Viewing the Church' as a building founded upon the Petrine,' [3667] it was not to vary, but to carry on the same metaphor, when Christ promised to give to him who had spoken as representative of the Apostles - the stewards of the mysteries of God' - the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.' For, as the religious unity of His disciples, or the Church, represented the royal rule of heaven,' so, figuratively, entrance into the gates of this building, submission to the rule of God - to that Kingdom of which Christ was the King. And we remember how, in a special sense, this promise was fulfilled to Peter. Even as he had been the first to utter the confession of the Church, so was he also privileged to be the first to open its hitherto closed gates to the Gentiles, when God made choice of him, that, through his mouth, the Gentiles should first hear the words of the Gospel, [3668] and at his bidding first be baptized. [3669]
If hitherto it has appeared that what Christ said to Peter, though infinitely transcending Jewish ideas, was yet, in its expression and even cast of thought, such as to be quite intelligible to Jewish minds, nay, so familiar to them, that, as by well-marked steps, they might ascend to the higher Sanctuary, the difficult words with which our Lord closed must be read in the same light. For, assuredly, in interpreting such a saying of Christ to Peter, our first inquiry must be, what it would convey to the person to whom the promise was addressed. And here we recall, that no other terms were in more constant use in Rabbinic Canon-Law than those of binding' and loosing.' The words are the literal translation of the Hebrew equivalents Asar ({hebrew}), which means to bind,' in the sense of prohibiting, and Hittir ({hebrew}, from {hebrew}) which means to loose,' in the sense of permitting. For the latter the term Shera or Sheri ({hebrew}, or {hebrew}) is also used. But this expression is, both in Targumic and Talmudic diction, not merely the equivalent of permitting, but passes into that of remitting or pardoning. On the other hand, binding and loosing' referred simply to things or acts prohibiting or else permitting them, declaring them lawful or unlawful. This was one of the powers claimed by the Rabbis. As regards their laws (not decisions as to things or acts), it was a principle, that while in Scripture there were some that bound and some that loosed, all the laws of the Rabbis were in reference to binding.' [3670] If this then represented the legislative, another pretension of the Rabbis, that of declaring free' or else liable,' i.e., guilty (Patur or Chayyabh), expressed their claim to the judicial power. By the first of these they bound' or loosed' acts or things; by the second they remitted' or retained,' declared a person free from, or liable to punishment. to compensation, or to sacrifice. These two powers - the legislative and judicial - which belonged to the Rabbinic office, Christ now transferred, and that not in their pretension, but in their reality, to His Apostles: the first here to Peter as their Representative, the second after His Resurrection to the Church. [3671]
On the second of these powers we need not at present dwell. That of binding' and loosing' included all the legislative functions for the new Church. And it was a reality. In the view of the Rabbis heaven was like earth, and questions were discussed and settled by a heavenly Sanhedrin. Now, in regard to some of their earthly decrees, they were wont to say that the Sanhedrin above' confirmed what the Sanhedrin beneath' had done. But the words of Christ, as they avoided the foolish conceit of His contemporaries, left it not doubtful, but conveyed the assurance that, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, whatsoever they bound or loosed on earth would be bound or loosed in heaven.