The Ministry of the Keys

Sermon for the Festival of St. Titus

Small Catechism Review: The Ministry of the Keys

Sometimes, we can make Christian theology a little too complicated. It doesn’t have to be. It didn’t start out that way. Yes, there are portions of Scripture that are harder to understand, and fine distinctions that sometimes need to be made, and clear doctrines of Scripture that must be defended against false teachers. But the core of the Christian Gospel is so simple, summarized again by St. Paul in the First Lesson this evening from the book of Acts: Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that’s not the whole message of Scripture, but it is the core message.

That message is also summarized very simply in the Fifth Chief Part of the Small Catechism, entitled “The Ministry of the Keys and Confession.”

Confession is the only part that was actually in Luther’s Small Catechism and in the Book of Concord. We’ll focus on that part next week. But one of the assumptions of the part on Confession is that there is such a thing as a ministry that God Himself has established on earth, a position to which God calls certain men so that they can act on His behalf. St. Titus, whose day we celebrate today, was called into that ministry and appointed directly by the Apostle Paul to appoint others as ministers in Crete.

The words printed on the back of your service folder are not found in Luther’s Catechism, but they confess very simply what the Bible teaches about “repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” and how God has commanded ministers to act in His place, both toward the penitent and believing, and toward the impenitent and unbelieving.

What are the words about the ministry of the keys?

The Lord Jesus breathed on His disciples and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit! If you forgive the sins of any, to them they are forgiven, and if you retain the sins of any, to them they are retained.”

What does this mean?

I believe in what the called ministers of Christ do among us, by His divine command—especially when they exclude public, impenitent sinners from the Christian congregation, and when they absolve those who repent of their sins and are willing to mend their ways—that it is all as valid and certain in heaven also, as if our dear Lord Christ did it Himself.

First, there is ministry established by Christ to which men are called. As St. Paul writes to the Ephesians in chapter 4, Christ Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Scripture uses various titles for those whom Christ has given: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, ministers, bishops (that is, overseers), elders, and deacons. The apostles were called directly by Christ, but the rest are called indirectly: by Christ, through the Church.

As we saw, it was the Apostle Paul, as a clergyman in the Church, who appointed Pastor Titus to his position in the Church in Crete, and it was Titus who was to appoint others there. We heard in the First Lesson how it was the Holy Spirit who had made the ministers of Ephesus overseers, to “shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood,” and yet the Holy Spirit hadn’t done it directly, but through the call that Paul and the churches gave to those men. So we have every confidence that, when a group of Christians issues a call to a man to their pastor, commending the decision to God in prayer, it is God the Holy Spirit who is actually calling that man to carry out the duties God has assigned to ministers.

In St. Paul’s epistle to Pastor Titus (as well as to Pastor Timothy), he lays out the chief qualifications and duties of ministers: A man must be blameless, the husband of one wife, (Yes, being a man is one of the Scriptural qualifications; Paul says, “the husband of one wife” and doesn’t add “or the wife of one husband”), having faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination. For a bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.

So ministers are called to preach, teach, administer the Sacraments, correct, rebuke, encourage, comfort, and shepherd God’s people, “holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught.” They are stewards of the mysteries of God, as Paul says to the Corinthians, and ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf (or, “in the stead of Christ or in the place of Christ”) be reconciled to God.

The authority to do those things is summarized in the phrase, “the ministry of the Keys.” Now, the “keys” aren’t mentioned in John 20, when Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, Receive the Holy Spirit! If you forgive the sins of any, to them they are forgiven, and if you retain the sins of any, to them they are retained. But that command of Jesus is synonymous with what He said to Peter in Matthew 16: I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

So we speak of the “binding key,” that is, whenever a minister declares to any impenitent sinner that he is bound to his sins and will have to pay for them eternally, that he is not forgiven, that he is locked out of God’s kingdom for his sins and for his refusal to repent and believe in Christ. But for those within the Christian Church we usually speak of the binding key as a synonym for excommunication, namely, when the called ministers of Christ exclude public, impenitent sinners from the Christian congregation. It’s when a minister declares to a baptized member of the congregation who has fallen into sin and refuses to repent that he is bound to his sins and will have to pay for them eternally, that he is not forgiven, in spite of his previous Baptism, that he has broken away from Christ, and therefore no longer has Christ to answer for his sins, but will have to answer for them himself.

What’s the purpose of this binding key? It’s a stern preaching of the Law, the hammer of God’s Word with which God seeks to wake a person up before it’s too late, to drive him to righteous fear of falling into the hands of an angry God, to drive him to repentance and to Christ, so that he doesn’t perish eternally.

But then we also speak of the loosing key, that is, when the called ministers of Christ absolve those who repent of their sins and are willing to mend their ways. To “absolve” means to release, in this case, to release a person from his sins, declaring to him that he no longer has to answer for them, because Christ answered for them on the cross, and this person is seeking refuge in Christ, who will never turn any sinner away who comes to Him for mercy. The loosing key is used both for the daily sins all Christians commit without falling away from grace—that’s the absolution I pronounce to you every Sunday at the beginning of the service—and also for those grave mortal sins that have separated a sinner from the Church and from God’s grace, sins that a person once refused to repent of, but that now a person has been brought to recognize and to reject, looking to Christ again for mercy and forgiveness.

When a minister uses either key, in accordance with God’s Word, we are to believe that it is all as valid and certain in heaven also, as if our dear Lord Christ did it Himself. Does he correct you? It’s as valid and certain as if our dear Lord Christ corrected you. Does he warn you? Does he encourage you? Does he baptize you? Does he give you the Lord’s body and blood? Does he comfort you? Does he counsel you? Does he remove you from the Church? Does he absolve you and welcome you into it? It’s all as valid and certain in heaven also, as if our dear Lord Christ did it Himself.

That is what we mean by the Ministry of the Keys, and even as we give thanks to God today for St. Titus, we should all give thanks to God for every faithful minister and for the Office of the Ministry itself, because it’s the way God has given us to be certain of what He does in heaven. We can’t see God acting. We can’t hear God condemning or forgiving or teaching or guiding. But because He has established this ministry on earth and has bound Himself to it, we have a sure and certain connection to Him, and a firm foundation for our faith, until we need no more ministers, until Christ Himself comes, the Good Shepherd Himself, to take over the duties of the pastors whom He has temporarily left in charge of His house, who will gladly hand over the keys at that time to their rightful owner. Amen.