KOS: The key is the authority to bind and losen.
One thing I do admire about the EO posters here is your willingness to state what you believe, even when you are wrong. Clearly your understanding of what the Key to the Kingdom is why your church preaches a works based salvation rather than The Gospel.
Only God determines who is and is not saved, not clerics. Believing The Gospel is the Key.
Well, same here vis-a-vis various Protestant/Baptist groups.
Clearly your understanding of what the Key to the Kingdom is why your church preaches a works based salvation rather than The Gospel. Only God determines who is and is not saved, not clerics. Believing The Gospel is the Key.
How biblical is that? Not very. The Gospel (Matthew 5) tells us what we have to do or how we have to be to inherit the kingdom, and to see God. Try reading the Beatitudes. No faith required there. And as far as what the keys being the authority given to the Apostles, the NT couldn't be clearer:
"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." [Mat 16:19]
Nothing ambiguous about it. The Lord gives the same authority to the rest in Mat 18:18, and the Lord gives the apostles the authority to forgive sins:
"If you [apostles] forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." [John 20:23 ]
I don't know. Maybe we don't read the same Bible.