Matthew 16:15–20: “He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘You are blessed, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven.’ Then He instructed His disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Christ.”
This passage is full of mysterious things. What exactly are the keys of the kingdom of God? Do you think Peter knew what Jesus meant when Jesus mentioned “the keys of the kingdom of heaven”? And do you think we see it play out in the book of Acts—how Peter had a prominent role in the founding of the church?
Peter had the boldness, the courage, the confidence to seize the moment when, on the day of Pentecost, the scores of disciples were in the upper room, and heaven opened and the Spirit of God descended on them, tongues like fire resting on each one (Acts 2:1–4). Thousands of people said, “These men are drunk,” because they heard them speaking in their own languages (Acts 2:6–13). And Peter stood up.
Maybe Peter did not fully understand it here in Matthew 16, but do we now think that is exactly what played out? “The keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
What had John the Baptist been preaching? What was Jesus preaching? John: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). Jesus: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Now something was going to happen—not literal keys, not a physical key from a blacksmith, but a spiritual key.
Something happened: a door was opened on the day of Pentecost. When that door was opened, how many people came into the kingdom? Thousands came into the kingdom (Acts 2:41). What did he use to open that door? He used the preaching of God's word. He used the message of the Scriptures. Jesus was not physically present doing the preaching; in that powerful moment, Peter used the keys of the kingdom by preaching the gospel.
In that pivotal moment in the history of the church, the followers of Jesus became global in an instant, because the people gathered in Acts 2 came from all over the world (Acts 2:5–11). You could not have scripted it better. In a moment, “Zion gave birth” to a multitude (Isaiah 66:7–8). The door was opened for multitudes to come in, and they came into the kingdom.
The confidence to say that Jesus came from God, that Jesus is the Messiah, that Jesus is the Christ, that Jesus is the One they had been expecting—the One who died, rose, and ascended to heaven—that was a powerful unveiling. Those were the words Peter confronted the people with, in just a few sentences, through the preaching of the word (Acts 2:22–36).
So he “opened the door.” In a sense, there was no door before that preaching. It was like, “We are still waiting for what God will do; we are still dealing with our sin in this particular way.” But he showed them: this is the door. This is open to you now. “Believe the gospel, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved—you and your household” (compare Acts 16:31).
God bless you. See you later.