Say To This Mountain

"The Gates of Hell"

Introduction

"Now when Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked the disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is?

"And they answered, Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

"He said to them, But who do you say that I am?

"Simon Peter replied, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

"Then Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah. For flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in Heaven." Matthew 16:13-17.

This sets the context. The context and content are very important! Jesus now describes two very important truths that apply to all believers. We are just covering the first one in this article.

"And I tell you, you are Peter [Petros, mascullne, a large piece of rock] and on this rock [petra, feminine, a huge rock like Gibralter] I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not hold out against it." AMP (along with all other passages, unless noted otherwise). Matthew 16:13-18

Note the important distinction between the two rocks. Jesus did not build the church upon Petros (Peter), but upon the major knowledge (gnosis, feminine noun, equivalent to petra in this case) that He was the Christ, the Son of God

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3. The Gates of Hell


The second part of the verse states, “...and the gates of hell (the place of entry to the place where the enemy’s captives are being held) will not prevail against it," (that is, will not withstand the onslaught/attacks from the church). 


Fifteen Bible translations out of 32 commonly sourced translations on biblehub.com seriously distort the meaning of this verse. They are NIV, NLT, NASB, NASB 1977, NASB 1995, LSB, TAB (Amplified), CSB, HCSB, CEV, GWT, GNT, ISV, NET and WNT. They translate the last clause like this, or use similar words to give the same meaning:


“...and the gates of hell will not overcome it.”


What?? Can gates attack and defeat you?  Of course not. 


A gate stands to protect the contents of some place. 


It cannot fight people who approach it, it can only keep them out or let them in. A gate is either open or shut, or if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or are not concentrating on what is happening, you could be struck by a gate as it closes or opens. But that is not the normal function of a gate, that’s not what this figure of speech (a word picture) is intended to convey.


The expression, ’the gates of hell’, is a figure of speech to describe the spiritual mechanism that keeps people captive to the enemy. The spiritual mechanism operates in the physical realm, primarily through sickness, pain, accident, loss, destruction, death, addiction, and in the mental or soul realm through depression, oppression, unbelief and antagonism towards God


The seventeen Bible translations which correctly translate this Greek word, katischusoisin, to mean prevail (or withstand) are: ESV, BSB, BLB, KJV, NKJV, ASV, ABPE, DRB, ERV, LSV, MSB, NAB, NRSV, NHEB, WBT, WEB, and YLT.


‘The gates of hell’ are attacked when Christians do ministry like Jesus. 


That is shown in Luke 9 and 10, when Jesus sent out, first the twelve, then seventy other disciples, to do ministry like He did ministry. In Luke 9:1 he gave His 12 disciples authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. Verse 6 says that “they went about from village to village, preaching the Gospel and restoring the sick to health everywhere.” (AMP) There was no command to pray for the sick.


Of course, this understanding of the verse is only confirmed by what the Angel of the Lord said to Abraham at Moriah after he went there, on God’s orders, to sacrifice Isaac. (Because the Angel of the Lord accepts worship he is regarded as the Old Testament form or representation of Jesus, which makes verses 15-18 in Genesis 22 even more interesting!)


“I have sworn by Myself, says the Lord (YHWH),...that…your Seed (Jesus) shall possess the gate of His enemies.” Genesis 22:16a, 17c. 


That’s a figure of speech again: If you possess the gates of your enemies you control who goes in and who comes out. In fact, ultimately, that gives you total control of an enemy location.


Not only is Jesus regarded as the Seed of Abraham, but so also is everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord:


“And if you belong to Christ, you are Abraham’s offspring (seed) according to promise.” Galatians 3:29.


“After this,” it says in Luke 10:1, Jesus sent out seventy other disciples in pairs “into every town where He Himself was about to come,” He did not tell them to pray for the sick, either. Instead, He told them to “...go into a town…and heal the sick in it, and say to them, the Kingdom of God has come close to you.” (AMP) 


An amazing thing happened that shows how successful their attack on ‘the gates of hell’ was in allowing the release of many captives.. In Luke 10:17 it says, “The seventy returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us.” In today’s language we would say, “Even the demonic spirits had to leave when we commanded them!” For these ordinary folk who were told to do ministry in the same way that Jesus would, that was a major learning experience. But there’s more.


Jesus’ next comment in Luke 10 is sometimes read or taken as if out of context, but it follows on from here precisely.


He told them, “I saw the adversary (Greek = ton satanan, which is normally translated as a name, Satan, but the use of the Greek definite article, ton in this case, equivalent to the English word the, shows that it is a descriptive word, not a name) falling like lightning from Heaven.”


What was happening here?


Revelation 12:10 tells us that the adversary, the devil, is in Heaven accusing us before God, day and night. However, when the seventy went out in pairs doing ministry like Jesus they caused such havoc and disruption to the enemy’s evil doings that their leader flashed down from Heaven, with such ferocity that his movement appeared like lightning, in order to whip his lieutenants back into shape and to get on with their trouble-making.


We have every tool necessary 

to continually attack the gates of Hell

and set the captives free.


That’s the sort of assault and effect that the church, the body of believers, is meant to be having continually on ‘the gates of hell’ and the captives that they are holding.


We have every tool needed to continually penetrate and invade the enemy’s space. 


The 'gates of Hell' cannot withstand us.


We have every tool needed to continually rescue and set the captives free. This is still achieved when we go out singularly or in multiple pairs to do ministry like Jesus did. When situations don't change it's because people are not doing ministry like Jesus! They pray when they are meant to say, and so on, or they don't understand the Keys of the Kingdom and how we are meant to use them.


To reasonable eyes, though, it often looks more like the opposite is happening, and that the church, especially in the West, is barely surviving the attacks of the enemy. What has happened, what has gone wrong that Jesus’ words do not seem to be readily fulfilled in this manner?


Continue to Part 4 below


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