Matthew 16:19

19. Keys The Church is as a fortress, or rather temple, built upon these twelve stones; and the temple has keys. The authority over the whole is conferred upon Peter, and through him on all the apostles, by bestowing upon him and them the keys. This is according to an ancient custom of surrendering the government of a city or fortress by yielding the keys. The ancient Oriental key usually bore not much resemblance to the artistic little metallic instrument which we mean by the word, and which Italian painters pictured in Peter’s hands. It was a wooden apparatus, which would heavily lade a man’s arm. Hence the language in Isaiah 22:22, which is a suitable parallel to these words of our Lord: “The key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open and none shall shut; and he shall shut and none shall open. Bind… loose These words, perhaps, carry out the image of the keys. Doors and gates were in ancient times often fastened by tying instead of locking. Our Lord therefore here confers upon the twelve an inspired and miraculous authority and power to found and to govern his Church after his resurrection, by decisions which should be ratified in heaven. Yet the rabbins used the words binding and loosing, to signify affirming or denying a point of the law.

There is no proof whatever that this miraculous power of these twelve apostles ever descended to any successors. As ministers and preachers they have many successors; as apostles, none. Such was the inauguration of his apostolic college by our Saviour preparatory to his departure from the world. Having found them rocks in faith, he makes them foundation rocks of his kingdom. He is now prepared to open a new chapter of his own history. He is not to be a conquering Messiah, as even yet they may be imagining, but a suffering Messiah! He has given them a kingdom, but he is now himself to die.