KEYS TO THE KINGDOM

Keys of the Kingdom

"I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom."  The church is entrusted with responsibility concerning the ethic of heaven for the government of earth. As He declared that He would build His Church, it is clear that in His own mind the interest of the Kingdom was utmost; and that the temporal value of the Church He would build would be that of its cooperation with Him, in his passion and His mission, for the establishment of the Kingdom of God. The office and nature of the church is revealed in two simple statements of Christ made to His disciples. "The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."  These references show how closely He connected the Church with the Kingdom, considering her ever as His instrument for the revelation to men, and its establishment in the world. It took Pentecost for us to be baptized into a new union with Himself and the start of His building project. While speaking to them as the Church, He was always thinking of the Kingdom, and was preparing them for the very definite fulfillment of a position in the world in the interests of that Kingdom. The whole Messianic hope of the Hebrew people was connected with the establishment of the Kingdom of God. They did not understand the nature of that ultimate Kingdom. The foundations of that Kingdom were spiritual, not material. Peter saw when looking into the eyes of Jesus the King of that Kingdom, but God the Father helped him to see the King. One man out of the past economy, illuminated from above, confessed Him, was the rock upon which that confession rests, Christ would build His Church. Jesus was the King of the Kingdom to Peter and could therefore run his life through this world.

The raising of a new seed for Abraham (Matthew 3:9), the church in this age composed of Jews and Gentiles, does not terminate God's Covenant fidelity to his ancient people. Nothing changes the original design of the kingdom - it is simply postponed. Gentiles believers are now "grafted into the olive tree" (Romans 11:22-24). The "keys of the kingdom'' or knowledge and insight into these very remarkable transactions was given to the apostles (Matthew 16:19). This promise of restoration to the Jews is now deferred to the end of the age known as "the times of the Gentiles" (Luke 21:24). David's "fallen tent" remains in ruins but it will be reconstructed (Acts 15:16).