Matthew 18:15–20

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.

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.

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 Lord says "go," and that is what we must do.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Supposing trespasses arise, all the resources of grace were to be tried before treating an offender as a Gentile and a tax collector.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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 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.

"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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When the Lord Jesus spoke these words the Church was still future. In Matthew 16 He speaks of it as a building He would build. Verse 20 describes the make-up of the Church — two or three gathered to His name, and Himself with them in their midst. It is in direct connection with such a gathering that the Lord gives this promise about binding and loosing. So the Church in chapter 18 received the power given to Peter in chapter 16. Peter has passed away, but the assembly remains, and the Lord is with those gathered to His name. It is His presence and His word that gives authority to their acts. Notice that the Lord does not call those so gathered infallible. He says they have authority. Their acts are ratified in heaven.

Verse 18 does not speak directly of assembly action, but it implies it. The word "you" is no longer singular but plural. God fully backs up the assembly when it binds on the offender the guilt of his arrogance. That means putting him away from their fellowship. Loosing matters just as much. If putting away drives the soul in self-judgment to the Lord to find restoration, then the assembly is to be ready to restore him publicly too. Heaven will ratify that as well.

Do not confuse two things. What the Church binds is bound in heaven, but the Church cannot bind and loose all that Heaven can. What the Church — that is, two or three gathered in Christ's name — binds in the sphere committed to them according to the word, that is sanctioned by Heaven. But the Church has nothing to do with forgiving sins in the sense of not counting guilt, or making a person righteous. This Heaven, that is, God Himself, has done as regards the believer, and the Church can neither bind nor loose it. It has a sphere of discipline in which it forgives or judges, and its righteous acts in that sphere are sanctioned on high.

If a person was wronged, he was to speak to the wrongdoer and win him if he could. If not, he was to take two or three more. If that failed, he was to tell it — not to the clergy, not to any priest, but to the assembly. If the wrongdoer would not listen to the assembly, the person was free to treat him as outside it. And the reason is given. Wherever two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, He is there according to this promise. They are really met and looking to Him, so as to act truly and humbly in His name. Then the act carries Christ's authority in ordinary church discipline, and He owns and sanctions it.

Notice the Lord did not say, "Whatever you bind in the Church or Assembly shall be bound in heaven." He said, "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." This expression "on earth" certainly covers more than the local Assembly where the discipline is carried out. These words of Christ show what follows. When one Assembly acts in discipline in the name of the Lord, that act is binding on all other Assemblies on earth.

In my opinion the grammar gives no ground for taking the participle "bound" as past time, coming before the future verb "shall be." Nor does the scope of our Lord's teaching. The idea is a condition viewed in itself, apart from actual time. "Whatever you may bind on the earth shall be a thing bound in the heavens." The form used here views the result as permanent. But it is beyond doubt the result of a future act.

This chapter mentions the assembly, and it provides for three things. First, the question of a brother who wrongs you. Second, the carrying out of discipline — binding and loosing — which God Himself confirms when it is done according to Him. And last, the one that concerns us most here: the condition of prayer that prevails.

The word "For" ties the promise about agreeing in prayer to the presence of Christ among two or three. So it does not mean, as people often suppose, that two Christians agree to pray about the same subject while they are apart. That common use turns the Scripture away from its real point, which is the special honour and power that belong to united prayer.

Here we learn that one thing our prayers must have is full agreement — warm agreement — complete oneness of mind. The real force of the words is, "If two of you sound together" — make one common sound. There must be no jarring note, no discordant element.

It is true — and it is true because Christ has said it — that two people who agree to ask in faith can have whatever they ask. Then why do we not see more answers to our prayers? Must the fault not be in us? Are we not short of agreement and confidence?

The promise stands first of all in connection with the restoring of a brother who sinned. United prayer is first of all needed. Yet the promise is not limited to this. He tells us to ask about anything, and He assures us that the heavenly Father will do it for us… And see how kindly He sets the number as low as it can go: not a hundred, not fifty, not twenty-five — but if two shall agree.

The Father would answer prayer about the interests of Christ on earth. This has nothing to do with people's selfish desires. It is prayer for things tied to the Name of Christ.

There is the case where any two agree: here the two set their own wills aside. It is where Christians share a desire and agree to bring it to God. Such a settled, open agreement means they share one Christian mind, and it will be done… No one can in faith attach Christ's name to his own selfish desires.

Here we have two statements at first sight so surprising that we may well ask, how can these things be? How can it be that heaven confirms what people do on earth, and grants what they ask on earth? What is it that makes such things possible? One thing alone: the Lord Himself present among His people when they gather to His Name… He is present to confirm their acts. He is present to guide and answer their prayers.

The words are "gathered to My name," not "in it." The difference is clear. To gather in His name means no more than gathering by His authority. To gather to His name means that His name is the centre that unites us. What unites us is the truth of who He is. Where He finds a people who are content with that bond alone, He promises the blessing of His own personal presence among them.

Add anything — a particular teaching, or a particular form of church government — and it is no longer simply the name of Christ. Such a gathering does not match His mind. Suppose I agreed to meet only with believers who share my views. We would not be gathered to the name of Christ alone, because something has been added or shut out. But suppose I meet with people who agree that Christ Himself is the only draw. They accept His authority as Lord. They submit to His word and let it govern everything they do when they meet. Then the gathering is to His name.

This shows how vital it is to gather to His name. As we have said, if we ignore the condition, we have no ground for counting on His presence. It is not enough for us to say we have met the condition. The real question is this: does the Lord accept it as met? He is the Judge. So it would be sheer presumption to expect Him among us if we meet according to our own ideas, with no regard for His word.

So that He can be with us this way, He has set the terms as low as they could go — "two or three," the fewest that can make a gathering at all. Blessed be His name! We have every reason to own how great that grace is. Our own day is weak and divided, for all its big claims. And those who gather to His name need make no big claims of their own.

For my part, when I found everything in ruins around me, my comfort was this: where two or three are gathered in Christ's name, there He would be. I was not looking for a system of government, or for anything else. Now I do believe that God is faithful, and able to maintain the blessing.

We do not gather to Himself, but to His Name. The passage distinguishes between Himself and His Name. Gathering to His name supposes His absence, but secures His presence. In such a gathering He is truly present, not in body, but in spirit... He is present to give sanction to the process of discipline and to give effect to the prayers of His people.

Notice that the authority for discipline and the power of prayer are both linked with His name, and entrusted to the two or three gathered to that name.

What all our souls need is a deeper realisation of His presence. It would correct many things that we have to groan over before Him. Would believers turn up late on Sunday if they truly sensed that the Lord is there? To whom are we gathered? Whom do we go to meet?... There would be no rushing, no restlessness, and no showing off — the things that grieve us — if every heart took in the simple but vital fact that the Lord is there.