We have authority in the Spirit world. The church has always had the power to cast out devils in Jesus' Name, though the practice was never meant to be a business enterprise.

Further, we can obey God because of the Spirit's enabling. When the Enemy seems to be pushing one way, we can go the other way. That too is authority, and an even greater one. We are not slaves to sin or our own flesh or this world or the Devil any longer.

But "binding and loosing" Satan is another thing altogether. I don't recall seeing Jesus do such a thing, by that name, nor did any of His followers, per the only valid record we have.

Binding and loosing was not meant to be a Pentecostal power play. Rather it is a gift first given to Peter in Matthew 16, just after he was handed the keys to the Kingdom of God.

Peter would be the door opener. And Peter would be the first instrument of God's forgiveness after the Spirit fell.

It is sin from which persons of all ages need to be loosed. The church which Jesus founded through the apostles would be the avenue of forgiveness, and occasionally of retention, of sin. How so? The preached Gospel!

When Peter preached his first sermon, Jesus through Peter opened the door of forgiveness to the Jews. Those who gladly heard his word were repentant and were baptized. The door was open on earth. Sins were forgiven. Prophecy fulfilled.

Of course it was not a one-time event. You see Peter preaching to the first Gentile audience just a few chapters later. Same reaction. Repentance, baptism, the Holy Spirit falls, forgiveness flows!

That which was loosed on Earth had already been loosed in Heaven, according to Jesus. Peter was just the conduit of the loosing.

If Peter were the only one so commissioned, the church would have been quite small. The promise of being a funnel of God's love in this way is given to all the apostles in Matthew 18.

In Matthew 18 is also the suggestion that binding will also have to be done at times. We see such restraint of the flow in the life of Peter later, when Simon "the great power of God" tried to buy the Spirit. Peter announced to him what had already been settled in Heaven: You can't buy the Spirit, and you'll not receive God's forgiveness until your heart is right.

There is no question that the gift of giving forgiveness was on Paul, too, but he did not hesitate to withhold that love from Jews who would not accept his word, and little girls filled with the Devil. Binding and loosing worked regularly in his life.