Taking Away The Key Of Knowledge
Speaking to the religious leaders of His day, Jesus charged, "Woe unto you lawyers! for ye took away the key of knowledge: Ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered" (Lk. 11:52). From Matthew 23:13 we learn that the place of entering of which Christ speaks is the kingdom of heaven. This makes His denunciation even more serious. The magnitude of the sin is seen in the fact that it can bring only damnable consequences.
Any attitude, teaching or practice that will keep the one who holds it and the one he influences out of the kingdom must be a very serious thing, and it most certainly deserves our thoughtful consideration. In the case before us, the lawyers, who were supposed to be very able teachers of the law of Moses, had taken away "the key of knowledge." This means either that they had taken away the knowledge itself, referring to the word of God, by replacing it with the traditions of their fathers, or that by their traditions they had made it impossible for both themselves and their followers to understand the word of God. Jesus had earlier denounced the same class of leaders, saying, "But in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men. Ye leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men" (Mk. 7:7-8).
The thing that made it impossible for the religious leaders of Jesus' day to enter the kingdom of heaven was their unwillingness to accept Christ as the promised Messiah. This unwillingness grew out of their love for their tradition, or, to put it another way, their love for tradition and lack of respect for God's word made it impossible for them to see the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies in the Christ. Thus, through their rejection of the very word that spoke of Christ they rejected the Christ Himself and, in this way, took away the only hope ("the key of knowledge") of entering into the kingdom. In every sense of the word, then, because of their false interpretations of the law and their acceptance of tradition above the law, these men were false teachers or leaders. Since Jesus elsewhere said, "Let them alone: they are blind guides. And if the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a pit" (Matt. 15:14), it was impossible that either the leaders or their followers should enter the kingdom of heaven.
We see evidence of this same problem everywhere today. On every hand "the key of knowledge" is taken away from the masses in religiondom, from the young and old, the rich and poor, the white and black. Pride and a love for family ties and traditions (Cf. Matt. 10:37), on the one hand, and unconcern and outright rejection of what the word of God teaches on the other (II Thess. 2:10), is just as prevalent today as it was in the first century. Men are just as ready and apt to pass over what the Bible teaches in Acts 2:38, Hebrews 10:25, II John 9, etc. as the Jews were to leave the commandment of God in favor of their tradition. Many do not hesitate to add another kind of music to the command to sing in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16. Others, including our brethren, work night and day trying to make religion and the church "more modern" and "relevant." This effort to bring us more "up to date" is made in too many cases without due consideration as to whether the "methods" of doing so are scriptural. In these and many other ways the "key of knowledge" is taken away, and preference is given to the whims and fancies of man's imagination.
We must be on our guard always lest we through ignorance, pride, selfishness, zeal (without knowledge), over-confidence in the religion of our parents or others, or tradition, take away "the key of knowledge" and thus rob ourselves, as well as those whom we might influence, of the glorious privilege of entering the kingdom of heaven. Let us study diligently and pray earnestly and sincerely that we might learn and practice the truth always, and let us never be content with anything less or anything more than a simple "thus saith the Lord" in all matters religious.
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