Binding and Loosing After the Cross
What Heaven Already Settled
If you grew up hearing people “binding demons” and “loosing angels,” you were taught a version of Christianity where words function like spiritual levers. Say the right thing with enough confidence and heaven responds.
But that is not what Jesus meant.
“Binding and loosing” is not mystical language. It is covenant language. And when it is read through the finished work of Christ, the fear drains out of it and rest takes its place.
Where this language actually appears
This matters more than most people realize.
The exact phrase “binding and loosing” appears only in one place in the entire New Testament:
Matthew 16:19
Matthew 18:18
No other Gospel records Jesus using this phrase.
No epistle teaches believers how to practice it.
No New Testament writer expands it into a method, formula, or discipline.
That silence is not accidental.
If binding and loosing were meant to become a spiritual technique, the letters written to churches would explain it. Instead, the language disappears entirely after the Cross.
Why Matthew uses it
Matthew is the most Jewish of the Gospels.
He writes with a first-century Jewish audience in mind, constantly engaging Law, authority, and rabbinic categories. When Jesus uses a familiar rabbinic phrase, Matthew’s readers immediately understand the framework.
Gentile readers later lost that context and filled the gap with imagination.
In rabbinic teaching:
To bind meant to forbid or declare something not permitted
To loose meant to permit or release from obligation
This was not spiritual warfare language. It was interpretive authority language. It described who had the right to say what applied to God’s people and what no longer did.
What Jesus was actually saying
In Matthew 16, Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus responds by speaking of keys, authority, binding, and loosing.
The moment matters.
Jesus is not teaching Peter how to control the unseen realm. He is entrusting him with responsibility to announce what changes when the Messiah arrives.
The authority flows from revelation of Christ, not verbal force.
The grammar that changes everything
Jesus says:
“Whatever you bind on earth will match what has already been settled in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will match what has already been settled in heaven.”
The tense points backward.
Heaven is not responding to earth. Heaven has already acted.
Here is the clarity:
You are not starting something on earth. You are acknowledging what heaven already settled.
Earth does not initiate it. Earth announces it.
By the time it shows up on earth, heaven has already handled it.
That one grammatical detail protects the finished work from becoming a performance.
How the apostles practiced this without the language
After the Cross, the phrase disappears, but the function continues everywhere.
In Acts 15, the church faces a defining question: must Gentiles keep the Law of Moses?
The apostles do not say, “We bind this on earth so heaven will back us.”
They say:
“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…”
They recognize what heaven has already revealed and announce it on earth.
Paul does the same throughout Romans, Galatians, and Colossians:
The Law is fulfilled
Righteousness is a gift
Condemnation is finished
Accusation has been disarmed
This is binding and loosing without the vocabulary.
What never appears after the Cross
What is missing is just as important as what is present.
You never see:
Instructions to bind Satan
Commands to loose angels
Warnings about binding incorrectly
Prayers modeled using this language
If binding and loosing were meant to be an ongoing spiritual practice, the epistles would not be silent.
Instead, the New Testament assumes the work is done and focuses on clarity, identity, and rest.
What binding and loosing looks like today
In the New Covenant, binding and loosing is not spiritual tug-of-war.
It looks like:
Declaring forgiveness because it is complete
Declaring righteousness because it has been given
Declaring freedom because the Cross settled it
Declaring rest because the work is finished
We are not enforcing heaven’s victory.
We are announcing it.
A simple picture
Think of a town crier reading a royal decree.
The decree does not become law when the crier speaks.
It was law before the announcement.
The announcement simply makes it known.
That is binding and loosing.
Conclusion
Jesus did not give the church authority to manipulate heaven.
He gave the church responsibility to announce what heaven has already settled in Christ.
The phrase appears briefly, does its work, and then fades - because once the Cross happens, the reality no longer needs explanation.
