and said, Verily I say to you, Unless ye are converted and become as little children, ye will not at all enter into the kingdom of the heavens.
The disciples asked who would rank highest in the kingdom of heaven. The Lord answered by setting a small child in front of them. Instead of ranking them, He raised a far more serious question: whether they would get in at all.
Their question showed what they were really after:
They were after greatness — and that in the very thing they admitted to be the Kingdom of heaven. Yet in their thoughts they were making it nothing more than a kingdom of the Gentiles, a place to satisfy ambition and self-seeking, as they are shown later. Here a little child could be their teacher.
The ESV says "unless you turn"; older translations read "unless you are converted." The word behind both means turning in a new direction — away from what a person served before, and toward God:
This is from epistrephō, "to turn to." In Scripture it is the real effect that accompanies the new birth, a turning to God. It comes out beautifully in the Thessalonians, who "turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God." Without conversion they could not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Commentators point to something deeper behind the turning:
Now this is what is worked in a soul when it is converted: there is a new life given, even Christ. So there is much more than a change. That would fall very far short of the truth about a Christian. Of course the Christian is a changed man; but the change is because of something still deeper. A Christian is a man born again, with a life now that he did not have before. It is in this way that he becomes a little child.
This is why writers connect the scene to the Lord's night conversation with Nicodemus, the religious teacher told he must be born again:
What the Lord tells His disciples here is practically the same thing which Nicodemus heard from His lips in that night visit. The kingdom must be entered, and that means conversion, to turn about in a different direction, and become as a little child — in other words, a new life is given, a new existence begins, the believer is born again and enters the kingdom as a little child, as he entered by natural birth into the world.
The comparison reaches back to how every person enters this world:
The little child, as a picture, reminds us how God has arranged for people to enter this present life — in real lowliness and weakness… It is the same at the start of spiritual life. We enter it not as people who have done something great, but in weakness and poverty, to receive grace we are not owed. The end is like the beginning. We grow by grace. At the end, as at the beginning, what we receive is salvation. Reward at last is not a claim but mercy.
The disciples asked about position; the reply moved the whole subject back to the door:
The answer made it perfectly clear that the only way of entrance into the kingdom was by becoming small, not great. As the result of conversion a person humbles himself and becomes like a little child. Apart from this one is not in the kingdom at all. Then as we enter, so we progress; and so the humblest is the greatest in the kingdom.
Everything turns on knowing what this word means:
The Saviour showed plainly how necessary conversion is when He said, "Unless you are converted and become as little children, you will in no way enter into the kingdom of heaven." The statement is startling in its firmness. Put in that form, it makes us stop and ask what this conversion means. Any misunderstanding here would clearly be fatal to any of us.
Writers are careful, though, about how the words apply to the men standing there:
In correcting their mistaken ideas, the Lord begins at the very foundation. Ambition and self-seeking would not give them a high place in the Kingdom. These things would keep them out of it altogether. The very first thing needed would be to lay all this aside and be converted. Not, of course, that the disciples were not converted; but the Lord is dealing with the broad principle of entrance.
- Ambition — Their question "who is greatest?" showed hearts that treated the kingdom as a place for self-seeking.
- Turn — To be converted is to turn to God. It is the real effect that goes with new birth, as when the Thessalonians turned from idols to the living God.
- Life — Behind the turning is something deeper than reform: a new life given, so a person is born again, not merely improved.
- Littleness — We enter spiritual life as we enter this one: in weakness and poverty, receiving grace we are not owed. Reward at the end is mercy, not a claim.
- Entrance — Greatness is settled at the door: the way in is by becoming small, and the humblest inside is the greatest.
Whoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, *he* is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens;
The disciples asked who ranks highest in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus answered by setting a child in front of them. His reply does not deny that some are greater — it changes what makes them so.
The disciples had a model of promotion in mind, drawn from how a king rewards his loyal men.
Our Lord shows here which moral feature suits the kingdom of heaven. He sets it against Jewish thoughts of greatness. They were still thinking of the kingdom of heaven according to Old Testament pictures of it. When David came to the kingdom, he raised his faithful followers according to their previous worth. There are the three great chiefs, then thirty other warriors, and so on. Each man's place matched how he had carried himself in the day of trial. The disciples came to our Lord with similar thoughts, full of what they had done and suffered.
Their question assumed a ranking. His reply changes the ground on which a person rises:
Does He deny that there is such a place as greatest? Does He say we shall all be equal in that day? He does neither. He sets their love of self against what will be the true ground of exaltation — personal love and devotion to Himself.
The verse is easy to misquote. It is not asking us to copy a child's act of self-lowering, because a child never performs one.
He does not say, as people often misquote it, "Whoever humbles himself as this little child humbles itself is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." We cannot picture a little child humbling itself. Someone who is already in that place does not need to come down to it. He is already a little child. The Lord's words mean this: "You must become as this little child, if you want the highest place in the day of my kingdom glory." The words "a little child" (paidion) speak of infant helplessness. It is the same word the apostle John loves to use in his first letter, chapter 2, where he distinguishes "Fathers, young men, and babes."
What the Lord loves in a child is not innocence but the absence of self-concern.
The spirit He loves in His disciples is to be nothing. It is a spirit of lowliness, dependence and trust, with no thought of self. This is the natural feeling of a little one. It may be spoilt; but naturally it looks up to its parents, and thinks there is nobody like them.
Another writer ties this to the new birth. Becoming a child is the entrance; living as one is the rule:
You must enter the kingdom, and that means conversion — turning about in a different direction and becoming as a little child. In other words, he receives a new life and a new existence begins. He is born again and enters the kingdom as a little child, just as he entered the world by natural birth. So He gives the great marks of those who have entered the kingdom, and the principles that are to govern them. It is lowliness, littleness and dependence.
The One speaking had already lived what He said.
The first man sought to exalt himself and believed the devil's lie, who kept back the truth. But the Lord Jesus humbled Himself (Phil. 2). He went down lower than any, He goes up higher than any; in all things He must have the pre-eminence. That is the principle here: he who goes down shall be raised up.
For us it is different. The low place was always ours:
None is so great as the Holy One Whose words we are listening to! And who could stoop so low as He did? As for us, in taking the low place, we only take our own.
Entry is one thing. Staying childlike is another.
So we have to become very small to enter into blessing. The next verse teaches us to continue small. Even King Saul was little in his own sight to begin with (1 Sam. 15:17); exaltation and power drew out his inherent pride and stubbornness, to his ruin. A later king, Uzziah, walked well "till he was strong. But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction" (2 Chron. 26:16).
The choice is not whether we become nothing, but how:
If we do not know how to be nothing, God must make us nothing. The place of nothingness is that of moral exaltation (Matt. 18:4).
- Down. The disciples measured greatness by service done, as David ranked his men. Christ answers with a child, and points the other way.
- Down means become, not perform. A child never humbles itself — it simply is small, so the call is to become that, not to act it.
- Down is a nature. Lowliness, littleness and dependence mark the new life. Conversion starts it; these traits then govern it.
- Down was His road first. He went lower than anyone and rises higher than anyone. When we take the low place, we only take what was always ours.
- Down is chosen or given. Saul and Uzziah began small, and strength ruined them. If we will not learn to be nothing, God will make us nothing.
and whosoever shall receive one such little child in my name, receives me.
The disciples had asked who would be greatest, and Jesus set a child in front of them as the answer. Verse 5 turns the lesson outward, from what they must become to how they must treat someone who is already that small.
The chapter first tells the disciples to make themselves small. One writer links that humbling to the way we then regard others:
It is not only becoming like little children as born of God. There is also the practical humbling of ourselves. And not only the humbling of ourselves, but how we feel toward others: "Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me." However lowly the Christian may be, we should see him with all the glory of Christ. That is what receiving him in the name of Christ means. He does not defend his rights or claim his own glory. He is willing to bend and make way for anyone, while he knows the glory that rests on him.
Nothing about the child earns this welcome. The Name does all the work:
He then takes a child and declares that whoever receives such a one in His name receives Christ. And whoever receives Christ receives the Father who sent Him. The name of Christ is the touchstone, the only thing on earth really great by faith.
Take the Name away and the same kindness loses its weight altogether:
That child was an insignificant scrap of humanity. Yet to receive one such in His Name was to receive the Lord Himself, and also the Father who sent Him. Receiving a thousand such in any other name or on any other ground would mean very little. The Master Himself is so great that the relative position of His little servants is not worth arguing about.
The phrase shifts as the chapter goes on. In verses 2–5 a real child stands in front of them. By verse 6 the subject is "one of these little ones who believe in me." One writer holds both senses together:
At the start of the chapter, the Lord corrects the ambition of the disciples with the picture of a little child. A child is as far as possible from any such thought. But verse 6 makes it certain that He goes on to the "little ones who believe in Me." Still, before He closes the subject, it seems fitting for Him to comfort us about "little ones" like the one He called and set in their midst. He speaks more plainly here than anywhere else. How many die at an early age? Do they perish?
The welcome does not stop with the child, and it does not stop with Christ either. Bending down to the smallest person puts you in company you never expected:
The disciple who receives one of these little children in His Name follows the Lord in the path of true greatness. He will be stooping to the lowest in the Name of the Highest. Doing so, he will find himself in company with Christ, and to receive Christ is to receive the One who sent Him. So when we refuse self and refuse to push ourselves forward, we find ourselves in the company of Divine Persons.
A child can give you no advantage and no return favour. That is why the Lord chose one as the measuring stick:
A child could not give a man the dignity of greatness. But a person's genuine care for little ones shows whether he is morally great.
One writer names why this welcome carries such weight. He then turns it on our habit of dismissing believers we think little of:
The great thought put before us here is the Lord's identification with every little one. That means everyone who has become a little child, that is, born again. So when you honour one of the little ones, you honour Him. When you injure one of them, you injure Him. What glory of the believer this reveals! How this fact should teach us how to behave toward one another, and not to despise anyone who is Christ's. How ready we are to do this. This one is so little taught in the Word. That one is so ungracious. And with all our criticism we forget that he is, after all, one of Christ's own.
- Humble — the verse follows a call to make yourself small. The same grace makes you welcome others.
- Receive — the test is whether you make room for the weakest person, who can give you nothing back.
- In His Name — the Name gives the act its weight, not the child. The same welcome on any other ground counts for little.
- Christ — stooping to the lowest in the Name of the Highest puts you in company with Christ and the Father who sent Him.
- Greatness — honour one of His little ones and you honour Him. That, not rank, is true greatness.