Meaning of BIND AND UNLING

In the use of the rabbis, to doctrinally declare a thing licit or illicit (also: impose or lift the anathema or excommunication).

By means of contradictory concepts (such as, for example, good and evil) the idea of the right to totality is signified, in the language of the Semites.

Among the Hebrews the expression alluded to the authority that rabbis and interpreters of the law had to resolve doctrinal and disciplinary issues based on the law (Mt. 23:13; Luke 11:52).

But Jesus tells his disciples that they have authority, (and with them the entire Church), to loose sinners or to declare in sin those who obey or reject the power of the Holy Spirit (John 20:23).

These words, “binding and loosing,” are spoken for all believers and not just for Peter and the apostles. God looses and liberates, but leaves this great responsibility also to all believers formally gathered as an assembly to deal with matters of discipline (Mt. 18:15-18; cp. 1 Cor. 5).