looses according to His Word is the church He protects.
But if someone is attempting to steal those keys from the church, or has already stolen them, do not lose heart. The keys never left Christ's hand. He sees every act of rebellion. He knows every scheme. No lock, no chain, no act of theft can overturn what heaven has decreed. The one who seizes the keys may sit in the seat for a season, but she sits under the gaze of the One who holds all authority in heaven and on earth. Be faithful. Stand firm. The Lord Jesus Christ will not leave His church without justice.