ReformedApologist criticizes my mention of impeccability (I assume he’s referring to my treatment of Galatians 2:11-14) and says that we are trying to determine if Peter was given a primacy, not if he was infallible, but I’m not quite sure what he means. I don’t know if he means that the issue is just Peter’s primacy and not the other elements of the papacy such as infallibility, or if he totally misunderstands my argument and is responding to something that I never said (although I don’t know how he can misunderstand my argument). I will assume that he meant the former, which is a misunderstanding of the issue at hand. First of all, if Peter was given a primacy that made him the first pope, then that necessarily includes infallibility, so the issue is important. Secondly, he himself used this passage in his opening statement as proof against Petrine primacy, so I don’t know how he can view it as a red herring. Thirdly, he doesn’t deal with the fact that in this passage, Peter seems to be incredibly influential, much more so than the other apostles, which supports the notion that he was the head of the Church. However, if I have misconstrued ReformedApologist’s argument, I would gladly respond to any further clarifications that he could give.
Next, he brings up Galatians 2:9, the only passage (at least to my knowledge) in which Peter is not listed first among the other apostles. However, when I said that Peter is always listed first when all the apostles are mentioned, I meant when all 12 (or, in the case of Acts 1:13, all 11) are mentioned together, which, taken together with the facts that Judas is always mentioned last and that Matthew calls Peter the chief apostle, supports the papacy.
Next, he criticizes my use of John 21:15-17 and says that Jesus is our only ruler, but this is untrue. Granted, only God has the ultimate authority, but in this passage, Jesus clearly delegates Peter (and only Peter) as the temporal head of the Church on earth (but of course subordinate to God), as indicated by His use of the metaphor of a shepherd, which, as the passages I cited (and several secular ancient documents as well) show, was used to denote authority in the ancient world.
Next, ReformedApologist says that Matthew 18:18 is the fulfillment of Matthew 16:19. Where does he get this from? I haven’t got a clue; he just pulls it out of thin air and affirms it as if it were a fact. However, until he can show 1) that Matthew 16:19 even has a fulfillment, and 2) That Matthew 18:18 is its fulfillment rather than an unrelated instance in which Jesus gives His apostles an authority that is separate from that which He gave Peter, his assertion is just that: an unfounded, unsupported assertion.
Lastly, he quotes a passage from a Scripture commentary concerning Matthew 16:19, which has several errors. First, it says that while Peter is the steward of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, all Christians from all ages have them, but it doesn’t give any good evidence to support that claim. If all Christians have them, why does only Peter receive them in Scripture? Where does Scripture indicate that all Christians have them? It brings up Matthew 18:1-5, but the greatest in this case doesn’t necessarily refer to authority; it most likely means the holiest one. In Matthew 20:20-21, the mother of James and John asks Jesus to make them joint second-in-commands in heaven, which doesn’t necessarily indicate that He had not yet chosen a leader. She may not have known that Jesus chose Peter to be the head of the Church, or she may have wanted Him to overturn His decision. Plus, even if these passages do refer to authority, they still don’t prove anything. Jesus repeatedly told His apostles that He had to die and rise from the dead (Matthew 16:21-23, 17:22-23, 20:17-19), but they didn’t understand what had to happen (Matthew 28:17; Mark 16:11, 13-14; Luke 24:11, 25-26). Similarly, they may not have completely understood what Jesus meant in Matthew 16:18-19, so their disputes about authority don’t prove anything. Next, it says that all of the apostles received the power to bind and loose in Matthew 18:18, but that’s irrelevant. The keys are different from the power to bind and loose. In addition, this doesn’t deal with the fact that Peter received the power to bind and loose by himself before all the other apostles did. Until ReformedApologist can explain those two problems for the Protestant position (the difference between 1. the keys and the power to bind and loose and 2. Peter’s unique power to bind and loose and the apostles’ collective power to bind and loose), the Catholic belief that only Peter has the keys and that he and his successors have a special power to bind and loose separately from the other apostles and their successors stands as the only possible interpretation.
Finally, since ReformedApologist (and I think many, if not most, Protestants) seems to misunderstand the difference between 1) the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the power to bind and loose and 2) Peter’s singular power to bind and loose and the apostles’ collective power to bind and loose, I would like to take some time and explain those two differences.
The keys are a symbol of Peter’s office and authority, whereas the power to bind and loose is just one of the powers that goes along with that office. Just as Eliakim received the key of the house of David as a symbol of his singular office and the authority that came with it, Peter received the keys of the kingdom of heaven as a symbol of his singular office and the authority that comes with it. This is why even though the other apostles received the power to bind and loose, they didn’t receive the keys. They didn’t hold Peter’s office; only Peter did.
Is the apostolic collective power to bind and loose included in the power of the keys? Yes, the power of the keys includes the power of binding and loosing granted to the steward of Christ on earth (Matthew 16:19), and to the Apostles (and their successors) in communion with Peter (cf. Matthew 18:18). The keys signify the singular office of Christ’s vicar on earth. The power of the keys is the wider responsibility for the pastoral care of the Church, which requires binding and loosing; the keys are not a component of binding and loosing. Binding and loosing (whether forbidding/permitting, or forgiving/retaining) are the jurisdictional power of the keys, which includes appointing others to office, teaching doctrine, and other governing duties allocated to the Vicar of Christ and the Apostles.1
In addition, there are a few differences between Peter’s singular power to bind and loose and the power to bind and loose that all of the apostles received. First and foremost, Matthew 16:18-19 is clearly dealing with the universal Church, whereas Matthew 18:15-18 is dealing with a local issue. Thus, they are not exactly the same. While Peter was given authority over the whole Church, the apostles as a whole were only given authority in local matters (actually, they had authority over the whole Church, but in Matthew 18:18 they only receive power to act locally). Therefore, any attempts to diminish Peter’s authority by appealing to Matthew 18:18 doesn’t work. This leads us back to another difference between the power to bind and loose and the keys. Different authorities can have the power to bind and loose on different levels, and the keys tell us on what level Peter has this ability. The keys are not merely the power itself, but because they symbolize his office, they are also an indication of who Peter can bind and loose. In addition, why would Jesus give Peter the power to bind and loose before he got it a second time with all the other apostles? It seems redundant and superfluous, and only the Catholic interpretation (that Peter could bind and loose in a special way) can make sense of the two passages.
Endnotes
1) Scott Butler, Norman Dahlgren, and David Hess, Jesus, Peter, and the Keys: A Scriptural Handbook on the Papacy