Procedure for dealing with serious sins; Binding and Loosing; A Prayer for Agreement.
Mat 18:15 "If your brother acts wrongly towards you, go and point out his fault to him when only you and he are there. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.
Mat 18:16 But if he will not listen to you, go again, and ask one or two to go with you, that every word spoken may be attested by two or three witnesses.
Mat 18:17 If he refuses to hear them, appeal to the Church; and if he refuses to hear even the Church, regard him just as you regard a Gentile or a tax-gatherer.
Mat 18:18 I solemnly tell you that whatever you as a Church bind on earth will in Heaven be held as bound, and whatever you loose on earth will in Heaven be held to be loosed.
Mat 18:19 I also solemnly tell you that if two of you here on earth agree together concerning anything whatever that they shall ask, the boon will come to them from my Father who is in Heaven.
Mat 18:20 For where there are two or three assembled in my name, there am I in the midst of them." WNT
Introduction
Jesus is moving from a Brother who offends to a brother who sins against. This passage seems to contain instructions for church discipline. Here we have what we are to do when another believer [a brother] does something against us that we can only regard as sinning against us. L.M. p.466
Mat 18:15 "If your brother acts wrongly towards you, go and point out his fault to him when only you and he are there. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.
Notes
‘If’ - If thy brother - Any who is a member of the same ‘church denomination’, sin against thee, 1. Go and reprove him alone, - it may be in person; if that cannot be so well done, by thy messenger, or in writing, (which in many cases is likely to be the most effectual). Observe, our Lord gives no liberty to omit this, or to exchange it for either of the following steps. If this do not succeed,
Jesus specifies that firstly this should be between you and him alone. There should be no attempt to bring ths all out into the open. If the sinner be persuaded to repent and seek forgiveness the whole affair is all over.
If he listens to you, you have gained your brother; - you have won your brother.
The brotherly relationship has been disrupted by sin; now it is restored.
Mat 18:16 But if he will not listen to you, go again, and ask one or two to go with you, that every word spoken may be attested by two or three witnesses.
Notes:
This procedure is not infallible. There is every possibility that the offender will not alter his ways. It is possible but not probable. He may refuse to listen when the brother sinned against points this out to him.
But if he will not listen to you, go again, and ask one or two to go with you,
It is likely that after resisting the quiet approach of just one person when confronted by two or three others that he will not take any notice. The purpose of the two or three more is to establish a credible witness of two or three as insisted in the Old Testament. Deut 19:15 The church must not be slipshod in the application of theses procedures. They are witnesses of what was said.
Mat 18:17 If he refuses to hear them, appeal to the Church; and if he refuses to hear even the Church, regard him just as you regard a Gentile or a tax-gatherer.
Notes
If he refuses to hear them, appeal to the Church...If he refuses to hear and heed what was said or to hear imperfectly or with his own twist or slant, Tell it to the church. Say the whole story to the church.Tell them what has happened. The church has to now be the negotiator trying to bring the offender to his senses. When he sees the whole congregation opposes his behavior, surely he will repent.
However, there is a possibility that he may not.
regard him just as you regard a Gentile or a tax-gatherer.The believer must accept the reality of the situation. The person has done what he should not have done. He has remained hard and stubborn against first the one brother then the two then the church. He has taken the role of a Pagan or a tax-collector. He is acting like a person outside the People of God, a person who has sinned and will not repent.
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| John Wesley |
Let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican - To whom thou art, as a Christian, to owe earnest and persevering good will, and acts of kindness; but have no religious communion with him, till, if he have been convicted, he acknowledge his fault. Whosoever follows this threefold rule will seldom offend others, and never be offended himself. - Rev. J. Wesley.
Reproving a brother who had sinned was a positive command under the law. See Lev_19:17. And the Jews have a saying, that one of the causes of the ruin of their nation was, “No man reproved another.” On the word Church, see Clarke at Mat_16:28 (note).A.C.
Mat 18:18 I solemnly tell you that whatever you as a Church bind on earth will in Heaven be held as bound, and whatever you loose on earth will in Heaven be held to be loosed. WNT
Notes
Because this verse is in the plural and the context is the entire church here we have the church binding and loosing. i.e. what is forbidden and what is permitted. L.M. p.469
The church as a whole should decide such matters.
Truly I say to you, Whatever you shall bind on earth shall occur, having been bound in Heaven; and whatever you shall loose on earth shall occur, having been loosed in Heaven. MKJV
Shall be bound in heaven (estai dedemena en ouranōi). Future passive periphrastic perfect indicative as in “shall be loosed” (estai lelumena). In Mat_16:19 this same unusual form occurs. The binding and the loosing is there addressed to Peter, but it is here repeated for the church or for the disciples as the case may be. RWP
Mat 18:19 I also solemnly tell you that if two of you here on earth agree together concerning anything whatever that they shall ask, the boon will come to them from my Father who is in Heaven. WNT |
| Rev.Archibald Thomas Robertson's Word Pictures |
Notes
If two of you shall agree - ΣυμφωνηϚωσιν, symphonize, or harmonize. It is a metaphor taken from a number of musical instruments set to the same key, and playing the same tune: here, it means a perfect agreement of the hearts, desires, wishes, and voices, of two or more persons praying to God. It also intimates that as a number of musical instruments, skilfully played, in a good concert, are pleasing to the ears of men, so a number of persons united together in warm, earnest, cordial prayer, is highly pleasing in the sight and ears of the Lord.A.C.
Mat 18:20 For where there are two or three assembled in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
Notes
For where there are two or three assembled in my name….
For where two or three ... - This is a general assertion made to support the particular promise made Mat_18:19 to his apostles. He affirms that wherever two or three are assembled together in his name, he is in the midst of them.
In my name - That is,
1. By my authority, acting for me in my church. See Joh_10:25; Joh_16:23.
2. It may mean for my service; in the place of prayer and praise, assembled in obedience to my commend, and with a desire to promote my glory.
There am I in the midst of them - Nothing could more clearly prove that Jesus must be omnipresent, and, of course, be God. Every day, perhaps every hour, two or three, or many more, may be assembled in every city or village in the United States, in England, in Greenland, in Africa, in Ceylon, in the Sandwich Islands, in Russia, and in Judea - in almost every part of the world - and in the midst of them all is Jesus the Saviour. Millions thus at the same time, in every quarter of the globe, worship in his name, and experience the truth of the promise that he is present with them. It is impossible that he should be in all these places and not be God.
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