For the Son of man has come to save that which was lost.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
What think ye? If a certain man should have a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, does he not, leaving the ninety and nine on the mountains, go and seek the one that has gone astray?
The Lord has set a little child in front of the disciples. Now He asks them to picture a shepherd with a hundred sheep and one missing, and to judge the case for themselves.
This same parable appears in Luke's Gospel. What it means here depends on what comes just before it in Matthew.
No doubt we can take in all those who are saved on the same principle. The Gospel of Luke shows us (Luke 15) this very parable applied to any sinner. But here the Lord is taking it up in connection with what went before, namely, right feelings toward one who belongs to the kingdom of heaven. Starting from a little child whom He sets in the middle of them, He carries the thought of the little one all through this part of His discourse.
The shepherd leaves ninety-nine safe sheep to look for one. Who are those ninety-nine? One writer takes them as people who never think of themselves as lost at all:
The joy over one being found is greater than over ninety-nine who had never gone astray. Of course this ninety-nine stands for people who think of themselves as righteous and never lost. "The lost" are those who admit their lost condition. Of course all are by nature and practice lost, but many refuse to admit it. However, the Father's tender care for little ones is a most important feature of the kingdom of heaven: it is not His will that one of these should perish.
Matthew's account adds a word that Luke's does not have — an "if". That small difference tells us whose search this is.
The parable in the first part of Luke 15 seems to be repeated in Matt. 18, only that there it says, "And if so be that he find it". There is no "if so be" in Luke 15, for there it is the work of the Lord Himself as Shepherd. There is an "if so be" in Matt. 18, for there it is our work. The Lord always finds the one He goes after; I may fail, but that does not mean I ought not to try to recover a brother who has gone astray. I may have the pleasure of bringing him back again.
Right after this parable, the Lord tells us what to do when a brother wrongs us. The search comes first, and it sets the motive.
Just before this (v. 12), the Lord had been speaking of His own search among the mountains for the lost sheep, and of His joy when the straying one came back. No doubt He did this so that we might see the value He puts on one of His own, and learn to act toward them in the same way. Notice that nothing is said here about putting right any wrongs. The Lord does not say, "if he listens to you, all your wrongs shall be put right," but "if he listens to you, you have gained your brother."
The same picture carries a warning. We can congratulate ourselves on guarding the safe majority and forget the sheep left on the hillside.
But if someone wanders from the truth, what then? Are we to be finished with him? Not at all — we should all the more leave the ninety-nine good ones and seek this one until we find him. Is it separation from evil to busy ourselves with the ninety-nine we think are right, and leave the lost sheep? Not at all, it is not the Lord's way.
The Lord gives more than one reason for never looking down on a little one.
Down to verse 14 we are still occupied with the little child. They are not to be despised for three reasons. First, they are the continual objects of angelic ministry, and are represented before the face of the Father in heaven. Second, they are objects of the Saviour's saving grace. Third, the Father's will toward them is blessing; He does not want one to perish. These are sweet words of comfort for those who have lost their little ones in early life, and full assurance of their blessing. The tendency to go astray is in a little child as much as in a grown man, as verses 12 and 13 show. But a child's wandering is not put to his account in the same way until he reaches years of responsibility.
- One child. The parable starts where the chapter started, with a little one set in the middle. Everything the Lord says about sheep, He says about that child.
- One stray. Ninety-nine safe sheep do not cancel out one missing one. The one in danger draws out the shepherd's love; the safe numbers do not.
- One search. In Luke, Christ Himself seeks, and He never fails. In Matthew there is an "if", because this search is ours. Ours can fail. We must still make it.
- One brother gained. The search sets the aim for the verses that follow: not wrongs corrected, but a brother recovered.
- One will. The Father does not want one little one to perish. That is why the shepherd goes out, and why we go after those who wander.
And if it should come to pass that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoices more because of it than because of the ninety and nine not gone astray.
Jesus has set a little child in front of the disciples, and He keeps that little one in view through the whole passage. Here He asks what a shepherd feels when the one sheep that wandered off is found again.
The same picture of a shepherd and a straying sheep appears in Luke's Gospel applied to any sinner. Here He aims it at a narrower target.
No doubt the same principle covers everyone who is saved. Luke's Gospel shows us (Luke 15) this very parable applied to any sinner. But here the Lord is taking it up in connection with what came before — that is, right feelings toward one who belongs to the kingdom of heaven. Starting from a little child whom He sets in the middle, He carries the thought of the little one all the way through this part of His discourse.
The wandering one absorbs everything for a while. That is not a slight on the rest of the flock; it is how a shepherd's heart works when one is missing.
The ninety-nine seem to be mentioned here for one reason only. For the moment, the one lost sheep has drawn to himself all the Shepherd's concern — and, when found, all His tenderness, as if there were no other. Yet this overflowing joy does not lessen His interest in the ninety-nine. For the moment it is simply not shown in the same way. Let any of these become the lost one, and they too would stir the same anxiety and tenderness.
Commentators differ here. One reading treats them simply as the rest of the flock, as above; another hears in "never went astray" a description of people who think they never needed saving at all.
Of course this ninety-nine stands for those who think themselves righteous and count themselves as never having been lost. "The lost" are the ones who admit their lost condition. Of course all are by nature and practice lost, but many refuse to admit it.
Luke's shepherd searches until He finds. Matthew attaches a condition to the finding. One writer draws a practical difference from it.
The parable in the first part of Luke 15 seems to come again in Matthew 18. Only here it says, "And if he finds it." There is no "if" in Luke 15. There the work is the Lord's own, as Shepherd. There is an "if" in Matthew 18, for there it is our work. The Lord always finds the one He goes after; I may fail, but that does not mean I ought not to try to recover a brother who has gone astray. I may have the joy of bringing him back again.
Right after this verse the Lord tells us what to do when a brother wrongs us. The joy of verse 13 is the reason that errand is worth the trouble.
Next comes a sentence of the very deepest importance to us: "if he listens to you, you have gained your brother." Doesn't this show us why I am to tell him his fault? And why it is to be between him and me alone? It is "to gain" my brother. Just before this (v. 12) the Lord had spoken of His own search among the mountains for the lost sheep, and of His joy when the straying one came back. No doubt He did this so that we might see the value He places on one of His own, and learn to treat them the same way.
Recovering someone costs the recoverer something. The aim shapes the manner.
If my errand to my brother were only to hurt him, the task could easily be done without a scrap of exercise; but if I am to gain him, then grace must work both in him and in me.
The next verse gives the Father's will about these little ones. One writer uses it to answer a question that haunts grieving parents.
How many die at an early age? Do they perish? We are not left to spiritual instinct, or to reasoning from general principles. Nor is it the unbelieving and unspiritual plea that they are "innocent." They do belong to the fallen race, for whose sake the good Shepherd came and died: "so it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." Are we not right, then, to look beyond those who believe to "these little ones," and be sure that if they are taken before they could believe, they will not perish?
- One. The shepherd's whole heart narrows onto the one missing sheep, as if there were no other. The ninety-nine lose nothing by it: any of them straying would draw the same search.
- Joy. Finding, not counting, makes Him glad. The greater joy is over the one recovered, not over the ones who never wandered.
- If. Luke's Shepherd always finds. Matthew's "if he finds it" fits our own efforts, where we may fail — and still must try.
- Gain. The Lord shows us His joy so that we will copy it. When a brother wrongs us, the errand is to gain him back.
- Perish. The parable closes on the Father's will that not one of these little ones should perish — solid comfort for anyone who has buried a child.
So it is not the will of your Father who is in [the] heavens that one of these little ones should perish.
Jesus set a little child before disciples who were arguing about greatness. He then spoke of a shepherd who goes after one straying sheep. This verse ends that whole word with one conclusion about the Father's will. Two questions press: who are "these little ones"? And how far does this promise reach? (Where the ESV reads "my Father," the older translation these writers used reads "your Father"; the point they draw is the same.)
The chapter uses a child as a picture of the spirit believers should have. So some read "little ones" as grown believers who are humble. One writer answers that the wording rules this out.
I know He is giving them as the pattern of our spirit. But there was a real infant there, and He was speaking of him. If He meant a holy person who was as humble as a child, there would be no sense in saying, "it was not the will of your Father that one of these little ones should perish, for their angels," and so on. So it is the infant.
The verse closes a short argument. One writer sets out its three parts.
We must not despise them, for three reasons. First, angels care for them all the time, and they are represented before the face of the Father in heaven. Second, they are objects of the Saviour's saving grace. Third, the Father's will toward them is blessing; He does not want one of them to perish.
The verse assumes children could perish, or the promise would mean nothing. One writer asks where that leaves those who die young.
How many die at an early age? Do they perish? We are not left to spiritual instinct, or to reasoning from general principles. It does not rest on the unbelieving, unspiritual plea that they are "innocent." They do belong to the fallen race, for whose sake the good Shepherd came and died... Are we not free to look past those who believe, to "these little ones," and be sure that if they are taken away before they could believe, they are not to perish?
In Luke 19:10 the Lord came "to seek and to save the lost." Here the word "seek" drops out, and one writer finds the difference deliberate.
The comparison of verse 11 with Luke 19:10 is instructive. There the subject is a grown man, who had had plenty of time to go astray, so the word "seek" appears. Here the subject is a little child, and that word does not appear. The tendency to go astray is in each, as verses 12 and 13 show. But God does not count the wandering in the same way until the years of responsibility come.
The Lord does not rest this on the child's condition but on what God wants. That makes the assurance as steady as God Himself.
Here it is the Father's will which He has come to carry out, and it is not the Father's will that one of these little ones should perish. How sweet and perfect an assurance! It is only the contrary will of man that hinders his salvation: on God's part there can be no contrary one... Thus the little ones removed from us by death we may trust confidently to the divine love which waits on them. Our assurance as to them is rooted in the unchangeableness of the divine nature.
One writer builds the salvation of infants on this passage, and rests it on Christ's atonement.
We believe that Matthew 18:10-14 furnishes the foundation of the precious truth of the salvation of infants... Are you not fully persuaded that all who die in infancy are saved? That since their little bodies undergo the penalty of Adam's sin, their precious souls share the benefit of Christ's atonement!
The same parable appears in Luke 15. Matthew's version adds one small word — "if" — and one writer makes it the key.
The parable in the first part of Luke 15 appears again in Matthew 18, only that here it says, "if he finds it." There is no "if" in Luke 15, for there the work is the Lord's own, as Shepherd. There is an "if" in Matthew 18, for there the work is ours. The Lord always finds the one He goes after. I may fail, but that does not mean I should not try to recover a brother who has gone astray.
Commentators differ on the reach of the words. Some read "little ones" as infants. Others include any disciple who strays.
- Will. The verse rests everything on what the Father wants, not on what the child is. On God's side there is no will against a little one's salvation.
- Lost. That will meets a real need. Children belong to a fallen race, so no plea of innocence will do. They need the death of Christ.
- Saved. He came to save them, but the word "seek" drops out; their wandering has not yet begun in the way a grown person's has.
- Sure. Because God does not change, parents who have buried a child may trust them to that love.
- Ours. The same will puts work in our hands. Matthew's "if he finds it" makes recovery our task, and failure is no reason not to try.
But if thy brother sin against thee, go, reprove him between thee and him alone. If he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
Just before this verse, the Lord pictures a shepherd leaving ninety-nine sheep to find one that strayed. That picture shapes what follows. The question is not how to win an argument, but what love does with a private injury: who moves first, who else hears about it, and what counts as a good outcome.
The Lord asks us to treat an offending brother the way God treated us. One writer draws that line from the gospel to your next step.
Suppose your brother does you wrong. Perhaps it is an evil word, or an unkind action done against you. You feel it as a real personal wrong against you. It is a sin, of course. Nobody knows it, probably, but himself and you. What are you to do? At once this great principle is applied: when you were ruined and far from God, what met your case? Did God wait till you put away your sin? He sent His own Son to seek you, to save you... The flesh feels and resents wrong done against itself. But grace does not shroud itself in its own dignity, waiting for the offender to come and humble himself and own his wrong.
The words "sins against you" describe a fact, not a suspicion. One writer presses this before you take any step.
First of all, I must be sure that my brother has actually trespassed against me. "If your brother sins against you" — this is not if I think he has, or hearsay that he has. It is a definite case of one person wronging another. It is not a case where both parties have wronged each other, but of one alone sinning against the other.
Saying nothing can look like patience. Writers warn that it fails the very person it seems to spare.
The natural course might be to avoid him and say nothing about his fault. Or we might decide to bear the injury patiently towards the offender and, as people sometimes put it, "try to live it down." That might seem very plausible at first, and look like grace on my part. But it leaves out one all-important thing: the spiritual condition of my offending brother. Whoever may commend it, it is certainly not the Lord's way of treating the matter.
The single word "go" also settles the method.
The Lord says "go," and that is what we must do.
added: quote re-prints the featured verse (over half the quote) and misquotes ESV with "But" There is nothing here about writing to the brother or taking the matter up with him from a distance.
"Between you and him alone" rules out our most natural instinct: finding someone to take our side.
Perhaps there is some brother whom we know is not on the best terms with the one who has injured us. We have little doubt he will listen readily to the tale of our wrongs. The danger is that in our selfishness we go to him. Yet if we cared about his soul's welfare, he would be the last person in the church we should whisper such a thing to... It is much to be feared that we are not altogether sorry to be able to punish our brother by lowering him in the eyes of others.
Privacy also serves the aim of the whole step.
This governs everything in this first step: "go and tell him his fault" — literally, "convict him," bring him to conviction — "between you and him alone." Let there be no needless exposure, no pain that can be spared, nothing that would arouse resentment and so surely hinder recovery.
Notice what the Lord does not promise the injured party.
The Lord does not say, "If he listens to you, all your wrongs will be put right." He says, "If he listens to you, you have gained your brother." No doubt, if grace works in him, if he is truly "gained," one of the first fruits will be a strong desire to put those injuries right. But securing that must not be the motive that sends me to him. Leaving my wrongs with the Lord, I am to seek my brother's blessing.
Aiming to gain him changes the one who goes, too.
If my errand to my brother were only to pain him, the task could easily be done without any exercise of heart. But if I am to gain him, then grace must work both in him and in me.
Verse 15 is only the first move. Further steps follow if it fails.
Supposing trespasses arise, all the resources of grace were to be tried before treating an offender as a Gentile and a tax collector.
- Pattern. God did not wait for you to fix your sin before He sought you; the wronged one moves first because that is how grace acts.
- Certainty. Act on a real wrong: not a suspicion, not hearsay, not a quarrel where both sides have injured each other.
- Privately. Go yourself, face to face, alone — not by letter, not through sympathisers who will take your side.
- Plainly. Silence is not grace. Name the fault, and aim at conviction rather than exposure.
- To gain. The goal is your brother restored, not your grievance settled. Leave your wrongs with the Lord, and every later step becomes one more try at recovery.
But if he do not hear [thee], take with thee one or two besides, that every matter may stand upon the word of two witnesses or of three.
Jesus has just told the wronged disciple to go in private to the brother who sinned against him. When that private appeal fails, the Lord adds a second step, and the question is what those extra witnesses are for.
The move from one to three is a small one. Love still works to keep the matter quiet, but it will not leave the sin alone.
They are a jury of appeal. Their aim is to make him feel how serious his sin is, not to prove that it is true. This step stands midway between the private talk and the full publicity of the assembly. Love would still spare the person, though it cannot spare the sin, and that is why this step is taken.
Many read the phrase about every charge being established as if guilt were still in doubt. One writer argues the opposite: what these witnesses put beyond dispute is the offender's answer.
The verse says "that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses." This does not mean the person's guilt is still in question. His guilt is already settled. What must be made clear is how the offender answers this genuine effort to restore him. If this bears good fruit, then only two or three besides the offender have known about the matter. If the offender honestly judges his sin, the matter is dropped and forgotten.
The verse does not say who the extra people should be. Their character has to match the errand.
The two who go along in this second step to restore a brother must have the same spiritual character as the brother who came to him first. Their coming brings still greater love to bear on him. At the same time it shows him that unconfessed sin, sin not put away, cannot be tolerated in a brother.
These witnesses come on Christ's behalf. They carry the same appeal the first visit carried, only through more voices.
Is it possible that he may resist one or two who come to him as witnesses of the love of Christ? He has refused Christ pleading through one; can he refuse Christ now that He pleads through more? It may be, sadly, that he will.
The second step also puts the first visit under review. The one who went first may have got it wrong.
How do I know that my way of dealing with him was not the cause of my failure? Perhaps our conversation showed him how I saw things. He may feel I read his conduct unfairly, or credited him with motives he knows he never had. In that case I would only have given him what he judges a fair reason for resisting me, and left him harder than I found him.
The rule of two or three witnesses appears right through Scripture. It stands as a guard against judgment built on feeling.
We must not let our own impressions guide us. We all know that mere impressions are very unreliable. They may be right; they may be completely false. Nothing is believed and passed on more easily than a false impression. So any judgment based on mere impressions is worthless. We need solid, proven facts — facts confirmed by two or three witnesses, as Scripture so plainly commands. (Deut. 17:6; Matt. 18:16; 2 Cor. 13:1; 1 Tim. 5:19.)
There is a limit to what these two or three can do.
The two or three in verse 16 are the brother sinned against and the one or two others he was to take with him. They cannot act on behalf of the assembly in such a matter.
- Love moves. Love sends the extra witnesses. It has not stopped seeking the person, and it will not spare the sin.
- Love multiplies. They come as witnesses of the love of Christ. The man who refused His plea through one voice now hears it through more.
- Love verifies. Their task is to establish the answer the offender gives. Facts settle such a case, never impressions.
- Love contains. If he responds, only two or three ever knew, and the matter is dismissed and forgotten.
- Love submits. These two or three confirm a case; they cannot act in place of the whole assembly.
But if he will not listen to them, tell it to the assembly; and if also he will not listen to the assembly, let him be to thee as one of the nations and a tax-gatherer.
Matthew 18 gives steps for a wrong done to one believer: go to him alone, then with witnesses, then before the whole assembly. This verse says what happens when he refuses even that, and it raises two questions — which "church" is meant, and what the offended believer must now do.
Humility does not cancel faithfulness about sin.
This spirit of lowliness must not push aside the faithfulness that will maintain the honour of the Lord. Faith and meekness can rebuke sin… Notice in passing how opposite these directions are to the legal spirit in which some would apply this scripture. The object is to win, not to condemn. Every means is exhausted, even to leaving the case in the hands of the assembly.
The word does not point to an office, a hierarchy, or a denomination. It points to the believers gathered in that same town, the ones all three parties belong to.
The church means the assembly of God in the place to which these all belong… So the assembly hears of the guilty person's fault. The matter has been investigated and pressed home. The church warns and pleads with this man, but he refuses to hear.
That also answers those who use the phrase "hear the church" to claim teaching authority:
"Hear the church" in Matthew 18:17 is a favourite appeal for those who look for scriptural support for church pride, or, as they would say, its teaching office. But the context here is plain. It is only a question of local discipline in a case of personal trespass, not of teaching-authority.
The offence that starts all this may be small. What ends the process is not the size of the sin but the hardness of the man. These steps fit a private wrong, not open sin.
The verse before calls him a brother; now he is like a Gentile and a tax collector. We are not to suppose that the man was a drunkard or a thief. What he has shown is a hardness of self-will and a spirit of self-justification. It might have arisen out of small circumstances. But on the ground of this unbending pride about himself and his own fault, God may pronounce that you are to regard him as a Gentile and a tax collector. That is, you no longer acknowledge him as a Christian while he stays impenitent… In the case of drunkenness, or anything of that kind, there would be no need for this way of dealing with it. If no one had the least question about the sin, the duty of the church is clear: the person is put away… This way of dealing is only for a case where the wrong is unknown to anyone but the person it was done against.
Both names the Lord uses marked people a devout Jew kept at a distance.
A Gentile no Jew would admit to any religious privileges (Acts 21:28-29); with a tax collector no Pharisee or scribe would associate. So the offender's position is clear, and what 1 Corinthians 5:13 sets out would be the only course open for the assembly. From how small a beginning such grave results might flow.
The word behind "Gentile" here is used in an unusual way — not as a comment on culture, but on position:
In Matthew 18:17 the word has a particular application: if an offending brother will not hear the church, the instruction is "let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector," that is, as an outsider, the Gentile being outside the privileges of Israel, as one to be avoided.
Commentators differ on how far the verse reaches. Stuart, above, links it to the assembly's action in 1 Corinthians 5. Darby keeps to the exact wording:
This is a question of wrong done to a brother. The passage never says that the church is to put out the one who did the wrong. It says, "Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector." This may afterwards have to be the case as to the church, but that is not its character here. It is simply, "Let him be to you" — have nothing more to do with him… What it prescribes is a course of individual conduct.
The Lord guards the line in both directions:
He is the Head of His body, the church, and He is our personal Lord and Master and Saviour. He will not let us raise personal matters into church questions, or lower church questions into personal matters.
This authority does not depend on the size of the gathering.
To accept these is to accept their discipline. The Lord's sanction of the gathering is the express sanction of their discipline… But these "two or three" do have authority for discipline. Woe to anyone who resists its rightful use! The words "if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector" apply to just such feeble gatherings as these.
- Aim — The goal is to win the man back, not to condemn him. Every gentler step comes first.
- Assembly — "The church" here is the company of God's people in that place, not a teaching office or a clergy to appeal to.
- Self-will — What forces the final step is not gross sin but unbending pride that refuses correction from anyone.
- Outside — Both names the Lord uses picture a man kept at a distance. You no longer acknowledge him as a Christian while he stays impenitent.
- Personal — The Lord says "to you." Do not inflate personal matters into church questions, or shrink church questions into personal ones.