Kingdom Keys, What are They?

Have you ever had a question come into your mind you couldn’t get rid of? It hung around for hours, maybe days. A couple of years ago I was sitting in my office in Dallas, Texas, when a nagging question came to my mind. It wouldn’t go away.  Even though for decades I had preached on the importance of the kingdom of God, including the fact Jesus alluded to it in the Gospels over a hundred times, I had never asked myself the question, what are the keys? I have them, the church has them, but no one ever identifies them, at least I didn’t. Hum. What are they? Because I didn’t know, I began to research all references to the word, key, or keys, and the words for binding and loosing.  

Jesus made it clear in Matthew 16:19, that the church has been given the keys to the kingdom of God, including the explanation that we could open and shut, loosen and bind certain things, but he didn’t tell us the purpose of the keys. What are we allowing or forbidding, opening or closing, binding or loosing?  

Do you realize Jesus never gave you the keys of the Church? In fact, He said that it was His church, and He would build it.  For me that was great news.  In the first few years of my ministry, I struggled in my own feeble strength to build the church that Jesus said He would build. Pure futility.  It never occurred to me I was trying to build the wrong thing. My goal was to build the Church, which Jesus said He would build, and for Him to build the kingdom, which He said I was to build. I was attempting to use keys I didn’t possess and neglect the ones I did.

Keys are powerful. Keys are mentioned only 5 times in the Bible, with only one of them, Matthew 16:19, mentioned in the Gospels. The other four references are all in the Book of Revelation, Revelation 1:18; 3:7; 9:1 and 20:1. In three of the four references to keys in the Book of Revelation, only one key is utilized. In Revelation 3:7, Jesus has the key of the Davidic monarchy; In Revelation 9:1, a fallen angel has the key that opens up the shaft of the Abyss; in Revelation 20:1-4, an angelic being binds Satan with chains for a thousand years, then frees him for a short time.  A short time in Revelation is three and a half years.  

The purpose in pointing out that three of the references in Revelation refer to only one key, is to show you the power of just one key.  In Revelation 3:7, with one key Jesus opens up the David monarchy, the throne from which He will reign; In Revelation 9:1, a fallen angel, with just one key, has the power to open the shaft of the abyss and release hordes of destroying demons; the third reference to the power of a single key is found in Revelation 20:1-4, where one angel has the power to arrest and chain the accuser himself for a thousand years, followed by unlocking the chains for a short period of 42 months.

If one key, under the power of God’s representative, can be that powerful, what would it be like to possess multiple keys, such as those given to Jesus in Revelation 1:17-18, and by Jesus to His church in Matthew 16:18-19? 

The power of multiple keys is demonstrated in Revelation 1:17-18, where Jesus arises from the dead in possession of the keys to life and death. In my vivid imagination, I can see Jesus say to the devil, just before he exited Hades on resurrection morning, “Oh, one more thing, devil, hand over the keys to death and Hades, you’re no longer in charge.”  That is what I call power.  To quote Hebrews 2:14, “…that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.” Jesus was able to open the doors to Hades by the keys given to Him by the Father. Matthew 28:18.

This brings me to the point of this article.  What did Jesus mean when He gave the keys of the kingdom to the church?  What are they? In modern vernacular, keys are necessary to open doors, lock doors, drive cars, open bank vaults, etc. In Jesus’s days, when keys weren’t common, the words of Jesus to bind and loose had a more spiritual meaning. Matthew 18:18 and Revelation 20:1-3 shed light on what binding and loosing, or allowing and forbidding means, including how our decisions on earth are affected and reflected in heaven, and vice-versa.  What are the actual keys?

I’m convinced, according to Revelation 20:1-3 and Luke 13:10-17, some of the keys relate to how we are to bind satanic powers on this earth and see people released from their grasp. There is an example of this in Luke 13:10-17 where Jesus looses (Greek: apoluo) a woman from a spirit of infirmity whom Satan had bound (Greek: deo). Another illustration is in Revelation 20:1-3, where an angel first binds Satan for a thousand years, then subsequently looses him.

These are the keys Jesus was exercising, in Luke 13:10-17, when he loosed the woman from the spirit of infirmity, after having had been paralyzed for eighteen years.  He bound the enemy, who had chained the woman with paralysis, and released, or loosed her from bondage.

The same words are used in Revelation 20:1-3, when an angel descends from heaven and binds Satan (deo) for a thousand years, then releases (duo) him for forty-two months. Kingdom keys.

These two examples alone are sufficient to firmly establish the power of kingdom keys in the hands of the believer. Though not as dramatic, Matthew 18:18 illustrates, in a smaller way, because it relates to the discipline meted out in the local church because of a moral infraction, the authority of the believer, or church, to establish God’s will on earth, as it has been decreed in heaven.  

There could be no greater illustration of kingdom keys, and their power to disrupt, paralyze and destroy satanic powers, than is found in Luke 10:17-20.  In this passage Jesus commissions the 70 (or 72) to gospel of the kingdom and to dislodge Satan from heaven and release those who were bound.  Though not specifically using the words, “bind” and “loose,” the end result was the same; demon possessed people were set free and Satan fell like lightning from heaven.  

The powerful truth in these verses, however, was much greater than the deliverance the disciples had just witnessed. While they saw demons fleeing from the possessed, Jesus saw Satan fall from heaven.  Likewise, as believers with earthly vision, it is impossible to fully detect with earthly eyes the damage done to the satanic world when we exercise the kingdom keys of binding and loosing. This was akin to what Daniel experienced in Daniel 9:23. While Daniel was praying for forgiveness for his sins and the sins of his people, the heavenly messenger was watching the demonic Prince of Persia being bound in the heavens by Michael, the archangel. Daniel 10:12. Heaven and earth work together to establish God’s kingdom.  What accomplishes this task are the keys of spiritual authority that have been given to you. 

When preaching this message a few months ago, I described the call I received early Sunday morning, many years ago, from a woman who called to ask if I would come and pray for her husband.  She informed me, “He’s full of the devil.”  I knew exactly who she was talking about.  Her husband, Rick, stood 6 foot 3 or 4, was solid muscle and terrorized our small town on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle.  

When I walked into the front door, he was sitting directly in front of me, shirt off with muscles rippling.  His first words were, “I could kill you.”  Looking at his flexing muscles convinced me he was telling the truth.  “No, you can’t,” was my response.  “The God in me is bigger than the devil in you.  Come out of him, Satan, in the name of Jesus.”  

With my bold declaration, he responded again, “I’m going to kill you.”  I reminded Satan again that he had to vacate. The demons, sensing they were losing their grip on Rick, shot back, “I’m coming in you.”  “No, there is no room,” I replied.  “I’m full of the Holy Spirit and there is no room for you.”  With that brief exchange, not more than a few minutes, I left the home.  

The next day, in the middle of my Sunday evening message, I saw Rick running down the center aisle toward me.  “I want to get saved,” he said as he leaped onto the platform, grabbed me and hugged me with his bone-crushing grip.  As you can visualize, Rick was much stronger than me, but I had the keys.  That is the power of the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Totally bound on one evening and totally delivered on the next.  Rick became a great evangelist in our town.  My keys were stronger than the devil’s because they were backed with the authority of Jesus.  

You have the keys.  Say it out loud, “I have the keys.” Jesus no longer has the keys.  He gave them to you.  My question is, are you using them?  

Jesus has the keys to the Church, but He has given you, His body, the keys to the kingdom. There is nothing more powerful than the name of Jesus to bind hell’s powers and to release its inhabitants. Jesus is counting on you to do on earth what has already been accomplished in heaven.  

Prayer is another major key to the kingdom, found often in the life of Jesus. Though the Gospels find Jesus continually in prayer, the disciples’ prayer life is conspicuously absent from the Synoptics or John.  When queried about why Jesus could cast out demons and they couldn’t, His cryptic reply was, “I pray, and you don’t.”  Mark 9:29. Fortunately, the powerless disciples mended their ways, and the Book of Acts finds them continually seeking God in prayer, armed with the authority of the name of Jesus.  Acts, chapters 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14 and 16, all attest to a strong prayer life among the early church leaders.  With prayer comes the miraculous, and with the miraculous comes deliverance.

Though I could mention many other kingdom keys, these should suffice to allow you to begin exercising kingdom authority over the powers of darkness.  Don’t forget, you have the keys to total victory.  Can I hear an, Amen!