Since yesterday I checked further on Matt. 18:18. Most so-called “literal” translations from the past do not translate the future perfect tense literally there. An exception is Benjamin Wilson’s Emphatic Diaglott: “will be as having been bound … loosed.” I mentioned Charles B. Williams’ NT translation of 1937. He was known for having paid special attention to Greek verbs and for trying to bring out the full flavor of them. It reads here, “must be already forbidden … must be already permitted in heaven.” This use of the future perfect tense is found in a similar context earlier in Matthew, where Jesus gives Peter the keys of the kingdom and tells him that “whatever you forbid on earth must be what is already forbidden … and … permitted in heaven” (16:19), C. B. Williams again.
The New American Standard Bible which began to come out in 1960, and has gone through multiple revisions, has the 18:18 passage rendered quite literally: “whatever you shall bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; whatever you shall loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven” (1973 ed.). So too does the NET Bible of 1996 on: “will have been bound … released.” Not quite as literal but conveying the thought is the Holman Christian Standard Bible which reads, “is already bound … is already loosed.” Two other conservative translations put the literal rendering in their footnotes but retain the standard rendering in their main text: the NIV (beginning only with the 1983 ed.) and the English Standard Version (2001).
Interestingly, two recent one-man translations done by well-known scholars both render the passage literally. N. T. Wright (2011) has “will have been tied up … will have been untied.” David Bentley Hart (2017): “will have been bound… will have been unbound.” Whether this use of a literal rendering will catch on overall remains to be seen.
The point of the passage as it literally reads is that whatever Christ’s real disciples decide (in groups according to the passage’s context) on earth will have already been decided in heaven. That is, God so directs them that whatever decisions they make, God has already made those decisions for them, and he thus guides them to come to his already determined conclusions on earth.
Brief mention should be made about why most scholars do not render the Matt. 16 and 18 passages literally. The future perfect tense only occurs in two other places in the NT, Luke 12:52 and Heb. 2:13. In those instances nobody seems to want to render them as “shall have been divided” and “shall have put trust in him.” It should also be noted, however, that that cumbersome literal translation is what those two passages literally say.
The recent NWT revision changes Fred Franz’s older rendering(s) with “will be things already bound … already loosed in heaven” (with a similar change at 16:19). One could see the influence of the HCSB and C.B. Williams with the new “already” present, and indeed that may be one factor at work. I cannot help but wonder how much the view that the anointed and especially the GB view themselves as “perfect, without sin” for which thefallguy has provided the reference above, was also at work, because whatever decisions they come up with, in their minds, have already been determined in heaven. That brief statement in the ’74 WT reflects a viewpoint from a larger article (or book statement) that I distinctly remember reading when I was in. THAT is the article I want to now access. I’m wondering whether the org has “adjusted” their currently available indices so as to cause a researcher difficulty in locating it. Again, I will be grateful to anyone who can provide the ref to that larger exposition.
The GB, past and present, do not, of course, broadcast their true feelings and motivations. Yet by studying their past statements it is possible for an observer to see some of the hidden thinking behind their regularly secretive behavior. It would cause them problems if they were to proclaim today that they still believe in Franz’s idea that they are “perfect, without sin” in Jehovah’s eyes, just like it would cause them problems to regularly harp on the Bible’s view of the role of women, as subservient to that of men. But the fact that they do not dwell on a matter does not mean it is not at work in their minds, even quite heavily. If we are going to understand the way they think, and thus their history, we need to seriously pay attention to the things that motivate them, like this bit of Fred Franz’s theology, which appears to have been, and still is, heavily at work among them.