A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture/XXXVI. Jesus promises Peter the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Chapter XXXVI.
JESUS PROMISES PETER THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
[Mat. 16, 13 — 20. Mark 8, 27 — 30. Luke 9, 18 — 21.]
BEING come to the neighbourhood of Caesarea Philippi (Fig. 77) [1] Jesus asked[2] His apostles, as they went along, who the people said that He was. They replied: “Some [3], John the Baptist, others, Elias, and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.”[4] Wishing to hear their own opinion, or, rather, to draw from them a profession of faith, He asked: “But whom do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter answered[5]: “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him: “Blessed[6] art thou, Simon Bar- Jona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father who is in heaven.
And I say to thee that thou art Peter[7], and upon this rock[8] I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys [9] of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose[10] upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.”
COMMENTARY.
Witnesses for the Divinity of Christ: 1. Peter testified that Jesus was the Son of the living God. 2. Our Lord accepted and ratified this confession of faith, by calling Himself the Son of the Father who is in heaven, and by calling Peter ‘blessed’ on account of his faith in His Divinity. 3. Our Lord acted and spoke as God, by giving Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and by promising him a continuous power of binding and loosing — a power which, obviously, only God could give.
Faith is a gift of God. The natural reason of the people sufficed to make them understand, from His teaching and miracles, that Jesus was a mighty prophet. But, as our Lord expressly said, supernatural light and grace were necessary to enable them to pierce the veil of His human nature, and recognise in this poor Jesus of Nazareth the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. St. Leo the Great writes thus: “By divine inspiration Peter’s mind soared above that which his senses could perceive, and with the eyes of his spirit he recognised the Son of the living God, and the glory of His Divinity.”
The Church of Christ. Our Lord, in this chapter, said that He would found a Church (one only), and that this Church could not be overcome. At the same time He elected Peter to be its foundation, and clearly chose the other apostles to be its pillars. Thus the twelve apostles, with Peter as their chief, were the foundation of the Church, upon which and into which all men, like so many stones, had to be built. The Church of Christ is, therefore, visible. She is formed of men, and governed by men, who are armed with the divine power of binding and loosing. The faithful owe obedience to this Church of Christ, and he who refuses to obey her is to be regarded as a heathen, who has no part in the kingdom of heaven (chapter XL).
The duration of the Church. “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The Church, therefore, can neither be overcome nor destroyed; it will endure till the end of time.
Peter is the visible head of the Church and the Vicar of Christ upon earth. Our Lord built His Church upon the rock of Peter (on the rock which is Peter), giving to it an invincible strength and stability. Thus Peter, according to the will of the Divine Architect, is the immovable foundation of the Church. On him the visible Church, and all its pillars and stones (or to speak without figure, all its members) must, mediately or immediately, rest, and by this support be kept together. Whatever does not rest on this foundation, does not belong to the Church of Christ. We must, therefore, accept the fact that Peter occupies quite a unique position in the Church; that he is its supreme head, and that his office is to keep all other members in the unity of the faith, and that he is, in fact, the supreme authority in the Church. This is to be understood by the power of the keys, which was given to Peter. The giving up to another of the keys of a house is understood by all to be the token of the surrender to that person of supreme authority over the house and its inhabitants. So, when our Lord Jesus gave to St. Peter the power of the keys, He gave him supreme authority over His Church, that is, the authority to teach, to judge, and to make laws. The promise which our Lord on this occasion made to Peter, He fulfilled after His resurrection, when He gave him the office of Chief Pastor. By this supreme authority Peter became the visible representative of our Lord Jesus Christ upon earth, and this Primacy of St. Peter must needs continue so long as the Church lasts; in other words, there must be successors of Peter.
The Pope. St. Peter became the first Bishop of Rome, and for that reason the Roman Bishop has ever been believed to be the successor of St. Peter in the Primacy. Hence he is called the Tope’, i. e. the father of all the faithful. The Papacy therefore is of divine institution.
The Infallibility of the Pope. The infernal spirit of lies would overcome the Church, if he could succeed in diverting her from the true faith, and plunging her into error. If, therefore, the Church is to be invincible through Peter (that is, through the Papacy), the Pope must be an infallible teacher. Even as far back as the third century St. Cyprian writes: “To the rock of Peter no error can obtain access.”
Application. How great is the authority of the Church! It is a divine authority. What a great sin it is to disregard it! Do you faithfully observe the Commandments of the Church? Do you love her august head on earth, our Holy Father, the Pope, and pray for him?
- ↑ Casarea Philippi. A heathen city about thirty miles to the north of the Sea of Galilee.
- ↑ Asked. After He had spent some time in prayer (Luke 9, 18), as He was wont to do before He took any important step.
- ↑ Some. Say Thou art &c.
- ↑ One of the prophets. The people quite believed that Jesus was one of the prophets, risen from the dead, and a precursor of the Messias. That He could be the Messias Himself did not occur to them, in spite of His assertions to that effect, supported as they were by miracles; for they utterly refused to admit the idea that the Messias could come in poverty and humility. After the apostles had thus truthfully related the erroneous opinions of the Jews, our Lord startled them by His earnest and significant question: “But whom do you say that I am?’*
- ↑ Blessed. Our Lord called Simon “blessed” in the strongest sense of the word, as it is applied to the blessed in heaven; because faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the source of eternal life. Simon did not obtain this faith by flesh and blood, that is to say through the medium of his human senses, which had seen and recognised our Lord’s miracles, nor yet by means of his human reason, but entirely by the grace of God, which had enlarged and enlightened his heart.
- ↑ Blessed. Our Lord called Simon “blessed” in the strongest sense of the word, as it is applied to the blessed in heaven; because faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the source of eternal life. Simon did not obtain this faith by flesh and blood, that is to say through the medium of his human senses, which had seen and recognised our Lord’s miracles, nor yet by means of his human reason, but entirely by the grace of God, which had enlarged and enlightened his heart.
- ↑ Thou art Peter. In Greek and Latin the word signifies “rock”. The Syro-Chaldaic word used by our Lord is “Cephas”, which also means “rock” or “stone”.
- ↑ This rock. i. e. on thee, as the rock. Thou hast said that I am Christ, the Son of the living God; therefore I say to thee that thou art that which is signified by the name which I gave thee when I first called thee. Thou art the rock on which I will build My Church, so that it may stand firm for ever. On this occasion our Lord fulfilled the promise which He had made two years before, when He first met Simon and said “Thou shalt be called Cephas (Peter)”. A wise man, said He at the end of His Sermon on the Mount, builds his house upon a rock; and therefore our Lord meant to build His Church upon a rock, that rock being Peter. And as a consequence the gates of hell should not prevail against it. Hell would throw open its gates, and let all its powers loose against the Church, but they would be powerless to overcome or destroy her. By the “gates of hell” are, therefore, to be understood all the powers of evil proceeding from hell, or employed by hell.
- ↑ The keys. By the kingdom of heaven is meant the Church, just compared by our Lord to a building. Now he who possesses the keys of a house has power over that house, and can open and shut it as he will, and can admit or exclude whomsoever he thinks fit, naming the conditions of admission or exclusion. The power of the keys signifies, therefore, the supreme authority over the house and its inhabitants, or, in other words, over the Church and its members.
- ↑ Bind and loose. By binding and loosing is to be understood the exercise of that supreme authority which includes the power of making and unmaking laws (moral ties), and especially of forgiving or retaining sins and punishments for sin.