by Angus Harley

” “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it” ” (Matt.16:18).

We easily forget as Christians just how evil satan and the powers of darkness are. We can go to sleep on these things, and then when we are assailed by them, we are overwhelmed. Just look how easily Peter was duped and controlled by satan, in Matthew 16:22, and Peter was the mighty apostle! Our Lord was never asleep to them, always vigilant, and ready to fight with them. So he boldly declares, according to Matthew 16:18, that he will build his assembly in the teeth of the ongoing war with Hades and its gates; he, however, will prevail, and his assembly will not only stand but flourish.

The Destructive Duo

Batman and Robin were the Dynamic Duo. Death and Hades are the Destructive Duo. Throughout the NT, Hades teams up with death. Jesus warned his disciples, in v21, that he would die at the hands of wicked men. In the book of Revelation, it uses the phrase “death and Hades” four times (Rev.1:18; 6:8; 20:13, 14). This combo of death and Hades is a NT version of an identical union in the OT of death and Sheol. Sheol was the Hebrew name for the ‘place’ the dead went to: under the ground, a tomb, the deep, etc.. If you look at Acts 2:27, Peter quotes Psalm 16:10, and it states that God will not abandon his Holy One, Jesus, to Hades/Sheol; he will not allow him to undergo decay. By contrast, Peter also refers to David who died, was buried, and whose tomb was still there (Acts 2:29).

The Black Gates

Hades and death are symbolically represented by the concept of gates. You will have seen Lord of the Rings and the Black Gate of Mordor- huge gates that are opened only by giant, chained, mountain trolls. Hades’ gates represent the vast ‘kingdom’ and power of death and of the forces of evil. Just as Mordor and its gates went to war with the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, so Hades and its gates are at war with God, his Christ, and the assembly. Let’s unfold these ideas.

Gates of power

The power of death and Sheol/Hades is represented by the term ‘gates’. In the OT we have “gates of Sheol” (Job 17:16; Isa.38:10) and “gates of death” (Job 38:17; Psa.9:13; 107:18). The gates of a city, or of the temple of God, were the main places to enter and exit, and therefore were guarded (e.g., 2 Kg.7:1-20). Oftentimes in the OT, important people would gather at the gates of the city to make decisions (see Ruth 4:1-11; 2 Sam.15:2-6; Est.2:19-21; etc.). Gates were therefore super-important places, symbolic of leadership, guidance, power, strength, and fortification.

The power of death is that it cuts off people’s lives and drags them down into the ground, into the deep, that is, into Hades/Sheol. In the OT in particular, the Jews measured the blessings of God by the fruitfulness of life in this world- abundant harvests, peace in the land, many children, and, of course, a long life (Deut.27-28). That God would threaten to cut short a man’s life and draw him down into Sheol was considered almost like a curse (see Isa.38:10), and sometimes was (Num.16:30, 33)!

Gates of war

Gates were also the place a king or great leader would gather his troops to go to war (2 Sam.18:24). Given the context of Matthew 16:18, it doesn’t take much imagination to see that the gates of Hades are not just about death ending life. The gates of Hades are an evil and sinister force, contextually, that oppose the apostolic Gospel, the apostles, the kingdom of heaven, the assembly, and Jesus Christ himself. If we recall those verses in Revelation, we see that both death and Hades were at war with God, the Word of God, and his people (Rev.1:18; 6:8; 20:13, 14). Nor does the apostle John, who wrote Revelation, think of death and Hades as independent operatives. They were part of a whole host of evil gang members who hated God and his Christ (see Rev.20).

Hades’ guards

With a bit more imagination, we can see that Hades’ gates had its own guards, or soldiers, just as Mordor’s Black Gates had its guards.

Murderous Jewish leaders

In Matthew 16:21, Jesus points to the wickedness of the elders, chief priests, and scribes who will persecute him and will kill him. Death will strike, Hades lash out!

There were other foes. In vv1-4, Jesus gets into it with the evil and adulterous generation of Jews headed up by the Pharisees and Sadducees, who opposed his status and mission as the Christ. They demanded of him a sign. He sarcastically responds that they will receive no sign, but only that of Jonah. Meaning what? Jesus is comparing his own death and resurrection to Jonah’s time in Sheol, that is, in the thick darkness of the belly of the great fish, within the great depths of the sea and of creation (Jon.2:1-8). Then we read that the great fish “vomited Jonah up” (Jon.2:10)! Just as Sheol, death, and the depths could not hold Jonah, so death and Hades could not hold Jesus! The implication of this scolding by Jesus is one that he draws out in Matthew 16:21, where he refers to the religious powers who will kill him, yet he will be raised on the third day.

Their leaven

In Matthew 16:5-12, Jesus prolongs his view of the Pharisees and Sadducees, warning his disciples to avoid their leaven. Jesus’ disciples have no clue what he’s talking about, thinking of it as to do with bread and food. They are thinking on a very fleshly level, as “flesh and blood” (see Matt.16:17), a mind that does not properly think of the Messiah. So, Jesus has to ‘hold their hand’ and in kindergarten fashion tell the disciples that he was talking about the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees (v12). For it was the Pharisees’ and Sadducees’ teaching that was diametrically opposed to the Christ and his teaching. And what was the core of Jesus’ teaching? It was that he was the Christ, the King of the kingdom of heaven. He would from that point go on to focus upon his death and resurrection- his victory over the gates of Hades (Matt.16:21-24)!

Serpents of hell

By their false teaching, and in their antagonism to the Christ, the Pharisees and scribes were the willing guards of the gates of Hades. So, in Matthew 23, Jesus goes scorched earth:

” “13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.”….15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell [Gk., ge-ena].”….27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell [Gk., ge-ena]?””

The Pharisees and scribes thought they were defending the temple and God’s righteousness, but they were actually keeping the Jews from entering God’s kingdom. They were fake teachers with a fake righteousness, and were not teacher-guardians of the temple, nor of the kingdom of God, but were ministers of death, sons of hell, and the seed of satan. Ironically, the death that they peddled in would soon enough consume them in the form of eternal death (ge-ena).

The lord of Hades

Continuing the same imaginative reading of the context, it is not too far out of our reach to think of Hades as having its own ‘lord’. For, it is not a mere coincidence that Hades and its gates are spoken of as at war with Jesus’ assembly, and at the same time the Pharisees and Sadducees are in opposition to Christ, and, in context, the biggest threat to Christ is satan’s temptation through Peter.

Satan

Any great city had a king, or a lord. The temple of Israel had its King and Lord, Yahweh. David was the king of Jerusalem and Israel. Even the kingdom of Mordor had its lord- Sauron. Satan is the Sauron of Hades and death, the lord of their gates.[1] Peter fell foul to satan’s deception and lies when he took the Lord Jesus aside and began to rebuke him for saying he was going to be persecuted, die on the cross, and be raised on the third day. The lies and false teaching of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes, were the lies of satan himself. That is why in Matthew 23:33 Jesus calls them serpents and a brood of vipers, for ancient satan came in the form of a serpent (Gen.3:1-15; see Matt.3:7; 12:34; Rev.12:9; 20:2). Satan always aimed at bringing death to God’s people, and so he lied in the Garden of Eden. He had created many disciples of death, sons of Sheol and Hades, who had followed his fake, deceptive, teaching.

Satan’s minions

Matthew 16 is sandwiched between Matthew 15 and 17, both of which give to us stories about demonic presence, possession, and power (15:12-28; 17:14-23).

Spoiler alert: Jesus is the new lord

Why is it, then, that in Revelation 1:18, Jesus says he has the keys of death and Hades? We must remember that the Gospels are transition narratives and are mainly BC- Before the Cross- accounts. It was by his death and resurrection that Jesus whooped the butts of Hades and death, and broke the power of its lord, satan. Revelation 1:18 implies this new status as an AD (After his Death) fact.

Does this mean Jesus is a lord of darkness?

That question had to be asked. Of course, Jesus is not a dark lord! He does, however, control the darkness and is its ruler and lord. As the Lord of life and light, he can do with the evil and darkness of death and Hades as he sees fit as the Holy One and the builder of his assembly. More to the point, he does not authorize death and Hades to swallow up his own, his assembly. Also, we know that as the Judge of all, he will use his authority to cast death and Hades into the eternal lake of fire, the second death (Rev.20:14).

Heaven vs Hades

It is important that we keep in mind that Matthew is not John. Here in Matthew, the focus is not upon Jesus taking control of death and Hades, for the main point is that Jesus has the authority of the kingdom of heaven to build his assembly, and he delegates that authority to the apostles. Heaven and Hades are at war. Therefore, even though in Revelation 1:18 Jesus is said to hold the keys of death and Hades, because he whooped them by his death and resurrection, here in Matthew 16:19 a different set of keys is spoken of: the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus was the Lord of those keys, too, for he was the Anointed King sent from heaven by his Father to build the assembly. He delegated those kingdom keys to the apostle Peter and the apostolic band.

Heaven vs Hades

Jesus had the keys of the kingdom of heaven and passed them on, delegated them, to his apostle, Peter. Jesus did not ‘earn’ these kingdom-keys upon his death and resurrection. They were given to him by the Father in execution of the divine plan of redemption in all its stages. From the first moments, Jesus’ ministry represented the victorious power of heaven’s kingdom. Nobody is clearer on this than Matthew, who alone out of the four Gospels uses the phrase “kingdom of heaven”, and he does so no less than thirty-one times! We see Jesus’ kingdom power (keys) in action throughout Matthew. He employed kingdom authority through his ministry to teach (Matt.7:29), to forgive sins and to heal (Matt.9:6, 8), and to overpower unclean spirits (see Matt.10:1). The disciples would eventually be sent by Jesus in his total kingdom authority into all the world to preach the Gospel (Matt.28:16-20). Here is the glorious truth: Heaven had Hades’ number!

Heaven vs flesh and blood

Life on earth, “flesh and blood”, did not, for it could not, reveal to Peter that Jesus was the Christ. For man on earth was mere “flesh and blood”, a figurative phrase for man in his fallen state who has no access to the revelation of God about the Christ. And less we question this contrast, let us recall that only a few moments later, Peter as flesh and blood blunders into rebuking Jesus and telling him to avoid the cross. In other words, flesh and blood not only are finite and frail, they also are poisoned and easily manipulated by dark forces, by the emanating power of the ‘Black Gates of Mordor’ and its dark lord. Unfortunately for poor Peter, later in Matthew, he once again falls foul to satan’s deception and the dark forces of Hades by denying the Christ (Matt.26:57-75). Thus, it was only the Father in heaven who could reveal from heaven the truth about the Christ (Matt.16:17; 11:25-27); flesh and blood, as controlled by the sinister forces of the gates of Hades, could not produce any true revelation of the Christ.

Hades: the place of the dead

In Luke 16:23, the rich man lifted up his eyes in Hades. This is the afterlife, or place that the wicked dead go to, those who rejected Jesus, his kingdom, and his people, those who would not listen to Moses or the Prophets about the Christ. Jesus may or may not have this feature of Hades in mind in Matthew 16:18. After all, he is contrasting heaven to Hades; heaven is a real place.  Even if he doesn’t focus on it, the pernicious power of the gates of Hades considered in its widest form does necessitate wicked and unbelieving man waking up in Hades the place of torment.

The guardians of the kingdom

In the Lord of the Rings, there is this incredible cinematic scene that shows the Band of the Ring sailing toward Gondor’s northern border when two giant stone figures confront them, each with his arm outstretched and palm facing outward as a warning to all not to test the power of the kingdom of Gondor. Both figures bear a crown and hold an axe. They are royal figures who have the power to fight for Gondor. They are the Guardians of Gondor, the mighty Argonath!

Heaven’s Argonath

Jesus delegated his kingdom authority to his apostles, not just to Peter. It is true that in Matthew 16:18, Jesus is addressing Peter as the foundation of the assembly, and directly giving to him the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Yet, this is done in his capacity as the de facto leader of the apostolic band. It is no coincidence in v21 that after Jesus speaks to his disciples, it was Peter who took him aside to rebuke him. He was the spokesman, after all. It was Peter that satan, there and then, temporarily controlled, but also later desired to sift (Lk.22:31). It was Peter and James and John who accompanied Jesus up onto the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt.17:1). It was Peter who specifically was targeted by satan at the time of the persecution and death of Jesus, so that Peter disowned Jesus (Matt.26:31-35, 69-75). It was Simon Peter who drew his sword to cut off the ear of the slave of the high priest (John 18:10; Matt.26:51). On a more positive note, it was Peter, out of the disciples, who was the confessor of the Christ, who recognized him for who he was (Matt.16:13-17). Therefore, when Jesus said the he is going to build upon “this rock”, he was referring to Peter directly as a true confessor of the Christ (see ahead), yet implying the apostolic band that he represented and that was ever present. Peter and the apostles were the foundational rock upon which the Christ built his assembly (Eph.2:20; cf., 1 Cor.3:10-11).

Matthew 18:15-20

Thus, in Matthew 18:15-20, Peter is not the focus but the apostles are, even the wider assembly. To them is granted the power to bind and loose in heaven and on earth:

“15 “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. 16 But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. 19 “Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. 20 For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” ”

Transitional

We must not forget that in the book of Acts, although Peter is a primary apostle, he plays second fiddle in Jerusalem to James (Acts 15:13-21; Gal.1:19; 2:9-14). He is also outmatched theologically by Paul. These things once again demonstrate the transitional nature of the kingdom of heaven, the Gospels themselves, and of the apostles. 

Guardians, not guards

Guards guard things- gates, doors, rooms, people, objects, and places. Guardians hold power. and authority The disciples held the keys of the kingdom of heaven (see ahead). They were no mere guards. They were power-players like the two great Gondor kings. In military terms, they were not privates but were generals.  Jesus was going to die and then go to his Father in heaven. Their power was given to them to protect the kingdom of heaven and the assembly, and to advance the war against the gates of Hades. The apostles and their power served no other purpose.

Kingdom power: the keys

The Argonath had swords; Jesus and his disciples had keys.

Keys of the kingdom

The apostle Peter was given the “keys of the kingdom of heaven” (v19). Keys were commonly for doors and houses. Keys came to symbolize power because they opened up, and they closed, doors. Eliakim received “the key of the house of Daivd. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open” (Isaiah 22:22). He was the guardian over the house of David and its metaphorical doors. Similarly, the apostle Peter, as God’s apostolic representative, had the kingdom’s keys, so that “ “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” ” (Matt.16:19).

Binding and loosing

There are different views to the binding and loosing theme in v19. It is more probable that it is referring to the power of the kingdom of heaven to bind the gates of Hades and its powers. In Matthew 12:29, for example, we read, “ “Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.”” The word “bind” is the Greek term deo, the same word used here in v19. It follows, then, that to “loose” means to set free from the powers of Hades and to bring into the safety of the kingdom of heaven. It was the mark of the Christ and his kingdom that he broke the chains of sin and death, of satan and his many anti-Christs, and that he freed sinners to follow Jesus by believing in him as the Christ crucified and resurrected.

A weapon of the offense

The keys are primarily an offensive, on-the-attack, weapon. The Gospels are the record of the Christ of heaven, bearing heavenly authority, who comes into the realm of Hades, of flesh and blood, to make war. He’s on the offensive. But every great army on the offense needs to defend itself whilst on the offense, for the enemy is not going to fight by throwing daffodils and chocolates! The enemy, in response, will send out its armies and will seek to pull down God’s kingdom invading the realm of darkness. Hades’ gates will mobilize!

What this means for the assembly

The revelation of the Father to Jesus’ disciples was the foundation upon which the assembly would be built up. The assembly is not built upon mere powers such as miracles or gifts, nor even upon generic teaching about the Christ, nor is it built on apostles considered generally as leaders. Think of Peter; he is put there to show two different paths, two different powers, two different Christs, and two different apostles. There is Peter, the apostle controlled by flesh and blood, by satan, who preached a kingdom and Christ that avoided the cross; and then there is Peter, the apostle of the kingdom of heaven, who boldly confesses Jesus is the Christ. Remember, the keys are delegated by Christ, who himself is the master-builder. He was building a very nuanced and specific building or assembly. It was built upon the heavenly revelation of Jesus as the Christ, yet, not only so, not just as the Christ, but as the Christ crucified and resurrected. That specific Christ-revelation of the cross and resurrection was what the apostles were to represent, teach, and wield as weapons. To that end alone were they given heavenly authority and power. To repeat- for it is so vastly important- the assembly that was built on their delegated authority (the keys) was to follow to the letter their foundational authority in that Christ-given revelation about the cross and resurrection.

The Band of the Keys

So, just as there was a Band of the Ring, there is now a Band of the Keys, for the Father is the fount of kingdom revelation, who reveals these things in and through the Christ, who himself obeys the Father, going to the cross, rising from the dead, to overcome all the dark forces of the evil ‘Black Gates of Mordor’. And just as in the final battle scene the Band of the Ring stood to fight the great and innumerable host of Mordor, so Jesus and the Band of the Keys- the apostles and the assembly- stand to fight against all the forces of evil. And we all know how the movie ended!