What Does Bind And Loose Mean When Used In The Bible?

Have you read about binding and loosing in the Bible? What does this mean exactly?

Can Christians Bind or Loose Satan?

I’ve heard untold numbers of Christians claim that they can bind or loose Satan by their prayers or words and that they have the God-given authority to do so but what does the Bible say about this? Are there biblical precedents where the believer can bind Satan? I could not find one Bible verse where Christians were commanded to bind or loose Satan or where there was one example of this in Scripture and when someone tried, they were met with disastrous results, so they idea that we can bind or loose Satan is an extra-biblical idea which means it’s of human origin and thus, completely unreliable. There was one case where some itinerate Jews tried to cast out only one demon and what happened? “One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you? And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded” (Acts 19:15-16) so my thought is, don’t go there. We are not more powerful than demons who are fallen angels and the fact is that demons and Satan are subject only to Christ but nowhere could I find that they are subject to humans. Jesus, in casting out a legion of demons (around 6,000 of them!), “gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea” (Mark 5:13). I never read of anyone else having authority over demons or making them be in subjection to them. This is surely like someone playing with fire, soaked in gasoline.

Satan is Bound

I did read of one example where Satan (also called the Devil) was bound but it is by no means done by a human. Revelation 20:1-3a says “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain.  And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer.” Notice that it was an angel and this angel came down from heaven, meaning it had the authority of God to bind Satan.

The Authority to Bind and Loose

When Jesus told Peter that He would give him the keys of the kingdom, He said “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt 16:19). This specifically referred to the Christ-given authority of the church, of which Jesus is the Head. Jesus was placed as the Head of the Church (Eph 1:22; 5:23) which is mentioned in many verses and in Colossians 1:18 it specifically says that He “is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.”  The “body” is the church and Jesus is the Head or Leader and Director of the church.

The Church’s Authority

During what was called the Jerusalem Council there was a dispute where “some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved’” (Acts 15:1) and “Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question” (Acts 15:2). “When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them.  But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses” (Acts 15:4-5) so “The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter” (Acts 15:6). The conclusion was that “we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood” (Acts 5:19-20). That was a binding decision for the church. It was binding on the Jewish Christians to not be troubled by the requirements of the Mosaic laws and was a loosing of the Gentiles from the Jews who were trying to bind them to the Old Testament laws. The church both bound and loosed at the Jerusalem Council because Jesus gave the church the authority to do so.

Conclusion

Today, there are a lot of believers still trying to live in legalism. You can’t drink, you can’t smoke, and you can’t dance and so on. I told one man who believed it was a sin to even play cards that I know of a section of town where not one person drinks, nobody smokes, and there is no dancing or card playing. It’s called the cemetery. I won’t bind others to what I believe is right for me or loose others from what their conscience decides is okay for them but the church does have that authority; I do not. That’s what binding and loosing means from the biblical perspective.

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book  Blind Chance or Intelligent Design available on Amazon.