Please explain Matthew 16:15-19. Why did Christ give the Keys to Peter? Why not to another, or to all?
Answer:
Peter was the only one who gave the right answer to the question, “But whom say ye that I am?” Therefore to Peter and to none other, Jesus said, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” having first assured him that “flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto” him but His Father which is in heaven.
When God makes man to understand something which is beyond finite knowledge, the Bible terms the act, Inspiration. Hence, Jesus pronounced Peter inspired. This Inspiration and Jesus’ testimony, therefore, were the Keys to the central theme of man’s salvation–knowledge of the Son of God. This is the truth, the gospel, that had to be proclaimed. It was the Present Truth–an inspired message direct from God. Thus possessed of a revelation by which every man was to be judged either for salvation or for condemnation, Peter and his associates became responsible either to lock or to unlock salvation to every living soul under heaven.
Consequently, when Christ gave the Keys to Peter, He gave him the gospel and a divine commission to preach it. And so long as Peter and his co-workers were true to this charge, just so long did they possess the Keys to lock or to unlock to men the kingdom of God, and to have sanctioned in heaven whatever they bound or loosed on earth. Accordingly, with Inspiration and progressive revelation, Present Truth, go the Keys.
Obviously, therefore, a message from heaven, proclaimed by God’s chosen servants, is all-powerful, and by it man’s eternal destiny is decided.
Plainly, then, the Keys are not the church herself, but are in the message which she proclaims. So no man or set of men has power to loose or bind with Heaven’s approval save at the instance of a message vouchsafed directly from Heaven for them to bear for the time then present: “Different periods in the history of the church have each been marked by the development of some special truth, adapted to the necessities of God’s people at that time.”–The Great Controversy, p. 609. It has been so from time immemorial.
Noah, too, had the Keys, and was thus able to loose or bind both in heaven and on earth. The fact that even “the gates of hell” could not prevail against the ark, bears witness to this.
And God’s promise to Abraham, “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:3), shows that he, too, had the Keys of heaven.
Also, in the Providentially controlled hand of Moses, the Keys swung open the gates of the kingdom to the freedom and salvation of the righteous, and closed them in doom upon the wicked. Thus “Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own mind. If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the Lord hath not sent me. But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all the appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord. And it came to pass as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them: and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.” Num. 16:28-32.
Through Moses God committed the Keys to the Hebrew host, and withdrew them in Christ’s day when the Jews rejected Him. Then He transferred the Keys to the founders of the Christian church.
But notwithstanding the example of the past the adherents of the apostles eventually also repeated the mistakes of Moses’ followers. Yet throughout the Dark Ages, and especially during the Reformation period, God continued to entrust messenger after messenger, and Movement after Movement, with the Divine legacy. But again and again down through the Reformation to the call of William Miller, each successive group repeated the folly of becoming satisfied with a static message, until finally when all the Protestant churches of Miller’s day rejected the message for that time, they, too, unwittingly refused to be any longer the custodians of the sacred Keys.
Thus Miller and his associates possessed them until the time of God’s next message, the judgment of the dead, when the sacred Keys passed from the Millerite Movement to the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. But if it now rejects God’s pleadings to anoint its eyes with the eyesalve which He is offering to it, it too, will let the Keys slip from its grasp and pass into the hands of those who are to proclaim the additional message, the judgment of the living, the message of the Loud Cry. (See Early Writings, pp. 277-279). And, tragedy of tragedies! this very thing the Laodiceans are in their blindness doing, thereby repeating the history of God’s people through the ages.” (Answer Book, vol. 4, p.37-41)
Let us give undivided attention to the scriptures which record the things that are to take place just before the thousand years begin — the things which will bring about the millennial age of peace, as revealed to John:
“…I saw…a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True…. He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His name is called The Word of God…. And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written,
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KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.” Rev. 19:11, 13, 16.
Here Christ reveals Himself, not as a priest or as a lamb, but as the King of kings, treading “the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” Rev. 19:15. This is His
Slaying of the Wicked.
The “angel standing in the sun…cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse, and against His army.
“And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant [the “kings” and “captains” and “mighty men” and “horses” and “them that sit on them” and “all men, both free and bond, both small and great”] were slain with the sword of Him that sat upon the
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horse, which sword proceeded out of His mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh” (Rev. 19:17-21) — a final work from which it is readily seen that the wicked are
Slain Just Before the Millennium.
Since after the millennium, the wicked are not slain and their flesh is not eaten by the fowls, but rather destroyed with fire (Rev. 20:9), Revelation 19:17-21 is seen to refer to a pre-millennial destruction.
Decisively, therefore, the King of kings is to slay, just before the millennium, all except the righteous — except those who get “the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name.” Rev. 15:2. Then shall the righteous dead be raised, whereas the wicked dead remain in their graves and, along with the wicked living, all of whom are then slain by the Lord, live “not again until the thousand years” are “finished.” Rev. 20:5.
Since, moreover, at the commencement of the millennium, when the wicked are slain, the heaven and the earth pass away, then, as a result,
The Saints Remove to Another Sphere.
As The Revelation says that “they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (Rev. 20:4), Christ does not therefore,
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live with them on the earth, but rather they live with Him in “the place” which He prepared for them, and of which John says (after seeing “the first heaven and the first earth were passed away” and replaced with “new heaven and a new earth” — Rev. 21:1): “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Rev. 21:2.
The wicked being then hid in their graves, and the righteous being gone to live with Christ, hence
Satan Is Left Alone.
Wandering in the earth until the resurrection of the wicked (Rev. 20:13), Satan is confined to a thousand years of solitaire! Bound by this chain of circumstances, he is unable to “deceive the nations” (Rev. 20:3), till the dead who “lived not again until the thousand years were finished,” arise to life, following the
Judgment During the Millennium.
If an earthly judge does not convict and condemn a criminal without benefit of trial by jury, certainly, then, the all-just God of Heaven will not. He will not pass final sentence upon the wicked, convicting them of sin and condemning them to die “the second” death (Rev. 20:14), until after He has given the saints (the jury) opportunity to witness for themselves the judgment of the wicked — the husbands, wives, children, relatives,
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friends, and acquaintances then missing from the mansions above — and to examine their records which show why they are not there, but instead are moldering in their graves below.
That no excuse be left to anyone for ignorance or error on this truth, John was shown not only the great white throne on which sits the Judge Eternal, “from Whose face the earth and the heaven fled away” (Rev. 20:11), but also other thrones, or seats, on which evidently sit the jury. And instead of only “ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands” (Rev. 5:11) of angels as witnesses, he saw present on this occasion also “the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years… This is the first resurrection.” Rev. 20:4, 5.
The fact, though, that “the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished” (Rev. 20:5), shows that those present before the throne were resurrected.
But the dead, “small and great,” who do not rise in the first resurrection (Rev. 20:6), John saw figuratively “stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the
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Book of Life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” Rev. 20:12. With the close of this work, come the events
After the Judgment.
When the judgment was over and the thousand years gone, “the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. ” Rev . 20: 13.
“And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Rev. 21:2-4.
Having descended with the saints, who are to reign forever with Him on the earth made new Christ calls forth the wicked dead from their graves, while simultaneously, “a great voice out of heaven” is heard, “saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He
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will dwell with them” (Rev. 21:3), whereas during the thousand years, they have “lived” with Him (Rev. 20:4). Whereupon,
Satan Is Loosed For a Little Season.
By the resurrection of the wicked dead, “…Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.” Rev. 20:7, 8.
Concerning this “little season” in which Satan will be allowed to deceive the nations, the prophet Isaiah heard the Lord say:
“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.” Isa. 65:17-20.
The reader will observe that when the Lord creates the new heavens and the new
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earth, then from the time that the wicked arise from their graves to the time that they are destroyed forever by the second death, — the “little season,” — “there shall be no more thence [among them] and infant of days [no more births], nor an old man that hath not filled his days [no more deaths before man’s days are fulfilled]: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.” Both the old and the young (that is, those who remain in their graves during the millennium) will afterward come forth together, each to live “an hundred years” — “the little season” in which Satan will again deceive them. There will be neither death nor birth, but all the wicked will then be forever accursed by
The Second Death.
That portion of the new earth which the feet of the wicked have trodden and defiled during the “short season,” will be purified by the fire’s coming “down from God out of heaven” and burning them and their works, while those who will inhabit the new earth for eternity, will be shielded in and about “the holy city.” Rev. 21:2.
“And they went up on the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil
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that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever…. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” Rev. 20:9, 10, 14, 15.
Since not only Satan, but also “whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life, was cast into the lake of fire,” the fire in the lake simply continues the same destruction wrought by the fire which comes “down from God out of heaven.” Rev. 20:9. After the thousand years, in other words, the fire which comes “down from God out of heaven,” results in “the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:10) and in eternal extermination of all sinners. Of this final destruction, a pre-millennial demonstration is to be given when the beast and the false prophet are cast into the “lake of fire” — their grave for the thousand years. And as the fire does not, of course, keep burning during the thousand years, the statement, “the devil…was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are” (Rev. 20:10), shows therefore that there are both a typical and an antitypical destruction; the lake of fire before the millennium, being a type of the one after the millennium.
“Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved,” says the apostle,
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“What Manner of Persons Ought Ye To Be?”
The Scriptures exhort that those in the Truth be “in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless” (2 Pet. 3:11-14), and the more so now while He is SETTING UP HIS KINGDOM. (Tract 9, p. 31-40)
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