I taught Matthew 16 for years, but always shied away from verse 19. The English translations cannot do justice to the Greek tenses, and I am no Greek scholar.

But the Lord recently prompted me to go back to it, and I am glad I did—it is life changing!

In Matthew 16:16, Peter declared that Jesus is, “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

¹⁷Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter [Greek petros], and on this rock [petra] I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:17-19 NIV).

Jesus is playing with words. Petros is masculine; petra feminine. Therefore, petra cannot mean Peter.  He means the revelation (a feminine word). Jesus will build his church, not on Peter, but on all those with the revelation of who Jesus is. (For a full discussion, see my book Authority.)

Therefore the promises in verse 19 are to us—the church. Now keys represent access and access means authority. What are we being given?

To unwrap verse 19, we have to get into grammar. Stay with me! Here is the Greek Interlinear:

Whatever you may have bound [Greek deo—in the subjunctive, aorist, active tense] upon the earth, it will have been bound [perfect, passive tense] in the heavens, and whatever you may have abolished [lyo—loose] upon the earth, it will have been abolished in the heavens.

Subjunctive? Aorist? Let’s try to get a handle on those tenses.

Our problem is we hardly use subjunctives in English. They express an unlikely or impossible wish: “If I were a rich man…”

Here, the subjunctive “were” carries the sense of “it-would-be-really-great-but-it’s-not-going-to-happen.” (Compare the more positive conditional tense: “If I was rich…” which implies possibility.)

Next, the aorist past tense expresses a one-time completed action. For example, we might say once to a problem, “I bind you,” knowing it was unlikely or impossible, but that is the end of our role.

What happens next is astonishing. Jesus goes on to say, “it will have been bound [perfect, passive tense] in the heavens.” The perfect past tense describes two ideas: (1) completed action and (2) continuing results.

Here (I believe) is what’s going on: We bind or loose something in his Name, and it’s a done deal in heaven. More than that. The effects in heaven are ongoing. We give a command, knowing it’s impossible on earth, and release a cascade of events in heaven. We bind an evil spirit, and the Holy Spirit is already onto it. We command healing and heaven has already sprung into action.

Isn’t this true of all Spirit-led ministry? We are called to the impossible. We do what we know we can’t as though we can. We take a step of faith, and trust the Lord with the cascade of ongoing results.

­­Believer, never be afraid to bind and loose in the Lord’s Name. You have the keys!

Check out my book Authority.