WHERE TWO OR THREE ARE GATHERED TOGETHER (PART IV)

“What Does ‘Binding and Loosing’ Mean?”

By Akin Ojumu

“Where two or three are gathered together in my Name, I’m in the midst of them,” is a common refrain in Christianity. It’s a statement made by the Lord Jesus to His disciples while He was instructing them on how to restore a fellow brother who has fallen into iniquity.

Immediately preceding this instruction, though, the Lord had been teaching the disciples about child-like humility. He had warned them of the woe that would befall anyone who leads others into sin. Also, the Lord Jesus had counseled them on the importance of a believer not to treat other believers with scorn. Furthermore, He had used the parable of the lost sheep to let them know that God does not desire that anyone should perish.

Because God does not wish for any of His own to perish, He established a blueprint for the restoration of a believer who has transgressed. This 4-step process starts with a private one-on-one attempt by a believer to confront the Christian who has sinned with the goal of leading them to repentance and restoration. This man-to-man approach is similar to what obtains in the secular world where two parties agree to settle their differences out of court without the involvement of the judicial system.

Matthew 18:15

“If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.”

If the offending believer admits their sin, confesses and repents, the sins are forgiven and they are completely restored. Should they, however, remain impenitent, the second step kicks in. At this stage, the believer who had come to the knowledge of the sin of the fellow brother goes back to the latter with two or three witnesses. 

Matthew 18:16

“But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.”

The purpose of the two or three witnesses is a throwback to the rule established by God in the Old Testament to ensure that the people of Israel are afforded due process before getting punished for an offense they might or might not have committed. 

One aspect of worshipping the Lord is understanding that His laws are given to safeguard His people, not as punishments. God established rules of justice to prevent unfair, arbitrary, erroneous, or dishonest treatment of an individual. These judicial requirements are known as procedural due process and substantive due process. (Source: Got Questions).

The third step in the protocol for the restoration of a believer who has sinned is triggered only if the transgressing believer remains unrepentant even after the testimonies of two or three witnesses. At this stage, the matter is brought before the whole assembly of the Church where, in a gentle and loving manner, the Church attempts to talk some sense into the sinning believer and make them see the folly of their recalcitrance.

Matthew 18:17

“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.”

If after all attempts at getting the believer to repent fails, the Church is instructed to regard the individual as a “Gentile and a Tax Collector.” A believer who rebuffs all attempts and endeavors to get them to repent of their sin must be viewed as an unbeliever and an infidel who has never known Christ. Such a person is a deadly disease in the Body of Christ and must be excommunicated before the disease spreads and infects the whole Body.

Now, it’s important to understand that excommunication must not occur on a whim. To banish a believer from the assembly of fellow believers is a grave decision that’s only made as a final resort after all efforts at reconciling the transgressing believer back to Christ fail. Because of its magnitude, excommunication must only occur after the offending believer has been afforded all the right to a fair trial, i.e., a chance to prove their innocence before the whole Church.

When the Church has exhausted all avenues and has meticulously gone through all the above protocols to get a wayward believer to repent of their sin and reconcile them back to God and the believer still remains obstinately unrepentant, the Church is given no choice but to excommunicate the individual. 

Once the verdict to excommunicate is reached, the Bible says that the Church has the full weight of God behind it. The decision to excommunicate an unrepentant believer who has been afforded all opportunities to repent but fails to do so is sanctioned by God. 

The reason we know that the Church’s decision to excommunicate an impenitent believer has divine ratification is based on the two assurances given to us by the Lord Jesus Himself. These assurances are the two legal legs on which the weighty decision to expel an unrepentant believer stands.

Matthew 18:18-20

“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

For the first assurance, the Lord Jesus said: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  

As long as the Church has done its due diligence by following the steps outlined above in gathering all the facts and evidence and has offered the offending believer the opportunities to prove their innocence, the last resort decision to excommunicate the individual has Heaven’s stamp of approval.

Matthew 18:18

“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Sadly, the above passage is another one of those popular Bible texts that have been the subject of widespread abuse and misuse. Many preachers erroneously interpret this text to teach that Christians have the power to bind Satan and Christians often quote the verse in their prayers to loosen someone from demonic bondage. Modern-day demon slayers wave Matthew 18:18 as the Scriptural basis for their deliverance ministries. 

What many church folks fail to understand is that when they use the “whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven” clause as a divine license to cast out demons, they are ignorantly ripping the text out of its proper context. Such an interpretation is not what the Lord Jesus meant or suggested in the verse. Using Matthew 18:18 to bind Satan or loose demons is not just a twisting and distortion of the text, but it’s also patently idiotic.

All these years that demon slayers and others have been doing their binding and loosing, how come the demons have not remained bound or loosed? Considering the fact that this exercise in futility is going on in Churches all around the world all at once, why are the demons so elusive as though they are some sort of spiritual Houdinis? The fact that these folks keep on binding and loosing shows how preposterous the whole demon slaying cottage industry really is. It’s an embarrassing performative nonsense.

Among the Jews in antiquity, “binding” and “loosing” were idiomatic terms to denote certain types of conduct that were either prohibited (“bound”) or permitted (“loosed”), i.e., forbidden or authorized. Earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, the Lord Jesus used the “bind and loose” phrase to let Peter know that he has been given the “keys of the kingdom of heaven” and all that the keys entail.

Matthew 16:19

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

What the Lord Jesus was saying to Peter (and by extension all other believers) in the above passage is that he, Peter, has been given authority to declare what is bound (forbidden) or loosed (permitted) in heaven by virtue of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven which have been given to believers in Christ.

Historically, the keys of the kingdom of Heaven mentioned in Matthew 16:19 refer to the Good News, i.e., the Gospel message. It’s through the preaching of the Gospel that sinners are saved and set free from the bondage of sin. Those who believe and accept the Gospel will have their sins forgiven and will be admitted into God’s kingdom. Conversely, those who reject the Gospel message will have their sins remain unforgiven and, consequently, are shut out of God’s kingdom and damned to hell. This is what binding and loosing means. It is the proclamation of the Gospel, and the consequence of either accepting or rejecting it.

This is an echo of the promise of John 20:23, where Christ gives the disciples authority to forgive or retain the sins of people.

John 20:23

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

Christ’s actions mean that any duly constituted body of believers, acting in accord with God’s Word, has the authority to declare if someone is forgiven or not. The church’s authority is not to determine these things but to declare the judgment of heaven based on the principles of the Word. When churches make such judgments on the basis of God’s Word, they can be sure heaven is in accord. In other words, whatever they “bind” or “loose” on earth is already “bound” or “loosed” in heaven. When the church says the unrepentant person is bound in sin, the church is saying what God says about that person. When the church acknowledges that a repentant person has been loosed from that sin, God agrees (Source: The MacArthur Bible Commentary).

When we read the rendering of the “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” statement in other Bible translations, it becomes clear that the Lord Jesus wasn’t talking about binding Satan or loosing demons.

Matthew 18:18 (NASB 1995)

“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.”

Matthew 18:18 (Amplified)

“I assure you and most solemnly say to you, whatever you bind [forbid, declare to be improper and unlawful] on earth shall have [already] been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose [permit, declare lawful] on earth shall have [already] been loosed in heaven.”

Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. The person whose sin has been forgiven in Heaven is forgiven on earth. And the person whose sin is not forgiven in Heaven is not forgiven on earth. This is simply an earthly restatement of a Heavenly reality.

We’ll take it from here next time.