As others have noted, the binding and loosing referred to in Matthew 16 almost certainly refers to the inclusion of the Gentiles in the covenant community of God (though as still others have had occasion to note it is even more certain that the proper exercise of the keys is not limited to this). Understanding Isaiah 22 by Matthew 16 (the old being fulfilled in the new), the deposed Sobna corresponds to the Jewish hierarchy, while the power given to Eliakim (signified by vestments and the bestowing of the key of the house of David) corresponds to the establishment of the Christian hierarchy–the office of the papacy in particular.
This expectation that “the power given to Eliakim (signified by vestments and the bestowing of the key of the house of David) corresponds to the establishment of the Christian hierarchy–the office of the papacy in particular” is hogwash, as I’ve shown both from this very passage you quote (“it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken”), and from Peter’s clearly analogous “first” in the 12 Tribes of Israel “Reuben … my firstborn, … the firstfruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power, you are unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence”
You rightly note that “the binding and loosing referred to in Matthew 16 almost certainly refers to the inclusion of the Gentiles in the covenant community of God”, but as you say, “it is even more certain that the proper exercise of the keys is not limited to this”.
Jesus himself notes what “the proper exercise of the keys” in the gospels:
Luke 11:52: Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”
Marshall notes of this verse: “The scribes have taken away the key of knowledge. They thus prevent other people entering in. The key consists of the knowledge of God and leads to knowledge of God”. In language that refers to “the key that leads to knowledge” of God or salvation, this parallels 1QH 4:11, “And they stopped the thirsty from drinking the liquor of knowledge’, in a context that makes it clear that Torah is meant’. …” Thus, “in and by God’s revelation he himself is known”.
In Matthew 23:13 the keys are “implicit” in a parallel verse: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.
Thus, Peter, in “the proper exercise of the keys”, is to enable “the thirsty” to “drink the liquor of knowledge”, of the knowledge of God “Torah”, – because “in and by God’s revelation he himself is known”.
By the very words of Christ we have what is “the proper exercise of the keys” – it is the very thing that Peter has done, in opening the Torah first to the Jews (Acts 2), then to the Gentiles (Acts 10-11).
Following that function, he is “cut off” in the book of Acts. This is “the proper exercise of the keys”, and the completion of it is shown, again, in “Scripture alone”. And it is fitting, because this represents the “completeness” of his mission. As Paul writes in Ephesians 2:
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, [not “the Church is our peace”] who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace [between Jews and Gentiles] and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
This is “church unity” spoken of by Christ. Here, “in himself, one new man in place of the two” (instead of “Jews and Gentiles”, there is “one new man”, the church), ontologically complete, reconciled in one body through the cross.
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