The paragrah, 18:15-20, tells us how to carry through the teaching of the previous one, vs. 10-14. The 'brother who sins' is the sheep that goes astray. *
The situation Jesus has in view here is not quite the same as the one Peter raises in the next paragraph: Peter's question is about person-to-person offences, when someone does you a direct, personal wrong: "How often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?" But here Jesus is talking about someone whom you observe falling into sin, whether that sin directly affects you or not. Maybe the distinction is a fine one, because sins in general are usually against someone in particular. Nonetheless, there are times when we become concerned about the drift of a fellow Christian's life; we see them backsliding, and we hesitate to interfere. Jesus says we should, but with great care and sensitivity. Paul says the same sort of thing when he counsels Timothy to be kindly to all, and to correct offenders, where he has to, with gentleness. (II Tim. 2:24-25) Jesus has in mind relations between fellow church members - in v. 15 'Brother' means a fellow-Christian.
The real aim of the endeavour is to be the brother's repentance. Your object is to 'gain your brother, because he listens to you.' 'If he listens' means, 'If he heeds you,' i.e. so as to repent and change his ways. Jesus specifies the steps to be taken:
1. In private
Your first approach must be strictly private and personal. It is to be "between you and him ... alone." Nobody else at all is to be involved, at this stage.
To gain your brother means ...
i. To regain relations with him yourself -
restore him to his place with you.
ii. To restore him to his place in the family (v. 14 the
flock).
"Loving your neighbour as yourself" comes from Lev. 19:17ƒƒ: "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbour, lest you bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord." In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus picked up that Old Testament scripture and expanded it so we should understand its spirit and intention rightly (Matt. 5:43): "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy', but I say to you, 'Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.'" If we are to have that sort of loving care for enemies, we should certainly have it for our brothers and sisters in the fellowship. Again in 23:39 He will say, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart ... This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself." Here in ch. 18, Jesus is expounding the way that second commandment must take effect in the fellowship: we must not let sins go unchallenged or grievances fester. The poison spreads. It is the will of Christ that failures in discipleship and breaches of fellowship be tackled - not with a view to dismissal, but with a view to reconciliation and restoration. We are to fuse (back into the fellowship), not flatten our fellows. Our aim must always be to heal.
To watch a fellow Christian going downhill, and never do anything but make observations about it to other people is very wrong. Ideally we should talk about it to no-one at all, except the person himself or herself ... not at first. Think what schism and division might have been avoided in the Church of Jesus Christ if that simple exhortation had always been heeded. We disobey it so piously; we talk to others about it to "solicit their prayer," you understand. If I understand the Lord rightly here, we should not even do that ... not at first. When we do bring others in on our concern it must be, then, with a view to positive action, not just to pious hand-wringing with our fellow-gossips.
When it is right to make a first personal approach Jesus does not say. It seems obvious though that He expects us to do it as soon as we know a brother or sister has slipped up (with the emphasis on 'know'!), since we are going to talk directly to the person concerned. We are not likely to do that until we do. That is another reason why we should keep our counsel; gossip almost always starts before anybody has checked the facts. The same applies too when it is a personal hurt we have suffered. The sooner we make an attempt to put things right the better. The longer we wait, the harder it gets. To suffer in silence is one thing, and may be right for a while; to brood in silence is quite another thing, and is never right.
It is worth noting that the phrase "You shall reason with him" in the Leviticus passage is exactly the same as the phrase translated "tell him his fault" in Matt. 18:15. The Septuagint Greek in the Old Testament and the New Testament Greek is here the same - elegkon auton metaxu sou kai autou.
The Lord clearly counsels us to tackle issues on a one-to-one, face-to-face basis. He does not say, "Write your brother a letter"; He says "Go tell him." 'Face to face' is the Christian way. This does not sanction confrontationism of course, where you become a holy hound. Jesus Himself did not do that, as we know from His dealings with Judas. He did confront Judas with his sin; but He did it so quietly to begin with that no-one in the fellowship knew what He was up to. He did not hound him.
2. With only a few
The second step requires that others be brought in, but in a very limited way, and with a clear view to action.
Again, we should refer to the Old Testament background, Deut. 19:15: "A single witness shall not prevail against a man for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offence that he has committed; only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained." That verse is concerned only with disputes, of course, and Jesus is here concerned with disturbances in the fellowship of a more general nature. But the purpose is the same; and it is three-fold:
1. To correct any bias there may be. Our
private view of a person's failure may need correction, and we must
provide for that.
2. To establish the truth. Our assessments are never infallible. On
the basis of that simple observation the jury system of justice
rests. It needs more than one to get at the truth of a thing.
3. To provide help. The reason 'visitors' are brought in is not only
to "establish a charge." Their task may not be to condemn at all, but
to help. And the one who makes the accusation may be in need of help
every bit as much as the one accused.
It is a curious fact that we sometimes hate, not only those who have wronged us, but those whom we have wronged. Conscience does a loop the loop; it inverts. Instead of hating ourselves for what we have done, we hate the person we have done it to. The wrong we have done them makes us afraid of their reprisal, so we dislike them ... and the dislike grows. Guilt makes us enemy to those we wrong. Often the wronged person is as much in the wrong as the mischief-maker, and needs help no less.
The Rabbis used to say: "Judge not alone, for none may judge alone save One."
3. To the church
The third step is to bring the issue before the church, but only when the first two have failed. The reason will be expanded in vs. 18-19, where Jesus talks about binding and loosing, and agreeing together.
Notice that the Lord says the matter is to be taken to the church, not to the Courts ... as Paul was careful to say in I Cor 6:1-8. The church is not thought of as a court room but as a counselling room. Love, not Law is the Christian resource for settling differences.
I sometimes think our best interests are not always served by conducting church business meetings by Committee Rules. It might help sometimes if there were Arbitration Procedures too, so to speak. In general the committee system serves us best because (as in so many other areas of community life) laws have to be made to contain the trouble-makers rather than to guide the peace-makers, and those laws sometimes work against justice. Our aim in Members' Meetings ought to be, not to get a majority, but to be able to say, "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Acts 15:28 - that was said about the settlement of a dispute!)
But we should not miss the point Jesus now goes on to make: Impenitence puts you out of the fellowship. The impenitent must be treated as ...
1. A Gentile, because the Church is the New Israel. A Gentile was anyone not a Jew. Sinning believers who will not repent are to be regarded as outsiders.
2. A Tax Collector, because what disqualified them was their persistent betrayal of the fellow-countrymen. They made a career of it. **
Breaches of fellowship really are an 'offence' in the eyes of Jesus. The fault has to be squarely faced, and it is as an outsider that the offender must be approached.
But we must not lose sight of the drift: it is to fuse, not flatten our brother, that all this is to be done. The fact that they are to be regarded as outsiders does not mean that they are to be left outside. Tax collectors and Gentiles, in the mind of Jesus, are there to be brought in. So though we treat them as outside the fellowship, our aim is to bring them back in, restoring them to their place in it.
"Whatever you bind on earth shall be what is bound in Heaven."
Jesus has said this before, to Peter. (Matt 16:19) We need not repeat here what has already been said under the heading of 'The Keys of the Kingdom' in the chapter on the Great Confession. We need only underline the point already made that the rule of God which is to prevail in the Church is the rule of forgiving love. In language that leaves no room for doubt at all, He will say that next in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant .
"Whatever two shall agree on" has to be understood the same way, of course, as the way Jesus introduces this statement indicates: "Again I say to you ..."
"What you agree on" means "What God has inspired you to agree on." God cannot be controlled by our collusion. We must not assume, just because two of us agree that it would be nice to make a million, that God is bound to oblige. Prayer is under consideration here; God must be party to the agreement too. As W. E. Sangster once said: "Selfish sincerities are not prayer, and they are not answered."
Finally the lovely saying with which this paragraph ends: "Where two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst of them." It is possible that Jesus is giving a familiar saying among the Jews a new twist of His own. The Rabbis used to say: "When two sit and there are not between them words of the Torah, lo, this is 'the seat of the scornful.' But when two sit, and there are between them words of the Torah, the Shekinah rests between them." (The Shekinah was the luminous mark of God's personal presence in the Tabernacle.) The Torah was the Mosaic Law. But as John reminds us, "Through Moses the law was given; through Jesus Christ came grace and truth."
The Lord in the midst, not the Law, is the glory of Christian fellowship.
"In My Name" means in harmony with My revealed character.
We should not miss the primary meaning which this promise has in context. In this paragraph the chief reason why two or three will be gathered together is to "shepherd a straying sheep." When they get together to do that, the Lord will be in the midst of them, so ...
1. They have His authority in what they
do.
2. They have His enabling in what they do.
3. They have His Spirit in what they do - the Shepherd
Spirit.
Clearly it is the whole process of good order and reconciliation in our church life that is in view, not just our meeting together for any and every purpose. ***
* Note the chiasmic structure to this
paragraph (See Introduction)
** Jesus has grouped these two classes together once before in Matt.
5:46-48, "If you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do
not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your
brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the
Gentiles do the same?" That underlines the qualitative 'love'
difference there must be between unbelievers (even the best) and
believers.
*** Remarked an old divine, "I am so glad that He said two or three,
and not twoscore, or two hundred, or three. He knew exactly how
things would turn out!"
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