§ 145. Theorem.—The Power of the Keys is the power in virtue of which the Church decides what belongs to the Christian life, and disposes of each individual in the measure of his conformity with these decisions.

Conf. Aug. de abus. vii.: Sentiunt potestatem clavium esse … mandatum Dei praedicandi evangelii, remittendi et retinendi peccata et administrandi sacramenta.—Ibid.: Respondent quod liceat Episcopis seu pastoribus facere ordinationes ut res ordine gerantur in ecclesia.—Expos. simpl. xiv.: De clavibus regni Dei … simpliciter dicimus omnes ministros legitime vocatos … exercere … usum clavium, cum … populum … increpant inque disciplina retinent.—Ibid. xviii.: Atqui debet interim iusta esse inter ministros disciplina. Inquirendum enim diligenter in doctrinam et vitam ministrorum in synodis.—Conf. Basil. xvi.: Ipsa pascendi gregis auctoritas, quae proprie clavium potestas est … cunctis aeque inviolabilis esse, et … electis tantum et idoneis administrandum committi debet.—Conf. Gall. xxxii. seq.: Credimus expedire, ut … ecclesiae alicuius praefecti inter se dispiciant qua ratione totum corpus commode regi possit … eas tantum leges admittimus, quae fovendae concordiae et unicuique in obedientia debita retinendo subserviunt, qua in re sequendum nobis putamus quod dominus noster … de excommunicatione statuit quam quidem approbamus et una cum suis appendicibus necessariam esse arbitramur. Rom. 16¹⁷. Cf. Conf. Belg. xxxii.—Conf. Tetrapol. xiii.: Hi (ministri) claves habent regni coelorum ligandi et solvendi peccata remittendi et retinendi potestatem, sic tamen ut nihil nisi ministri Christi sint, cuius hoc ius solius et proprium est.—Conf. Saxon.: Et ad ministerium haec pertinent … exercere iudicia ecclesiae legitimo modo de iis qui manifestorum criminum in moribus aut doctrina rei sunt, et contra contumaces sententiam excommunicationis ferre, et conversos rursus absolvere et recipere. Haec ut rite fiant, etiam consistoria in ecclesiis nostris constituta sunt.

1. The term Office or Power of the Keys, in combination with the terms ‘bind’ and ‘loose,’ occurs in a discourse of Christ² which bears upon the first part of our paragraph; the terms ‘bind’ and ‘loose’ occur in another and related discourse,³ where, at least judged by the context, they bear upon our second part; and this again is very like a third passage,⁴ which probably has to do with the second part exclusively. To say that this or that shall be bound, means that it shall be fixed by command and prohibition, while that is loosed which is exempt from such rule and is left to the self-determination of each individual⁵—the common feeling of the whole body taking the same attitude to one who adopts one course and to another who adopts the opposite, provided only that a good conscience can be assumed in both cases. Now here we have the legislative activity of the Church described in the previous paragraph, and its limitations as well. The common feeling of the body has no occasion to express itself in a determinative way except when, through the imperfect permeation of the Holy Spirit, there is not being realized in certain members something which common feeling demands as an essential manifestation of faith, or when, in certain lives, there is still going on what, if left uncensured, would tend to injure the Spirit’s action in others. But it is equally essential, and equally pertinent to the same legislative activity, that things should be ‘loosed’ which presumption or spiritual arrogance might seek to bind. The unity of the Church cannot continue to exist if individuals try to make their personal modes of acting or thinking obligatory, as the only proper expression of the common Spirit. Now if people insist on taking the scriptural passage referred to (and it is the chief Biblical authority for the doctrine) in the literal sense that Christ conferred this power on Peter alone, we should have to carry through that view strictly; and then, with the death of Peter, the legislative activity of the Church would have come to an end—in so far, that is to say, as it rests on this injunction of Christ. Nobody will doubt that in that case it was bound to reappear; for otherwise, if we suppose everything to have been decided for all time in the first generation, this could only have come about in a supernatural fashion which would destroy the genuinely historical character of events; and this could never have led up to a free and living development. It follows that if this were the literal sense of Christ’s words, the legislative activity of the Church could not be based on them alone. But it would not for that reason cease to be a prolongation of Christ’s activity. It would still be an effluence from His will that a community should exist, and without legislative activity its existence is impossible. Peter himself cannot have understood Christ’s words in any such sense, for, when general pronouncements became necessary, he did not arrogate to himself alone the right of making them, but brought the questions at issue before the community. Even in the second passage quoted from Scripture, the ecclesiastical activity which applies the law in judgments and represents law executively is ultimately attributed to the community; hence it goes without saying that even earlier individuals must have worked in the name of the community, and as its organs; the more so that the Redeemer certainly did not mean to give any irritated person the right to call his brother to account. But once we regard the individual as the organ of the community in dealing with a brother, every sin against the whole body is also done against the individual; and the natural organ of the whole body in each case is the individual who first has certain knowledge of the facts. If we further bring in the third Scripture passage quoted—and it is always reckoned as bearing on our problem—it may no doubt at first sight be interpreted as meaning that the forgiveness of sins is first imparted in baptism, and that one whose baptism is postponed to a later time therefore has his sins longer retained.⁶ We have no desire to exclude this; clearly the right administration of baptism (or, as now with us, of confirmation), which is to be expected from the action of the Spirit, also belongs in essence to the Power of the Keys. But this certainly does not exhaust the meaning of the passage. The Apostles themselves and the Early Church after them applied it to persons who had already been received into the Church;⁷ further, the passage contains the promise given by Christ with regard to every judgment declaring whether or not a given person is in that fellowship with Christ in which sin disappears. Now all regenerate persons are in this fellowship; hence their actual sins, which alone could evoke a judgment of the Church, are already forgiven. If we add the fact that no one simply as an organ of the Spirit is within the Church, and that activity within the Church can only take place through powers which are themselves channels of the Spirit, i.e. spiritual gifts (since there must be sin where there are still vestiges of resistance to the Spirit’s indwelling), it is clear that the Redeemer’s promise entails that the Church will judge rightly on the question what, and how much or how little, is to be entrusted to the individual member of the Church, and to what extent his influence on the Church or his collaboration with it ought to be restricted, if the minimum of disturbance is to result from his inward state. Thus all that belongs to the second part of our paragraph we find based on the words of Christ.

2. If now we survey the credal passages quoted above, we find that they refer to the same principal points which we have seen to be constitutive of the Office of the Keys, though not everywhere expressed quite definitely or distinguished with equal clearness; and all that need be added by way of comment is the following.

First, we often find the Ministry of the Word taken as part of the Office of the Keys. This is obviously the case with regard to the administration of the sacraments, which is so closely bound up with the forgiveness of sins; and what we have already conceded respecting baptism must hold good also of the Supper, namely, that its right administration belongs to the Office of the Keys. It is, however, a mere misunderstanding to say the same of preaching considered by itself; yet viewed as a special instance of the general principle formulated above, it does belong to the Office of the Keys to determine rightly who is, to be admitted to the Ministry of the Word of God—a matter which incontestably must be regarded as one of the most important aspects of the Office. Assuming this, we cannot but judge it natural that with this Ministry nearly everywhere the Church should have combined the administration of both sacraments.

Secondly, many of the credal passages, taken by themselves, appear to suggest that the whole Office of the Keys resides in the whole body of Ministers of the Word. If it were so and if (the testing and the authorization of ministers of the Word being, as it is, an essential part of the whole Office) the entire body of Church teachers were a self-propagating organism and thus in exclusive possession of the Power of the Keys, then the distinction between the clergy (in this narrower sense) and the laity would be sharpened to such a degree that the difference between us and the Roman Church would entirely disappear. This, however, cannot be the intention; for Christ Himself assigns one part of the function to the congregation, and from the very outset the congregation was given a share in the most important tasks of administration.⁸ Indeed, the very passage which gives ministers exclusive power to execute the congregation’s judgment takes for granted that it is by the congregation that the judgment is pronounced. As for legislative action, it cannot occur until there has developed in the Church an important distinction or antithesis; but this distinction is not the same. It is specially incumbent on those entrusted with preaching to train themselves to be ever more perfect interpreters of the Word of God in Scripture, but it is one thing to explain the words of Christ and the Apostles rightly and quite another to apply them profitably in more or less general forms under very different conditions of life; so, too, it is in one way that Scripture is applied from the pulpit and in quite another that rules for the life of the congregation under definite circumstances are evolved in a spirit of loyalty to Scripture, even though they often cannot be supported by any particular Scripture passage. Hence the distinction between one who grasps the religious meaning of life’s conditions and tasks swiftly and surely enough to tell how the law bears on them, and one who accepts the law as law because he hears in it the sound of his own true inner voice, is a quite different distinction from that between minister and hearer. Hence in public teaching it is best to avoid giving even an impression that Church legislation and administration ought to belong chiefly to ministers. We must not then overlook those passages which assign the duty of consulting on the government of the whole body to the leaders of congregations, and among the leaders reckon not only elders but deacons, in spite of the fact that they have no part in the teaching office.⁹ Thus both legislative action and administrative action derive ultimately from the congregation.

Thirdly, while so much can be gathered from our credal passages, they do not make clear the scope or manner in which this whole Office resides in the congregation, or how the congregation exercises it. In point of fact, it exercises it not merely indirectly, by ordering and distributing the offices to which legislation and judgment are formally assigned (for how could the holders of these offices come to have such abilities and faculties, unless they have previously had some experience of them?), but each individual as such also exercises a punitive office, in an independent and informal manner, by the judgments he passes upon what goes on in the congregation, and by praise or blame. Not only so: legislative action is exerted by each through everything he does that goes to form public opinion; and public opinion must always be the living fount of expressly legislative acts, for these acts are simply a definite way of gaining recognition for public opinion in Church affairs. If in this sphere anything be attempted which is not a pure expression of the way in which, at a particular time and place, human nature in union with the divine Spirit is seeking to give actual form to itself and its concerns, then the attempt fails, and the law, which is thus incapable of securing its own recognition, simply reveals an imperfection in the Church. Inevitably the Church is disturbed, and it is only through controversy that agreement (all the more conscious for what has occurred) can be regained, and along with it a less ambiguous state of the whole body.

Fourthly, the direct consequence of the foregoing is nowhere expressed so clearly that we feel dispensed from stating it, although in a sense it takes us back to what we first said regarding our present enterprise—namely, that all legislative acts within the congregation are always subject to revision. For just as there was a time when none of the now prevailing usages could have been made law, because the law would not have been acknowledged, so, too, a time may come when the law will be acknowledged no longer; and if it still struggles to keep up its legal validity, the outcome will be false appearances, of an injurious kind. This is by no means to assert that every enactment publicly made a rule of faith or life is equally mutable, but only that none should rank as immutable; for we may be sure that certain items will always reassert their validity. If, finally, the right to pronounce excommunication be also reckoned as part of administrative action, this right must be understood in a very limited sense. If this aspect of the Office of the Keys be traced back to the undivided rule of Christ, it is true that in addition to choosing Apostles and calling disciples and entrusting tasks to both, we find Christ pronouncing woes on the Scribes and Pharisees and on places that had not received Him. These, however, were persons who had not yet been received into His fellowship; He needed only to withdraw from them but not to expel them; indeed, He Himself did not cast out the prodigal son. Thus we can have no such thing as complete excommunication, breaking off all fellowship. Every condition which might rightly provoke a judgment excluding from all share in the life of the Church ought to be regarded as merely temporary, and no judgment should seek to terminate the influence of the Church on the individual who has once been received into its bosom.

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Footnotes

1. ↩

2. Matt. 16¹⁹. ↩

3. Matt. 18¹⁸. ↩

4. John 20²³. ↩

5. Conf. Aug. de abus. vii.: Necesse est enim retineri in ecclesiis doctrinam de libertate christiana. ↩

6. Cf. Matt. 10¹⁴·¹⁵. For wheresoever the disciples thus withdrew, there no community arose, and sins were retained in every case. ↩

7. Acts 8²⁰⁻²³, 1 Cor. 5⁴·⁵. ↩

8. Acts 1¹⁵⁻²³ 6²⁻⁶. ↩

9. See § 134. ↩