Matthew 28:18-20

By giving his apostles the power to forgive sins (John 20:21-23), Jesus proclaims he is sending them as the Father has sent him, which illustrates how much Jesus empowers the apostles in leading his Church. As Scripture makes clear elsewhere, Jesus sends his apostles with “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18), because that’s precisely how the Father has sent him in carrying out his earthly mission.

Jesus affirms the breadth of this authority in giving St. Peter—the chief of the apostles and thus the first Pope—“the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” and by telling Peter that “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:18; see Matt. 18:15-18).

Jesus thus makes clear that the apostles’ authority extends beyond doctrine to matters of Church governance, including discipline. And this authority extends beyond the lives of his first apostles, as the 11 choose Matthias, an apostolic successor (episkopos/bishop), to take the place of Judas (Acts 1:12-26). Apostolic succession is a key way Jesus fulfill his promise, “[A]nd lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20).