verse that's often wielded against protestants is matthew 16 18. jesus makes this promise i will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it and sometimes this is because people have adopted a caricature of protestantism as though we believed that the church died and then was resurrected with the reformation the protestant reformation but i've talked about this a great deal in various videos you know it's it's a reformation not a resurrection the church never died all the magisterial reformers affirmed a doctrine called the preservation of the church and so forth but
even if one has a more accurate understanding of what protestantism is namely a reform effort because the church fell into particular errors rather than revival or resuscitation or something like that because the church died still even against that more accurate understanding of protestantism this verse is often wielded against protestants as though the possibility of significant error coming into the church is at odds with jesus's promise here but what does matthew 16 18 actually say this is going to be a brief video where i just want to address one very specific point here there's a lot
in the context of this verse that i've addressed in other videos about peter being the rock and things like that you can see that in my other videos here i just want to point out that there are two assumptions that are often smuggled in and unexamined in the usage of this verse which you know even if they were right they would need to be demonstrated not not simply assumed the first is what does the word church mean and the second is what does it mean for the gates of hell to prevail against or overcome or
overpower the church so let's just address those two points really quickly first the word church so this word is the greek word ecclesia which is used only two times in the gospels here and then in matthew 18 17 when it's used throughout the new testament in the book of acts in the epistles usually it will refer to either one particular local congregation or all of the churches in a particular geographical region or of the christians in a geographical region or all christians the entire sum of christian believers like ephesians 5 for example christ loved the
church and gave himself for her often what is assumed in the usage of matthew 16 18 is not any of those meanings but actually a particular hierarchical leadership within the church it's talking about it's assumed that what is being talked about is bishops basically and not just all bishops but particularly the bishops gathered in an ecumenical council so for example take uh nicea 2 as an example the seventh ecumenical council uh 787 um this is the council that affirms the veneration of icons there were 308 bishops present at nicaea 2 and we come to call
this council ecumenical for various reasons that's a really complicated question at the earlier council of hiera in 754 which took the opposite view which affirmed more of an iconic class view opposition to the usage of icons there were 338 bishops present 30 more though none of the major five patriarchs were present and then after you have nicea 2 you've got lots of councils opposing it and in the west there's a big council convoked by charlemagne that had about 300 bishops present as well the council of frankfurt in 794 and there were leggetts from the roman
bishop at that one so all of these are huge councils i mean you know over 300 people and and frankfurt opposed nicea to as well it took a more moderate view saying it's okay to use icons and religious imagery for education but you shouldn't venerate them you shouldn't bow down to them or kiss them and that kind of thing in the context of religious worship and so you know in other words when we say that nicea 2 was an ecumenical council we don't mean that it was representative of every christian alive at that time or
anywhere near that time there is significant waves of iconoclasm after nicaea 2 in the east it's this power struggle it's bloody it's brutal it's the seesaw back and forth whichever way the emperor leans or the empress leans the church tends to go that way and it's terrible the story of that and then there's opposition in the west to nicaea to for centuries in certain regions and i've talked about this in my video on venerating icons where martin chemnitz points out the medieval historian nicetis coniatus i don't know if i'm pronouncing that i'll put up his
name so you can see it right i didn't know of him until chemnitz pointed out him out to me but anyway he's a medieval historian who talks about how until around 1160 uh the use the adoration of images in churches was illegal in germany so that's an example of where just and then you've got all the opposition from the proto-protestant groups like the lollards and the waldensians and so forth so here's the point when the protestant says venerating icons is wrong and the catholic or orthodox christian says ah but jesus said i will build my
church the gates of hell will not prevail against her what is being assumed by the word church there is nicea ii versus frankfurt or hiarea these bishops were right and those bishops were wrong because we call this council ecumenical and those councils were not ecumenical now that could be right you'd i think that's a highly eccentric definition of the word church i don't think that's what jesus had in mind in matthew 16 18 but if he did that would need to be demonstrated too often that simply assumed that that's what the church means in that
verse but secondly and more to the point and even more decisively we have to probe the meaning of this phrase gates of hell prevailing what does it mean for the gates of hell to prevail against the church often it seems to be assumed that this means that the hierarchical structure within the church or some hierarchical teaching apparatus within the church will not fall into error so you know god wouldn't allow nicea 2 to be wrong for example that god will protect his church from error in that way and then this verse is appealed to for
that but that would again a lot's being assumed there that would at least need to be elaborated from the verse because certainly it doesn't seem to be a straightforward rendering of the gates of hell prevailing against the church so the verb prevailing here can be translated over power or overcome or prevail against it's used in luke 23 23 when the chief priests are demanding that pilate crucified jesus and it says but they were urgent demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified and their voices prevailed okay it seems to be talking about winning or
conquering or overcoming you know so you know imagine a coach telling his wrestler i promise that your opponent will not prevail against you that does not mean that his wrestler won't make any mistakes it means he will ultimately win and that's what seems to be in view in matthew 16 18 with this phrase that ultimately in the fight of the gates of hell versus the church the church will not be defeated or prevailed against that obviously is not the same thing as saying the church won't make any errors or won't fall into erroneous practices idolatrous
practices doctrinal errors etc um let's let's just examine this phrase a little bit gates of hell so in in the phrase gates of hell or gates of hades gates in the ancient world were essential for the military defense of a city and hades is the realm of the dead and this phrase is used all the time throughout the old testament and throughout other literature let me read d.a carson he's an outstanding biblical scholar new testament scholar and and biblical commentator here's how he puts it gates of hell or very similar expressions are found in canonical
literature non-canonical literature and seem to refer to death and dying hence the rsv the powers of death shall not prevail against it because the church is the assembly of people jesus messiah is building it cannot die i'll put up some of the verses that he just references there job 17 16 will it go down to the bars of sha'al later in job have the gates of death been revealed to you in the psalms you who lift me up from the gates of death they uh drew near to the gates of death in isaiah i am
in the middle of my days i must depart i'm consigned to the gates of death it's talking about the realm of the dead you go to the gates of the of the death or the gates of shaohal and then there's these non kind of these uh you know in homer there's these other references with this phrase that's talking about dying that's what it's talking about it's going to the gates of death or the gates of death prevailing against you means you die you go to the realm of the dead now if someone has an alternative
interpretation of what it means for the gates of hell to prevail against you then that would need to be argued that would need to be extrapolated out you can't just assume that that means all gates of hell will not prevail against the church therefore nicea 2 has to be right and charlemagne and those 300 bishops at the council of frankfurt were wrong there's a significant movement from the verse to that verdict that often isn't drawn out so to sum up i would just say that protestants can fully affirm the glorious promise of matthew 16 18.
the gates of hell never have are not currently and never will prevail against the church but for it to be a problem for the protestant interpretation of say medieval church history the verse would need to say more it would need to say i will build my church and doctrinal errors will not enter in to a hierarchical teaching structure within her and become mainstream or stick around for a long time or be widespread and but that's how the verse is often assumed to be taken final point um i told you this was a very limited video
and it's in its purpose just as a point of comparison if it helps induce sympathy and understanding here because a lot of the point of my videos is to help our dialogue not necessarily try to conquer the other side but try to say hey see how another another way of looking at it consider the promises given to the nation of israel which are to my way of thinking pretty comparable in their exalted nature to the promises given to the church think of the seven components of the promises of genesis 12 2-3 i'll put some of
these verses up where at the calling of abraham this promise of great blessing to the nation of israel and you know in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed and then just trace out all the promises from then all the way to the post-exilic literature that god gives to the nation of israel the repeated refrain i will be your god you will be my people that may be the linchpin of it all which is then picked up even in the new testament in revelation 21. so that goes all the way um specific
aspects of god's people the davidic monarchy in second samuel 7 13 god says i will establish the throne of his kingdom forever jeremiah 33 17 david shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of israel think about the temple after king solomon's prayer of dedication in first kings 8 god says i have consecrated this house that you have built by putting my name there forever my eyes and my heart will be there for all time and you go forward in the in the post-exilic literature you have all these incredible promises
of future restoration zechariah 8 23 talks about 10 men from the nations grabbing the the robe of a jew saying let us go with you we have heard that god is with you and so forth now we could stack up many other kind of exalted promises of god's commitment to do his work through the nation of israel in all those ways and many others none of that meant that israel doesn't fall into idolatry in fact over and over and over i mean this is the story of the old testament take a book like judges for
example you see the cyclical pattern over and over fall into idolatry need restoration need salvation in some books of the old testament like the book of kings i've done a lot of work in the book of kings i love that book it's almost all a downward spiral you just have a few moments of reform along the way with josiah hezekiah and others but most of it is downhill into more and more idolatry and division and error and not being faithful to the lord none of that is at odds with the promises god gave to his
people none of that you know the babylonian exile happens it's like an atomic bomb gets dropped in the middle middle of the biblical narrative seems to disrupt everything it's massively confusing the big question of all the post-exilic prophets is is there a story to go forward and the message is yes god is has not permanently divorced his people there's uh there's hope there's restoration you know zechariah 1 3 return to me i will return to you there's covenant renewal you know the story goes forward so um god can fulfill his promises despite the unfaithfulness of
his people and with regard to matthew 16 18 i think it's very reasonable to take this promise as not entailing that the church won't fall into particular doctrinal and uh practical errors that maybe even stick around for some period of time or become fairly widespread or mainstream or are affirmed by some particular teaching apparatus within the church or something like that doesn't mean that every christian affirms them and it doesn't mean the church has died it just means big errors come in big mistakes happen i don't think there's anything at odds with that interpretation of
the verse and what we see in church history and as protestants we can love church history we can just and and and learn from all people i mean not my favorite theologian is anselm i love medieval christianity we just recognize there's also errors there are uh there's there's big errors that come in just as we look at the church today and we see god is building his church he's doing incredible things but there's lots of errors it's messy you know so let me know what you think about that by the way i've got a lot
of people who watch my videos regularly but don't subscribe if you would subscribe to my channel that would mean a lot to me it's a good way to stay in contact and i always appreciate the comments i read all the comments these days i'm so busy i can't always respond but i'll try to respond sporadically whenever i can but i do appreciate the comments and i do read them carefully and i always appreciate the engagement people watching my videos i hope this one is helpful i hope if nothing else it just sparks good conversation and
clearer dialogue and understanding about how a protestant can look at a verse like this differently than i've seen it seems to be assumed that many others are looking at it all right that's that's it thanks thanks so much for watching [Music] you
