Matthew XVIII
1. At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
2. And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,
3. And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
4. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Questions of gradation arise naturally in the working of human associations. There must be diversity of position, and diversity of position necessitates diversity of influence. There is, then, nothing unnatural in the inquiry which the disciples propounded; nor is there anything presumptuous in it, viewed simply as an inquiry. From the other evangelists we learn that the question became a controversy, and then the mischievous element was imported into it. “Being in the house he asked them, What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way? But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest?” (Mark ix. 33.) “There was a strife among them which should be accounted the greatest” (Luke xxii. 24). The inquiry was not confined to the earliest days of the Church; even now it is uppermost, and its settlement is impeded rather than facilitated by the complications of an artificial civilisation. We know nothing of pristine simplicity: the age is laden with decorations, certificates, and double-class honours; so that there is an earnest thronging towards the chief seat. It may be well in the midst of this excitement to consult Jesus Christ upon the question; to look at the principle which regulates position and authority in the Church.
The answer which Jesus Christ returned strikingly illustrates His method of putting the last first, and the first last. Who could have conceived that the least was the greatest? Who, but God Himself, dared have likened the kingdom of heaven unto the least of all seeds? Jesus Christ said, “Except ye be converted;” the word is very emphatic; it is equivalent to fj,eravorye, repent; except ye turn back, except ye take a directly opposite course, ye cannot so much as enter into the kingdom of heaven, much less have any position in it! Whoever shall humble {rairetvuiarj) himself, shall be greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
From this answer we learn that the conquest of self is the indispensable condition, not only of authority in the Church, but of actual entrance into the Church. In this, as in all else, Christ himself is the example: “He made himself of no reputation,” “He humbled himself,” He washed the disciples’ feet. The Christian is a man in whom the dominion of self is broken; so long as the fraction is held to be greater than the integer, the heart is at a great distance from Jesus Christ. This principle has important practical applications in all the relations of life. The man who works only for himself may be a theologian, but he is not a Christian; he is not working on the line which terminates in the Cross; the spirit of self-crucifixion is not in him. Christ will excuse ignorance, and will pity weakness; but He is indignant with vanity, with self-satisfaction, with self- worship. “Take my yoke upon you; learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.” “Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly; but the proud he knoweth afar off.” “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God?” The difficulty to be overcome in this movement towards a childlike spirit, is the difficulty of affectation. A simulated amiability is the most plausible of hypocrisies.
The wolf may appropriate the sheep’s clothing. On few practical subjects are greater mistakes made than on Christian temper. Christ was meek and lowly in heart, yet He sent a sword upon the earth; it should be said, however, that He never fought for the selfish, but for the universal; when He slew men, it was that He might heal them again.
5. But whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
6. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
This is somewhat of a deflection from the original line of illustration. Christ identifies Himself with the child-like man. To-day the world applauds the men who can show great results, not the men who exemplify a great spirit. A successful soldier excites greater enthusiasm than a patient sufferer, and is everywhere “received” with keener interest. It is now thought better to divide the spoil with the proud, than to be of a humble spirit with the lowly. One of the gravest complaints which Jesus Christ will urge against society, will be its neglect of modest men; not men of feigned modesty, who trifle away their lives in religious coquetry, but men who await encouragement, as folded flowers await the morning.
To offend the modest man is to offend Christ. In Greece and Syria, criminals were drowned; hence the force of the figure which is employed in the 6th verse. Truly the meek and quiet spirit is an ornament of great price in the sight of God! Society admires power, faculty, mastery of affairs, and richness of resources; but how little it cares for the modest man, the gentle spirit, the frail child! In this it is unlike Christ; He allies Himself with the “least of His brethren,” and sees Himself in a little child, as the sun might see himself in a drop of dew.
The whole paragraph — 1. Supplies a new standard of
P authority; 2. Furnishes a crucial test of temper; 3. Shows Christ’s interest in those who to the faculties of men add the simplicity of children; and 4. Points out as a crime what might have passed as a feature of manliness.
7. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!
Lange: “The world, as such, does not give, but receive offences from false disciples; and that in what may be designated its border-land, where it is represented by the little ones. The offence of these little ones would accumulate to such an extent as to bring woe upon the whole world.” Adam Clarke gives it as the opinion of some eminent critics, that our Lord ever used the word Woe, or Alas! (Oval) to express sympathy and concern. “It must needs be,” &c. (avdy/cr] yap eX.6elv, &c), is a difficult expression. The word avay/cr) occurs eighteen times in the New Testament, and is always rendered as implying irresistibleness or unpreventibleness, or great stress in one direction; for example, the unwilling guest who bought the ground said, “I must needs go and see it;” of Pilate it is said (Luke xxiii. 17), “For of necessity he must release one unto them at the feast;” and Paul, speaking of his preaching, said, “Necessity is laid upon me” (1 Cor. ix. 16). Lange says that the reference is not to fate, or to a metaphysical, but to a historical avayKr], or the necessary connection between guilt and judgment; and in this sense not merely allowed by God, but “ultimately traceable to the Divine counsel” (Meyer).
The general meaning may be taken as, — It must be, in a fallen world where the spirit is at war with God, and all original relations are dislocated, that scandals, persecutions, offences of every kind, will arise; depravity will express itself in action; but the consequences are bad, — bad to the doers and bad to the sufferers are the results of such action; however stormy, however tumultuous and chaotic the process, the retributive element is always asserting the honour and righteousness of God; the devil is represented by the “offences,” God by the penal “woe.”
8. Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.
9. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
Let every individual do the work of reformation upon himself, then the world will be saved from offences! A most practical “wherefore “! There are many persons who are ready to cut off other people’s offending hands and feet, forgetting that the command is to cut off their own (see the Analysis of chapter v. 29, 30). At all costs save the life! Hands, feet, eyes, may be cast away, but let the soul be held in godly discipline. As it must needs be, in a fallen world, that offences come, let every man watch himself, and reduce the extent of bad nature upon which such offences operate most disastrously; when the storm threatens, the mariner takes in his sail. The verses suggest as a subject — Individual discipline the best protection against social offences. Man can do more injury to himself than society can do to him. Not that which is without, but that which is within, defileth a man.
“To thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night to day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
Alford’s remark on the text is — “Wilt thou avoid being the man on whom this woe is pronounced? — then cut off all occasion of offence in thyself first.” Olshausen says:” The cutting off of hand or foot can, as is self-evident, be only taken as denoting something spiritual, since the outward act were
P 2 meaningless unless the inward root of sin were destroyed. Hand, foot, eye, here appear to be used by the Saviour to denote mental powers and dispositions; and He counsels their restraint, their non-development, if a man finds himself by their cultivation withdrawn from advancing the highest principle of life. The every-sided development of all our faculties, the inferior as well as the more elevated, is certainly to be regarded as the highest attainment; yet he who finds by experience that he cannot cultivate certain faculties — the artistic, for example — without injury to his holiest feelings, must renounce their cultivation, and make it his first business, by painstaking fidelity, to preserve entire the innermost life of his soul, that higher life imparted to him by Christ, and which, by the dividing and distracting of his thoughts, might easily be lost; nor must it give him any disturbance if some subordinate faculty be thus wholly sacrificed by him.” Lange gives a somewhat fanciful symbolism to the various bodily members: “The hand here designates special aptitude and inclination for ecclesiastical government; the foot for ecclesiastical exertion and missionary undertakings; the eye for ecclesiastical perception and knowledge. All these gifts should remain in subjection to the Spirit of Christ, and serve for the advancement and edification of the little ones, instead of inducing pride or contempt of inferiors.”
10. Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you. That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
Why deny the doctrine of angelic tutelage? The “little ones” is an expression which includes not only children in the proper sense of the term, but children in the heart-sense; the humble, the lowly. Christ distinctly states that such children have guardian angels, who through all time (Siairavros) stand in His Father’s presence. How this idea unites the worlds! The poet says that “star unto star speaks light; world unto world repeats the password of the universe;” but there is a closer connection still, — a connection between human and angelic life. How many a man, weary with long sinfulness, has said —
“I could have turned
Into my yesterdays, and wandered back
To distant childhood, and gone out to God
By the gate of birth, not death.”
It is for us to remember that the oldest man may even now sit at Christ’s feet like a little child! It is not a question of age, it is a question of spirit. If any man will boastfully take care of himself, then he may sever the bonds which bind him to the highest worlds; but if he will put himself under God’s care, the angels will encamp round about him, and bear him up in their hands, lest at any time he dash his foot against a stone.
II. For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.
There is something remarkable about the utterance of this declaration in such a connection. What has “saving the lost” to do with settling the question of gradation in the kingdom of heaven, — the question which immediately occasioned the discourse? The declaration had reference rather to the method of illustrating the subject than to the question itself. The “little child” was still in “the midst;” the discourse had been founded on that living text; and the meaning of these words must be sought in that circumstance. What had been lost? Evidently, the child-like spirit! Modesty, self-repression, every graceful attribute of created and dependent life had been lost, and the Son of man came to save it. His was a meek and lowly heart, and by so much He was qualified to recover the humility which man had cast off. If it be asked, had not these words reference to Christ’s sacrificial work? there need not be any hesitation about the answer, for of course they had. That work, however, was a means to an end: the end was the re-creation, the new birth of men, the recovery and preservation of the child-like spirit. We know that men have passed from death unto life, when they love the brethren with child-like love; in the absence of this love, all faith is void and worthless. That we are not exaggerating the importance of the childlike spirit may be proved by a collation of many texts. A few will show the drift of the evidence. “Put on therefore as the elect of God... kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering” (Col. iii. 12). “Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness” (Eph. iv. 1. 2). “Be clothed with humility” (1 Pet. v. 5). “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye ought to wash one another’s feet” (John xiii. 14). Christ’s whole ministerial course may be summed up in the great purpose of recovering and honouring the child-like spirit.
He appends an illustration: —
12. How think ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?
13. And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, He rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.
14. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
All that we know of the Divine government goes to show God’s minute and all-including care of the universe. Nothing escapes Him. Though He has so many stars, He would not lose one! Is the good Father indifferent about any of His children? Does He not attend most to the sick one, and brood most over the prodigal? God could not be content with anything incomplete. His eye would be on the vacancy. His thought would go after that which is lost.
The cross of Jesus Christ is God’s great protest against loss.
The word rendered “begone astray” {ifKav^Ory) is very suggestive; irXavdaOai, to wander, — hence, to wander from the truth, to stray from the right line or the appointed place. The word occurs thirty-eight times in the New Testament, and is variously rendered: for example, “ye do err” (Matt, xxii. 29); “are gone astray” (2 Pet. ii. 15); “to seduce my servants” (Rev. ii. 20). So much did God feel the wandering of the world from the right way, that He left the ninety-nine — the unfallen angels — on the hills (eVi to. oprj) and came to save the child, the little one, the child-like spirit, all that was modest, meek, and trustful; for it is not the Father’s will that the least of the little ones should perish.
There is undoubtedly here a spring of the richest comfort to parents, whose children have been removed by death. No little child is lost. No bud has been thrown away by the heavenly husbandman.
Looked at homiletically, the paragraph shows: — 1. That God is the shepherd of the flock; 2. That His love is impartially shown to all who are in His fold; 3. That the salvation of the least is worth all the efforts of the Highest. Imagination will instantly suggest the method of the shepherd who has left his fold on a mission of recovery.
The subsequent paragraph is in exact accord with the discourse now concluded: —
15. Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
16. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
17. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
1 8. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
The treatment of erring brothers is one which makes a heavy demand on the child-like spirit. It is possible for any man to be amiable under amiable circumstances; what if the circumstances be not amiable? Looked at from what may be called the primeval point, nothing could well be more monstrous than the conception that brothers could possibly “sin” against one another. How did the antagonism begin? Not between brother and brother, but between man and God. The primary relation was disturbed, and as a necessary consequence all the subordinate relations were disorganised. The beginning of evil was between man and God, — a most startling and most impressive fact. There is not a man in heaven who has not offended God. From Adam unto the last regenerated sinner who entered heaven, every man has been at war with God! Why point this out? To show that the cure must begin where the disease began. The disease is fundamental, the cure must be fundamental. Man cannot treat his “brother” properly until he has been put into a right relation with God. It was man’s religious nature that fell, and in its fall it brought down the whole manhood; and the only hope for a thorough and durable restoration of a right understanding between man and man is in a right understanding between man and his Maker.
In this method of attempting to “gain a brother,” we find — i. Privacy; 2. Witness; 3. Discipline. Human influence is, of course, greatly affected by circumstances. An offender may be subdued when confronted alone; he may be irritable and defiant in the presence of a third party. Jesus Christ says, — Give the erring man every advantage; don’t goad or exasperate him; don’t expose him to needless humiliation. Besides the deeply religious tone of this method, there is, what might have been expected from the Son of man, a perfect adaptation to the peculiarities of human nature. “He knew what was in man.” How much of the child-like spirit is required, to go to a man who has injured, insulted, defied his brother!
The subsequent directions as to the treatment of an offending brother show most impressively Christ’s recognition of the judicial and penal authority of His Church. All matters are not to stand over until the last assize. Certain things are to be dealt with finally here and now. What a chasm Christ allows, — “an heathen man and a publican.” But even then the man will not be hated or injured by the child-like spirit; we are to love our enemies, and pray for them that despitefully use us. What a strain upon the child-like spirit! No offending man is to be cast off while any effort can be made to save him; — go to him alone, take witnesses, consult the Church, and if the obstinacy continue, let him be given up. A faint emblem of declining God’s own last offer of gracious treaty!
Christ says (verse 18) that the deed of alienation shall be ratified in heaven; or if the event should turn otherwise, if the offender be forgiven, that also shall be ratified in heaven. There is one common law throughout Jesus Christ’s dominions, — right never changes, wrong is wrong everywhere. Whither, then, can man flee from Christ’s spirit? In heaven, in earth, in hell, the law is the same.
Christ now takes a step farther in showing the union of the worlds. He says: —
19. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
20. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
That is the true binding or the true absolving, — acting in harmony with the Divine will as revealed in answer to prayer. Not acting on the strength of mere natural sagacity. “To bind is to declare a thing forbidden, i.e., not to be done under pain of the Divine displeasure” (Valpy); but the Divine mind can be ascertained only by prayer, The expression “shall agree” — (o-vfj,<fpa)V7ycrapcnv=conseiiserinf) — is emphatic; the two who pray must be of one heart, and must speak with one voice, if they would prevail with the Father who is in the heavens. The prayer must be a symphony, — the voices going together without discord. We find a form of the same word in 2 Cor. vi. 15, where the Apostle asks, “What avfxcjxovrjis (concord) hath Christ with Belial?” — there is no symphony, the chord is broken, they cannot be harmonised.
What is the reason of this prevalence in prayer? The answer is — Christ is in the midst of them. This affirmation proves: — 1. That Christ is identified mediatorially with all effectual prayer; 2. That Christ is interested in the deepest experiences of the human heart; and 3. That Christ is omnipresent. As if Peter could not forget what had been said respecting the treatment of an erring brother, he put a question which was intended to draw out further information upon the point: —
2i. Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
22. Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: butr Until seventy times seven.
This answer shows: — 1. The temper of Christianity, — forgiving; 2. The incomparable beneficence of Christianity, — not seven times, but seventy times seven; 3. The human sympathy of Christianity, — all this to gain an erring man! As if too much could not be done! And how this doctrine was seconded by Christ’s own deeds!
23. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants.
24. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.
25. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.
26. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
27. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.
28. But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest.
29. And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
30. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt.
31. So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done.
32. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:
33. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?
34. And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.
The principal ideas suggested by this parable are: — 1. The kingdom of heaven recognises individual responsibility, — a king would take account of his servants; 2. The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of justice, — “his lord commanded him to be sold,” &c. (verse 25); 3. The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of mercy, — “the lord of that servant was moved with compassion;” 4. The kingdom of heaven teaches that personal obligation should become a social benefit, — he who has been forgiven should forgive; 5. The kingdom of heaven having failed in mercy will have recourse to absolute justice, — “his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.”
35. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.
We have seen the parabolic illustration: now we see the practical result. Taking the parable as our guide, we may affirm this principle of the Divine government to be: — i. So simple that all may understand it; 2. So just that none need complain of it; 3. So merciful that all may hope from it; 4. So watchful that none can elude it.
GENERAL NOTE ON THE CHAPTER.
Christian life, subjective and objective, is entirely a question of the spirit. It is not a question of mere identification with manners and forms which have a place before men; it is the bowing down of the heart in perfect lowliness before God, a thing which cannot be done but through the mediation of Jesus Christ. The influence of Christian men will be in exact proportion to the intensity of their Christian spirit. Their dogmas may be correct; but if they manifest a haughty and self-seeking spirit, their theology will be rendered powerless by their lives. In all other departments of human inquiry or human education, the quality of the spirit is of inferior consideration. In mathematics, in natural science, in philology, there is nothing to prevent an immoral spirit making the highest attainments and exercising the widest influence: but no man can so much as enter the kingdom of heaven if he approach otherwise than in a lowly spirit. The right spirit will be anxious to discover the right doctrine; and the right spirit will defend the right doctrine by right methods. The right spirit will neither seek controversy nor shun it; but being called to it, will conduct it with a gentleness and charity, magnanimity and trustfulness which will add the beauty of grace to the strength of argument. It would be a profound mistake to imagine that a child-like and a childish spirit are synonymous. There is nothing puerile, vapid, or amiably weak about Christianity. It has been too commonly supposed that any imposition might be attempted upon a Christian; he has been thought deficient, if not in sagacity yet in spirit and force of character. It is a popular error respecting true power; it is forgotten that self-repression is more forceful than the most boisterous demonstration of anger; that the silence which comes of high discipline is more impressive than the storm of lawless passion. Not only is the child-like spirit compatible with the highest quality of character, but the highest quality of character is unattainable except through the child-like spirit. “He humbled himself... wherefore God hath highly exalted him.”