{"id":18704,"date":"2021-04-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-14T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/james-023-binding-and-loosing\/"},"modified":"2021-04-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-04-14T05:00:00","slug":"james-023-binding-and-loosing","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/james-023-binding-and-loosing\/","title":{"rendered":"James 023 – Binding and Loosing?"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[104],"series_event":[514],"sermon_service_type":[474],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18704","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-james","series_event-james","sermon_service_type-wednesday-evenings","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"James 023 - Binding and Loosing?","sermon_date":"20210414","sermon_month":"4","sermon_year":"2021","sermon_notes":8962,"sermon_slides":8963,"sermon_mp3":8964,"sermon_id":"41421182713515","series_or_event":514,"service_type":[474],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":104,"chapter_and_verse":"4:7","sermon_transcript":"James 23\n\nBinding and Loosing\n\nJames 4:7\n\nDr. Andy Woods\n\n\u2026James 4, continuing with our verse-by-verse teaching of the book of James.\u00a0\u00a0 James is written by James, his actual name was Jacob or Yakov, and I shared early on how he got the name of James, but that is too long of a story to repeat now.\u00a0 He was the pastor of the church at Jerusalem, and his flock had been scattered by Saul of Tarsus into the Diaspora.\u00a0 He is dealing with believing Jews in the Diaspora, which means the dispersion.\u00a0 He isn\u2019t teaching them about how to get saved; they are already saved; he is teaching them how to live for Christ, as Christians, and how they are supposed to deal with suffering.\u00a0 These people were suffering as you can imagine what it would be like to be kicked out of your home into a far-flung region.\n\nThe first half of the book is about the walk of faith, how we continue to trust God through life\u2019s difficulties \u2014 trials, through obedience to God's Word, by resisting the temptation to show favoritism by allowing our faith to become productive in good works, and then by controlling the tongue.\n\nJames 3:13-the end of the book, there is a slight shift, and he is now dealing with wisdom.\u00a0 The first part of the book: the walk of faith.\u00a0 The second part of the book: the walk of wisdom.\u00a0 Wisdom, as you know is knowledge applied.\u00a0 He explains that in 3:13-18, now he begins to take wisdom and apply it to every area of our lives.\u00a0 His first major subject in the second half of the book is our spiritual walk.\u00a0 How do we walk in wisdom as Christians in terms of the spiritual life?\n\nWe avoid two things:\u00a0 wrangling and worldliness.\u00a0 Wrangling in James 4:1-3; worldliness in 4:4-6.\n\nWhat is nice about this section is that James doesn\u2019t just tell us what to avoid, but he tells us what to replace it with.\u00a0 Instead of wrangling and worldliness, he says to pursue the essence of spiritual wisdom, which involves six things, only two of which we have covered thus far:\n
    \n \t
  1. Submission to God (4:7a), and we take that not as a justification issue but a sanctification issue. See James 22 for a review on this.<\/li>\n \t
  2. Resist the devil and he will flee from you (4:7b).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nWhen we were going through 4:7, we made the point that there are a lot of people in modern day Christianity who are doing all kinds of spiritual warfare activities related to Satan.\u00a0 You can turn on so-called Christian television and see people screaming at Satan, giving Satan a black eye, and running him out of town.\u00a0 There are lot of people who are binding Satan, and since the 1980s as far as I can recall, where there are prayer gatherings, praying down territorial spirits over their cities.\u00a0 There are some pastors who I know of who have been praying down demons over Los Angeles for decades, and I am thinking that it hasn\u2019t done much good considering the state of Los Angeles lately.\u00a0 Things aren\u2019t apparently getting much better, but they are praying down demons over their cities.\n\nA lot of this was brought in through the Frank Peretti novel, This Present Darkness<\/u><\/strong>.\u00a0 What I tried to do before was to make the point that that kind of activity is actually outside of biblical boundaries because the New Testament epistles which govern us really only give us two instructions:\n
      \n \t
    1. Resist the devil per James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:9.<\/li>\n \t
    2. Put on the full armor of God, and those pieces of armor are defensive per Eph 6:10-20<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nThere is nothing in the epistles about having conversations with Satan, in fact, that is what got Eve into a lot of trouble in Eden.\u00a0 You wonder why she is even talking to the serpent, and a lot of problems could have been avoided by her refusal to have that conversation, but many people are currently conversing with Satan and casting demons out of people; a large movement is deliverance ministries where it is argued that you must have some kind of ancestral curse over your life.\u00a0 For example, if you get saved but you are still struggling with a particular sin like gambling, for example, or eating too much chocolate, that being complete in Christ\u00a0 according to deliverance ministries, is not enough; you must get the demon of eating too much chocolate cast out of you or a gambling problem must indicate that someone in your family tree also had a gambling problem from which you must be delivered.\n\nWhen you get into the epistolary literature which governs the church, all of these activities lack biblical mandate.\u00a0 Not even any instructions for us as to how to cast out demons, of course, people say, \u2018Well, Jesus cast out demons.\u2019\u00a0 Jesus did a lot of things I don't do, for example, walk on water, etc.\u00a0 Jesus was walking the earth at a time when the kingdom was in play, and it could have come to the earth, and He was demonstrating through His miracles that if the kingdom comes, because first century Israel had the opportunity to receive it, then the miracles He was performing could have been replicated for the whole nation and the whole world.\u00a0 That is largely why He was doing those things.\u00a0 We are living in a different dispensation where the kingdom offer is currently off of the table, and we are in the church age.\u00a0 When you get into material governing the church age, all of these spiritual warfare practices that others embrace, are not spoken of in the epistles, the letters governing the church.\u00a0 We are told to resist the devil and he will flee and to put on the full armor of God.\n\nBiblically speaking, the binding of Satan will not happen until the Millennial Kingdom begins.\u00a0 Jesus is going to return at the end of the seven-year Tribulation, and He will take Satan and bind him for 1,000 years.\u00a0 You see that in Rev 20:1-3, \u201cThen I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand.\u00a0 And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.\u201d\n\nEschatologically, the defeat of Satan in terms of his binding is yet future.\u00a0 What you discover in the list (see slide on Satan\u2019s Progressive Defeat), is Satan\u2019s seven-fold defeat.\u00a0 He is defeated in seven phases:\n
        \n \t
      1. Initial eviction from heaven (Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezek 28:12-17).<\/li>\n \t
      2. A prophecy was pronounced against him in Eden; that his head would be crushed (Gen 3:15)<\/li>\n \t
      3. He was again defeated as he was trying to contaminate the gene pool in the pre-flood world (1 Peter 3:19-20)<\/li>\n \t
      4. He was defeated at the Cross; and even now, he still has access to heaven \u2014 not to worship and serve as he once did as a high-ranking angel, but to communicate and accuse (John 12:31; 16:11; Col 2:15; Heb 2:14; 1 John 3:8).<\/li>\n \t
      5. The above privilege (#4) will be taken away halfway through the tribulation (Rev 12:9)<\/li>\n \t
      6. Beginning of the Millennial Kingdom (Rev 20:2-3)<\/li>\n \t
      7. At the end of the Millennial Kingdom, he will be thrown into the Lake of Fire (Rev 20:10)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nSo, we are basically living in between numbers 4 and 5 above.\u00a0 Satan is a defeated foe, but his sentence hasn\u2019t been pronounced yet.\u00a0 Using a legal analogy, there is a difference between the guilt phase of a criminal trial and the sentencing phase.\u00a0 The guilt phase is where a criminal is found guilty by a jury of peers beyond a reasonable doubt.\u00a0 Typically, what happens is that a criminal will come in later or even before a totally different court depending on what state he is in for sentencing.\u00a0 If you can picture a convict in between his conviction and sentencing, that is basically where Satan is right now.\u00a0 That is why we understand him as a defeated foe, but his sentence has yet to be imposed.\u00a0 His sentence won't be imposed until numbers 5,6,7 above, however, guilt has been determined in points 1,2,3,4 above.\u00a0 That is why Satan is running loose and is desperate.\u00a0 If you know you are going down, which he is, your desire might be to take as many people with you that you could.\u00a0 That explains how he has been defeated and is concurrently running this world.\u00a0 It describes the ferocity of his attacks against the human race.\n\nYou can see clearly here that he will not be\u00a0 bound until the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom, and in the interim, we are living on his territory; we are basically on defense, and that is why we are called in 2 Cor 5:20, \u2018ambassadors.\u2019\u00a0 If I am America\u2019s ambassador to Iran, I am not in Iran for regime change; I am representing American values on Iranian soil. That is your identity as a Christian; you represent the values of a coming kingdom, but you aren\u2019t here to bring in regime change and establish the kingdom; that is what Jesus will do.\u00a0 You are here to represent kingdom values, so to speak, of a coming kingdom on a foreign soil.\u00a0 That is the imagery of an \u2018ambassador.\u2019\n\nThe regime change won't happen until Jesus returns at the end of the seven-year Tribulation period and sets up his 1,000 year kingdom.\u00a0 The first thing that He will do at that time is to bind Satan, so the binding of Satan is totally future.\u00a0 When you understand this, then you can see what a waste of time to bind Satan from this and that.\u00a0 For\u00a0 Christians out there binding satan, then how did Satan get loose again so quickly?\u00a0\u00a0 The issue is that they aren\u2019t binding anything.\u00a0 The proper perspective on spiritual warfare is to be on defense against Satan. \u00a0I think it is legitimate to pray for protection against him, but so much of the spiritual warfare movement is offensive, and they are doing things that only Jesus can do when He returns to set up His kingdom.\n\nI brought all of that in last time to explain James 4:7. The binding of Satan is not something until the second advent of Christ.\u00a0 When I started to say that, I received several emails and electronic correspondences, with this question every time I get into this subject because some will immediately go into two verses for which they want an explanation:\u00a0 Matt 16:18-19 regarding binding and loosing and then in Matt 18:18 as well.\u00a0 Before we left James 4:7, I wanted to address those passages as a tangential study related to James 4:7 as there are a lot of questions that some have about binding and loosing.\u00a0 In other words, if Satan won't be bound before the Millennial Kingdom, then why did the Lord tell Peter to bind and to loose?\u00a0 Why did Jesus say to the church concerning church discipline to bind and to loose?\u00a0 There is a lot of misunderstanding on this, so I want to cover this somewhat this evening.\n\nNotice Matt 16:18-19, Jesus said to Peter, \u201cAnd I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church (this rock is Peter\u2019s confession of Christ \u2014 the truth of that confession, which is given earlier in the chapter); \u201c\u2026the gates of Hades (concerning the Church) will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been found in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.\u201d\n\nI would like to read some quotes because I spent some time finding people who I trust to help me understand this passage better.\u00a0 Then we will make some summary observations when we finish these quotes.\u00a0 Whenever I have a question on Matthew\u2019s gospel, the first commentary I examine is Dr. Toussaint\u2019s verse-by-verse commentary on Matthew\u2019s gospel called Behold the King: A Study of Matthew.<\/u>\u00a0 You will be hard-pressed to find a better commentary on Matthew than this one.\u00a0 Dr. Toussaint was a Greek scholar; he is now with the Lord.\u00a0 My book, The Coming Kingdom,<\/u> I dedicated to him since he really helped me to understand the doctrine of the kingdom better than anyone else.\n\nWhat Dr. Toussaint had to say about this in Matt 16: \u201cThe Lord is promising to Peter an exalted position of great authority in the coming earthly kingdom\u2026 Dr. Toussaint takes the same view on the kingdom that I take, rather I take the same view that Dr Toussaint takes, that the kingdom, when it is mentioned, the Greek word, \u2018basilaea\u2019, and it is speaking of the future earthly millennial reign of Christ.\u00a0 So, when Jesus says to Peter, \u201cI 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.\u201d\u00a0 He is speaking there of Peter\u2019s future role in the Millennial Kingdom.\u00a0 Not everybody will take that passage that way; some think that it is speaking of Peter being given permission by God to open, which is what you do with a key, or unlock, citizenship in the future kingdom to people \u2014 now.\u00a0 They will point to Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost where 3,000 Jews were saved, Acts 2; also to the conversion of the first Gentiles in the history or the age of the Church, a man named Cornelius and his entourage or household, Acts 10.\u00a0 Dr. Toussaint takes it as Peter exercising authority in the kingdom; some think that the kingdom is future, but it is Peter being given permission to unlock citizenship of the kingdom to people.\u00a0 Peter does that twice in the book of Acts in Acts 2,10.\u00a0 Then Dr. Toussaint goes on to say, \u201cIn other words, \u2018to bind\u2019 (de\u014d) and \u2018to loose\u2019 (lu\u014d) are references to the execution of Peter\u2019s authority.\u00a0\u00a0 The authority will be manifested in the coming earthly kingdom according to Christ\u2019s promise.\u201d\n\nThat is the first area where I would disagree with others using this passage.\u00a0 They're using it related to Christian practices today in spiritual warfare, but Dr. Toussaint is saying, \u2018No, those are promises to Peter exclusively, concerning the future Millennial Kingdom.\u2019\u00a0 He goes on to say, \u201cA problem exists as to the meaning of the future periphrastics in Matthew 16:19 (\u2018shall have been bound\u2019 and \u2018shall have been loosed\u2019)\u201d\u2026When you look at Matt 16:19, Jesus says, \u2018I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven.\u2019\u00a0 That is what you call a perfect tense periphrastic.\u00a0 \u2018And whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.\u2019\u00a0 The second reference to loosed is a perfect tense periphrastic.\u00a0 Dr. Toussaint goes on to say, \u201cA problem exists as to the meaning of the future periphrastics in Matthew 16:19 (\u2018shall have been bound\u2019 and \u2018shall have been loosed\u2019).\u00a0 The Roman Catholic church bases its sacerdotal authority on this verse, together with Matthew 18:18 and John 20:23.\u201d\n\nThe Pope will use this verse to argue that he has the authority to bind and loose; to forgive sins and not forgive sins.\u00a0 That is why in Roman Catholicism, one must go to a priest and confess his sins because they are claiming to have the power to bind and to loose; to forgive and not forgive.\u00a0 They use Matthew 16:19 for that arguing that Peter is the first Pope, which by the way, is impossible; Peter is not the first pope.\u00a0 They argue that Jesus built His church on Peter.\u00a0 Jesus did not build His church on Peter.\u00a0 He built His church upon this rock, which is a different word in Greek than Peter.\u00a0 Petros versus Petra.\u00a0 The gender switches, and it is the difference between little stone and big stone.\u00a0 The church was not built on Peter, because Peter later opened his mouth, and Jesus told him, \u2018Get behind me, Satan.\u2019\u00a0 He is doing a very good job as the first pope.\u00a0 But the Roman Catholic church believes that Peter was the first\nPope, and they also believe that the pope, Peter, and all of the subsequent Popes, had the power to bind and to loose.\u00a0 They are basing that on Matthew 16:19 and John 20:23. They take those verses that they have the power as God's instruments, to forgive sin.\n\nDr. Toussaint says, \u201cHowever, this false doctrine is largely the result of an improper translation.\u00a0 Because Jerome\u2019s Latin Vulgate version, which was made around 400 AD, many of the translators since then have translated the verbs in Matthew 16:19 as s futures\u2026\u201d in other words, if you were to read this in Jerome's Latin Vulgate, it gives you the impression that Peter, and by extension, subsequent church authority, have this power to bind and to loose; that is, whatever the church authorities are doing on the earth, heaven is obligated to follow.\u00a0 This is why, when my wife and I went to Wittenberg, Germany, and actually went into the room and saw where Martin Luther diligently spent eleven weeks translating the New Testament from Greek into German, and the Old Testament took him, I think eleven years, if I am remembering right.\u00a0 This was a huge part of Martin Luther\u2019s life \u2014 translating into the language of the German people \u2014 the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament.\u00a0 When the guide was explaining this to us, I specifically asked if Luther did the translation from Jerome's Latin Vulgate created in AD 400, and she said, \u2018Absolutely not, because he did not trust Jerome's Latin Vulgate because he saw it as a Roman Catholic Bible version.\u2019\u00a0 You can see why he thought that because if you read this in Jerome's Latin Vulgate it looks like the priests and the pontiff have the power to bind and to loose.\u00a0 So, Dr. Toussaint says, \u201cBecause Jerome's Latin Vulgate version, which was made around 400 AD, many of the translators since then have translated the verbs in Matthew 16:19 as simple futures (not as perfect tense periphrastics.\u00a0 When you translate them as futures, it makes it sound like Peter and the church authorities do in terms of binding and loosing is as a leash on heaven, and that heaven is supposed to follow suit.\u00a0 If you translate them as perfect periphrastics, the whole meaning changes as Dr. Toussaint will bring out) \u201cNeedless to say, the future periphrastics have been ignored in these translations.\u201d\u00a0 (What he is saying is that everyone is following in these English translations \u2014 the Latin Vulgate, something Luther distrusted).\n\nContinuing, Dr. Toussaint says, \u201cIt is the unanimous testimony of Greek grammarians that the perfect tense denotes a past action, the results of which endure to the present.\u00a0 The periphrastic form of the perfect usually emphasizes the existing state.\u00a0 This changes the complexion of Matthew 16:19 completely.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis is wrongly translated \u201cshall be bound\u201d and \u201cshall be loosed,\u201d seemingly to make Jesus teach that the apostles\u2019 acts will determine the policies of heaven\u2026\u201d\u00a0 (This is the kind of thing you see with the modern-day spiritual warfare movement:\u00a0 if you loose or bind, Jesus has given you that power and heaven has to leap into existence because you have that power. Heaven has to accommodate your desires because you have that power.\u00a0 They are following the error of the Jerome's Latin Vulgate and of Roman Catholicism, which Luther made a point to correct in the Protestant Reformation by not basing his German translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate, rather from the original Hebrew and original Greek.\u00a0 Why would a man spend 11 years of his life doing this unless he felt that there was something very wrong with Jerome's Latin Vulgate?\n\n\u201c\u2026They should be translated \u201cshall have been bound\u201d and \u201cshall have been loosed.\u201d\u00a0 This makes the apostles\u2019 acts a matter of inspiration or heavenly guidance.\u2019\u00a0 A good translation is given by Williams, who exercises great care in the translation of the Greek tenses,\u2026\u201d (Here is the way the verse is supposed to read, and I read earlier out of the NASB, which does a fairly good job, but Williams\u2019 translation is even better):\u00a0 \u2026\u2018and whatever you forbid on earth must be what is already forbidden in heaven<\/u><\/strong>, and whatever you permit on earth must be what is already permitted in heaven<\/u><\/strong>.\u2019\u201d See the difference?\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t put man in the driver\u2019s seat; it places heaven in the driver\u2019s seat, and man only has authority when he declares what God has already decreed.\u00a0 If you miss this and don't understand that these are perfect tense periphrastics, then you will get the impression that whatever you bind and loose on earth, based on whatever decision you have made, that heaven is obligated to capitulate.\n\n\u201c\u2026Williams, who exercises great care in the translation of the Greek tenses, \u2018\u2018and whatever you forbid on earth must be what is already forbidden in heaven<\/u><\/strong>, and whatever you permit on earth must be what is already permitted in heaven<\/u><\/strong>.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 \u201cTherefore, the verse is a promise to Peter of a place of authority in the future earthly kingdom.\u00a0 With this promise the Lord gives Peter the basis of the decisions which he shall make.\u00a0 Peter is to discern what is the mind of God and then judge accordingly.\u201d\u00a0 Rather than these verses saying that you are in a position to loose or bind, they are actually saying that Peter will have authority in the future Millennial Kingdom.\u00a0 His authority will only come from discerning what heaven has already decreed.\u00a0 If he is operating according to what heaven has already decreed, then in the future kingdom, Peter will have tremendous authority.\u00a0 If you believe that Peter is exercising those keys in the book of Acts, which many do, then it is the same idea.\u00a0 Peter\u2019s authority in the book of Acts came only from the fact that he had discerned what the mind of God already was and that he operated according to that.\u00a0 That is the difference between making these simple futures and translating them that way \u2014 the way the Latin Vulgate and the modern-day spiritual warfare movement do versus the correct way of translating them as a perfect tense periphrastics.\u00a0 See the difference?\u00a0 This is why Greek and Hebrew are actually a big deal:\u00a0 they shift the whole meaning of something in some cases.\n\nWhat do we do with this passage in Matt 18:18-20 which is related to church discipline where Jesus says, \u201cTruly I say to you, whatever you bind<\/u> on earth shall have been bound<\/u> in heaven, and whatever you loose<\/u><\/strong> on earth shall have been loosed<\/u> in heaven.\u00a0 Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven.\u00a0 For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst.\u201d\u00a0 This is translated or interpreted in the modern-day spiritual warfare movement is \u2018Get some of your buddies together in your house and command things out of existence.\u00a0 Command an abortion clinic out of existence and God is obligated to remove it. \u00a0Or, command a pornography place out of existence and God is obligated to remove it because after all the Bible says that \u2018whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.\u2019\u00a0 They are taking that passage the same way they take Matt 16:19 putting man in the driver\u2019s seat, and that is not the meaning of it.\u00a0 These are not simple futures; these are perfect tense periphrastics.\u00a0 What he is saying is that your authority, as you exercise church discipline in the church, will only come from discerning what God has already revealed and acting according to that revelation.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t saying that two or three can agree on anything and that God is a cosmic bellhop who leaps into serving you.\u00a0 When people are actually binding Satan, these are the verses that they take out of context.\n\nConcerning Matt 18:18-20, Dr. Toussaint, in his book, Behold the K<\/u>ing, his verse-by-verse commentary in Matthew, says \u201cVerses 18-20 speak of the principle which is to be followed in the [church] discipline.\u00a0 The injunction of verse 18 concerns the same principle as that of Matthew 16;19 except it is here addressed to all of the disciples..<\/u>.\u201d \u00a0In Matthew 16:19, Jesus was addressing Peter in his kingdom role, now Jesus, using the same language, is addressing all of the disciples as they carry out church discipline.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026in Matthew 16:19 it was spoken only to Peter.\u00a0 The Lord is indicating to His disciples that, in the church, divine guidance is to be the rule to follow.\u00a0 To Peter, the King [Jesus] promised authority in the kingdom, assuring him of guidance in the use of that authority.\u00a0 Now [Matthew 18] the Lord instructs His disciples concerning the subject of discipline in the church and promises divine direction in their decisions.\n\nSo, either in the book of Acts or in the future kingdom, Peter would only have authority when he discerned God's mind properly and functions according to that.\u00a0 He was in no position to be loosing or binding things on the earth, mandating that heaven was to comply immediately.\u00a0 That is a total misunderstanding of these verses.\u00a0 By way of extension, when the Lord\u2019s disciples were to carry out church discipline in the church, they will only have authority to do so when they're functioning according to the mind of God and His revelation.\u00a0 When they go off and do things their own way, they are in no position to be binding or loosing anything.\n\nThat is Dr. Toussaint\u2019s take on this topic, and then I looked up another one of my favorites, Arnold Fruchtenbaum, in his publication, Yeshua: The Life of Messiah from a Messianic Jewish Perspective.<\/u>\u00a0 I wanted to see what he had to say about what the Lord said to Peter in Matt 16:19 concerning binding and loosing; also what the Lord said to the disciples concerning church discipline regarding binding and loosing.\u00a0 It is interesting that when you compare the works of these excellent teachers, that they are complementary, though each will bring out that the others don't.\u00a0 Notice what Fruchtenbaum says, \u201cYeshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus, concerning Matt 16:19) gave this special authority only to Peter at this time.\u00a0 After the resurrection, He extended and limited this authority to the other apostles exclusively<\/u>\u2026\u201d Fruchtenbaum says that the concept of binding and loosing is only for the apostles.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201c\u2026In modern days, this verse has been pulled out of context to signify something other than what is meant in the Jewish frame of reference.\u00a0 It has often been applied to spiritual warfare and demonology and loosing of Satan and his demons (that is why I am bringing this up regarding spiritual warfare as these are the passages that everyone wants to use in the area of spiritual warfare).\u00a0 \u201cHowever, neither Satan nor demons are found in this context.<\/u>\u00a0 Rather, the context is the establishment of the Church, and the issue at hand is apostolic authority.\u201d\n\nWhen you drag binding and loosing into modern-day spiritual warfare, the problem is that Matthew 16:19 is not about spiritual warfare; it is about the establishment of the church.\u00a0 Nor is Matt 18:18, binding and loosing, about spiritual warfare.\u00a0 It is about the exercising of church discipline.\u00a0 So, when people grab those verses, which they do all the time, trying to make a case for binding and loosing Satan today, they are ripping verses completely out of the context in which they were given.\n\nFruchtenbaum goes on, \u201cThe terms \u2018binding\u2019 and \u2018loosing\u2019 were commonly used in rabbinic writings.\u00a0 In fact, bindng and loosing was authority the Pharisees claimed for themselves (akin to how the Roman Catholic church claims it for itself), but which God never gave them.\u00a0 He did however give it to the apostles (authority for binding and loosing).\u00a0 There were two basic concepts of binding and loosing in rabbinical thinking\u2026 (here is where Fruchtenbaum is very good because as a Hebrew Christian scholar, he knows about all of the rabbinical writings and of extrabiblical literature in Judaism, and he can tell you what these terms mean in rabbinical Judaism of the time).\u00a0 \u201cLegislatively, to bind meant \u2018to forbid,\u2019 and to loose mean \u2018to permit.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 Judicially, to bind meant \u2018to punish,\u2019 and to loose meant \u2018not to punish,\u2019 or \u2018to set free from punishment.\u2019\u2026in rabbinic Judaism the expressions related \u2018to humanly administered discipline in leadership rather than ultimate spiritual or moral authority\u2026\u201d \u201c\u2026Such typical statements found in rabbinic literature concern matters of permitting, forbidding, punishing, and not punishing certain actions.\u00a0 That was how the rabbis used \u2018binding\u2019 and \u2018loosing\u2019 in the context of the Second Temple period, and the usage of these terms in the Gospels must be interpreted in light of first-century Israel\u2026\u201d\u00a0 He is looking at how these terms are used in what is called Second Temple Judaism, which is the time period when there was a second Temple.\u00a0 Remember the first Temple was built by Solomon in 966 BC per 1 Kings 6:1 and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC, and then the Jews went into the 70-year captivity and they came back from Babylon after this, and according to the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah, they began to rebuild Temple #2.\u00a0 That was a little over four centuries before the time of Christ, and that was the Temple functioning at the time of Christ.\u00a0 Herod took that Temple and renovated it, and that was the Temple functioning when Jesus walked the face of the earth; the Temple that He was taken to as a young man where He confounded the religious leaders with His wisdom.\u00a0 The same Temple that He drove the money changers from; the Temple that Satan took Him to the pinnacle to test Him to throw Himself off.\u00a0 It was the same Temple that was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70.\u00a0 What Fruchtenbaum is trying to figure out is that in the rabbinical writings of that second Temple era, how were the terms, \u2018binding\u2019 and \u2018loosing\u2019 understood?\n\nHe says, \u201cThat was how the rabbis used \u2018binding\u2019 and \u2018loosing\u2019 in the context of the Second Tempe period, and the usage of these terms in the Gospels must be interpreted in light of first-century Israel.\u00a0 Thus, the Messiah gave to Peter, and later to all the apostles, the authority to bind and loose both legislatively and judicially.\u00a0 Since there is no such thing as apostolic succession, (the Bible has a crystal clear definition of an apostle, and it is someone who was there from the beginning of Acts 1:21-22, roughly; \u00a0the test that was laid down when they were trying to replace Matthias with Judas who had committed suicide; when they said that they were going to replace him so whoever we replace him with has to be with us from the beginning of the ministry of Christ, right up to His resurrection.\u00a0 So, you had to have been an eyewitness to those events.\u00a0 Paul is the apostle abnormally born because he came to Christ after those events through a vision that God gave to him on the Damascus Road in Acts 9.\u00a0 That is why Paul repeatedly identifies himself as the \u2018apostle untimely born; the least and the last.\u2019\u00a0 Following that, there were no more apostles.\u00a0 If there were more apostles following these guys\u2019 deaths, the books of the Bibles would still be in the process of being written because apostle has a technical meaning, and since the apostles died 2,000 years ago, the canon of Scripture is shut, and there are no living apostles today.\u00a0 That is disappointing for many church leaders to learn when their entire ministry presence is built on their identity as Apostle ___, and their Church of the Apostles, and their claim to be something that God says they cannot be.\u00a0 Eph 2:20 says that you build or lay the foundation of the church with the apostles.\u00a0 How many times do you lay a foundation in construction?\u00a0 One time.\u00a0 The foundation of the church was laide 2,000 years ago; God is not re-laying the foundation.\u00a0 He is building on the existing foundation.\u00a0 I would argue that God is installing the roof to the building because it looks as though the building project is almost complete \u2014 that is my human interpretation.\u00a0 You do not have apostles, or the foundation would be re-laid; it would not make any sense.\u201d \u201c\u2026Since there is no such thing as apostolic succession, the authority was not passed on beyond the apostles.\u201d\n\nFruchtenbaum is essentially saying that binding and loosing was something exclusively given to Peter and to the apostles, no one else.\u00a0 \u201cLater, in the Epistles (the letters), the apostles exercise binding and loosing, meaning they permitted things that were formally forbidden, and they forbade things that were formally permitted.\u00a0 Legislatively this authority was limited to the apostles only.\u00a0 The church has no authority to bind and loose legislatively.\u00a0 It has no authority to bind, meaning to issue further rules and regulations for believers to follow.\u00a0 Likewise, it has no authority to loose, meaning to release believers from the rules of Scripture.\u201d\u00a0 The apostles could do that, but we cannot today because we are in a new age, and the rules for our age have already been established by God as revealed through the apostles.\n\n\u201cOne example of how the apostles practiced their authority in the judicial sense is found in Acts 5, when Peter passed the death sentence upon Ananias and Sapphira, (two believers had lied to the Holy Spirit by misrepresenting their generosity when they sold a piece of property, which was theirs to sell and to keep the proceeds as they wished.\u00a0 They gave some of the proceeds to the church, though they weren\u2019t required to do.\u00a0 The problem was that they told the church that they gave everything from the sale of their property to the church even though they hadn\u2019t given all of it.\u00a0 They experienced maximum divine discipline right on the spot because the church at that point was in its infancy, and anyone knows that with an infant, that any virus could kill off an infant, thus through the apostles, God was very aggressive in His church discipline.\u00a0 Thus, Ananias and Sapphira were killed; that would be an example, per Fruchtenbaum, of Peter binding and loosing.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026Because they had lied to the Holy Spirit, he bound them for punishment, and they each dropped dead at his feet.\u00a0 The church (today) has a limited authority to bind and loose in a judicial sense, but not to the same degree as the apostles.\u00a0 The apostles could impose a death sentence, while the church can only excommunicate the sinner, a point made later, in Matthew 18.\u201d\n\nSo, if we are binding and loosing today in any sense in this year of 2021, then we can get together and excommunicate someone from the life of the church, but we don't have any real permission to impose a death sentence of anyone.\u00a0 We don't have the authority to point a finger at someone where they would drop dead as Peter had, only as he discerned the mind of God first, not on his own authority.\n\n\u201cThis authority was given to the apostles alone, and they kept it until the end of their lives.\u00a0 The church also has the authority to bind and to loose in a judicial sense, but not to the same degree as the apostles, who could issue a death sentence.\u00a0 The church can bind and loose to the point of breaking or not breaking fellowship with a sinning believer\u2026<\/u>\u201d\u00a0 If we can bind and loose today in any sense, that would be the only way it could be authorized, and we can only do that because heaven has decreed that we do so in the area of church discipline and if we are following the instructions of heaven.\u00a0\u00a0 Peter had a greater authority to do so because he could actually impose a death sentence, as he correctly discerned the mind of God \u2014 as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira.\u00a0 I am rather relieved that we aren\u2019t allowed to do that today, think of how many funerals we would be having.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026It can excommunicate or not excommunicate. \u00a0Notice, therefore, that this does not refer to binding Satan or his demons, so the context is not spiritual warfare, but Church discipline.\u201d\n\nThat is a lot of reading, wasn\u2019t it?\u00a0 What are the five takeaways concerning binding and loosing?\u00a0 I tried to distill from Dr. Toussaint and Dr. Fruchtenbaum the five major points, and the only reason I am bringing this up is because I said last week that we don't bind Satan, and I received a flood of emails challenging Matthew 18 and Matt 16 where it clearly tells us to bind and loose today.\u00a0 That if we aren\u2019t binding Satan today then what do we do with those passages?\u00a0 Five things, to reiterate, from two of my favorite teachers (see slide on Binding and Loosing Takeaways):\n
          \n \t
        1. Matt 16:19 involves Peter\u2019s future kingdom role.\u00a0 When Jesus gave Peter the authority to bind and loose, it was related to what Peter would do.\u00a0 Toussaint says that in the Millennial Kingdom, others say that what he did in the book of Acts concerning winning citizens of the coming kingdom.<\/li>\n \t
        2. Those on earth are to follow what heaven has already determined (not visa versa). That is what is lost in Jerome's Latin Vulgate that Roman Catholicism is built on.\u00a0 Roman Catholicism and the modern-day spiritual warfare movement wants you to believe that this power rests with man and that what man determines, heaven has to follow.\u00a0 This is based on a mistranslation of those verbs as simple futures:\u00a0 they are NOT simple futures; they are PERFECT TENSE periphrastics, and when you understand them in that sense, then you can see that the authority given to those exercising this power only comes from discerning God\u2019s will correctly first, and then operating accordingly.\u00a0 Not decreeing something that heaven is obligated to accommodate.<\/li>\n \t
        3. Spiritual warfare is not found in either context. So, what does binding and loosing have to do with spiritual warfare?\u00a0 Absolutely nothing!\u00a0 Yet everyone wants to quote these in the context of spiritual warfare.\u00a0 See the context for yourself:\u00a0 neither of those passages have to do with spiritual warfare or the binding and loosing of Satan or his demons.\u00a0 It has to do with the establishment of the church, Matthew 16, and Peter\u2019s authority; then it has to do with church discipline.\u00a0 Nothing about binding Satan or demons.<\/li>\n \t
        4. The authority to bind and to loose was only given to the apostles. I do not have the power to impose the death sentence as Peter did in Acts 5.<\/li>\n \t
        5. The Church has a more limited degree of authority to bind and to loose. What is our authority?\u00a0 Our authority comes only when we exercise church discipline and the leadership\u2019s decision to implement church discipline. Example is when so and so, is actively sinning and is unrepentant, so they are to be disfellowshipped from the church, and everyone else is instructed to stay away from them until they are shamed into repentance.\u00a0 The church has the authority to bind and to loose only in that sense, and only because that is permission that the Lord has already given to the church.\u00a0 In other words, if the church just woke up one day and said, \u2018Why don't we do this?\u2019 They would have no authority to do it at all.\u00a0 The only reason they have the authority is the will of God in written form gave the Church that authority.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nSo, last week I said that we only covered one verse; this week, we haven\u2019t covered any verses because we spent the entire time trying to explain binding and loosing.\u00a0 I hope you found it enjoyable.\u00a0 Just consider it an amplification of James 4:7 based on questions I received last week concerning the two verses in Matthew.\n\nNext time, we will pick it up in James 4:8.\n\nLet's pray:\u00a0 Father, we are grateful for Your truth, Your Word, and help; us to know what our authority is and what it isn\u2019t, so we don't step outside of Your parameters for us.\u00a0 Help us to be good students as we try to rightfully interpret Your Word.\u00a0 We will be careful to give you all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus' Name, and God's people said, Amen!\"","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t