Today’s Readings Podcast Description

What kind of power did Christ actually give the Church when he spoke of the keys? In these opening sections of a new chapter, Calvin distinguishes two uses of binding and loosing. In one, the keys belong to the preaching of the gospel itself: forgiveness and condemnation are announced by ministers, but the power remains in the word of God, not in the persons who speak it. In the other, the keys belong to discipline: the Church binds by excluding the unrepentant and looses by receiving the penitent, judging only according to the law of God. This spiritual jurisdiction is not the magistrate’s sword. Civil government may punish the body; the Church seeks a willing confession of repentance, so that the Lord’s Table may not be profaned. The two powers are distinct, yet they ought to help rath ...