Matthew 16:17–19, Keys of the kingdom…bind … loose. Yeshua is here giving his disciples the authority of Elohim on earth to judge and make ecclesiastical decisions.
Bind…loose. Here, Yeshua clearly gave the ecclesiastical authority of the Sanhedrin (the ruling body of Jewish leaders in Yeshua’s day) over to his disciples. No longer do we need to look to the authority of the Jewish leaders for determining how to obey YHVH, or for making rulings pertaining to religious service.
First of all, there is no Sanhedrin today to tell us these things.
Secondly, in Matthew 16:17–19, Yeshua clearly transferred to his apostles—the church leaders of that time—the authority of the Sanhedrin to make binding ruling and decisions about spiritual matters pertaining to his kahal (congregation or church).
This authority would include making determinations about the biblical calendars. No longer, does the congregation or kahal of Yeshua have to wait for a Jewish Sanhedrin to form to tell them how to follow the Word of Elohim with regard to the biblical calendar or any other subjects for that matter.
Yeshua here permits and empowers the spiritual leaders of the saints to simply teach and do what the Bible says, and heaven will honor or endorse their decisions (called “binding” and “loosing”)! That’s what Yeshua says in Matthew 16:19, and this is exactly what his apostolic leaders did in Acts 15 at the first apostolic counsel.
Yeshua gave his disciples the authority over his church to bind (to prohibit, forbid) and loose (to permit), and he said that heaven would respect their decisions (Matt 16:17–19). They, in fact, exercised this divine authority in Acts chapter 15 at the first Jerusalem counsel.
Bind as used in the Matt 16:19 and Matt 18:18 is the Greek word deo meaning “to bind tie, fasten, to bind, fasten with chains, to throw into chains, being bound by Satan or his demons, put under obligation of the law, to be bound to one, a wife, a husband, to forbid, prohibit, declare to be illicit.” The counterpart to binding is loosing, which is the Greek word luo meaning “to loose any person (or thing) tied or fastened, to loose one bound (i.e. to unbind, release from bonds, set free), to loosen, undo, dissolve, anything bound, tied, or compacted together.
The concept of binding and loosing was also a first century Jewish colloquial expressions relating to correctly or incorrectly interpreting the Torah. If the Jewish legal scholars believed that a person was incorrectly interpreting the meaning of a Torah law or one of the traditions of the elders, they accused him of breaking or loosening (luo) the law or making it less binding or less strict (deo). This was the case when Yeshua picked some grain to eat on the Sabbath in John 5:18. The NKJV and most English translations of this verse incorrectly state that “he broke the Sabbath.” This is a misleading, faulty and unfortunate translation of the Greek word luo. It is unthinkable and unscriptural that the perfect Yeshua actually sinned by violating the fourth commandment. In reality, he loosened the Jewish extra-biblical legal restrictions that forbad anyone from picking a handful of grain on the Sabbath to eat—something the Torah doesn’t consider work (as opposed to harvesting a field of grain), and thus doesn’t forbid. Luo in this sense may possibly be read into Matt 5:19, John 7:23, and 10:35 as well.
