Binding and loosing is a great concept to know and think about. Of all the Bible translations I think Kenneth Wuest handles these next verses in the most illuminating way.
"Simon Peter said, As for you, you are the Christ, the Son of God, the living God.
And answering, Jesus said to him, Spiritually prosperous are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but my Father who is in heaven. Moreover, as for myself, I also am saying to you, You are Rock [petros, masculine in gender, a detached but large fragment of rock], and upon this massive rock [petra, feminine in gender, feminine demonstrative pronoun cannot go back to masculine petros; petra, a rocky peak, a massive rock] I will build my Church. And the councils of the unseen world shall not overpower it. I shall give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth [forbid to be done], shall have been already bound [forbidden to be done] in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth [permit to be done], shall have already been loosed in heaven [permitted to be done]." Matthew 16:16-19 Wuest Expanded Translation
He said that to Peter but Jesus says this to all His gathered disciples.
"Assuredly, I am saying to you, Whatever you forbid on earth, shall have already been forbidden in heaven. And whatever you permit on earth, shall have already been permitted in heaven. Again, assuredly I am saying to you, If two of you upon the earth are in agreement, concerning every matter of which they ask that something be given it shall become theirs from the presence of my Father who is in heaven. For where there are two or three who have been joined together into my Name with the result that I am the common object of their faith, there I am in their midst." Matthew 18-18-20 Wuest Expanded Translation
The Jesus who sits in Heaven at the right hand of the Father is present with two or more that gather and function in objective eternal truth. God's indwelling presence becomes a manifested presence.
Binding and loosing finds a conceptual parallel with the role of the priest examining a leper in the Hebrew scriptures. The priest does not heal anyone. They examine and they make a declaration based on examination.
Leviticus chapter 13 and into 14 talk about what should happen if people show symptoms of having a plague. They are to be brought before the priest and examined. The priest is to look for specific things and then shut the person up away from the population for 7 days at a time then look again. If a person is determined to be clean they are released if not they are banned from society to protect the community at large from infection. They were 'binding' and 'loosing' people based on the law.
The believer has the authority to bind and loose under grace. The finished work is our criteria. The message has the power and God is in our midst when two or more are gathered together. The Gospel of Grace declares what has happened and what Heaven's mind is on what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Jesus' work is accepted as clean. Man's work and unredeemed nature is unclean.
Grace sets people free. God's presence in the midst has the power to set people free. If the truth is refused man's true nature is still revealed and the illusion of a freedom separated from God is exposed as a false reality in that person's thinking.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." John 3:16-18 ESV
A believer is loosed and edified by agreeing with Heaven's perspective. That release is like a near death experience. Life becomes precious and new.
In passivity we can opt out of our privilege of being communicators of God's mind. We can put our light under a bushel. There is another way to live.
"O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles." Psalms 43:3 KJV
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