IT is impossible to overrate the importance and blessedness of the ground given by the Lord to His people, during the present dispensation, in Matt. 18:2020For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20). But in order that its true import and scope may be apprehended, it is necessary to understand the circumstances in the Lord's own history that led up to it, and the position which He Himself now occupies, as exalted to the right hand of God in heaven.
In Matt. 12 the Lord's rejection by Israel is complete; and He pronounces His judgment on the nation in consequence. At the end of the chapter He breaks His natural connection with the people, and makes the principle of association with Himself, and thus of all blessing, that of obedience to the word of God, and this would be evidenced by doing the will, as He says, " of my Father who is in the heavens." The bond would no longer be a visible and external one, such as it had previously been, but a moral and invisible one.
This principle involved an entire change in God's ways with man, and was in effect the passing from law to grace. Under law Jehovah came seeking fruit from Israel, as the vine of His vineyard, but found none, and moreover was Himself rejected. Grace now entered the field demanding nothing, but bringing with it that which would produce fruit. This was the personal ministry of Jesus, by which souls were saved and attracted to Himself.
Rejected by Israel, a rejection consummated at the cross, He lays aside, so to speak, His Messiahship, and takes the wider title of "the Son of man," and as "the Sower" goes forth to sow the seed of the word. This is grace taking with it that which produces fruit; and not now confining itself to Israel, but taking in the whole world as the field of its activities. This change introduces "the kingdom of the heavens;" the formation and mysteries of which we have unfolded in Matt. 13. The similitudes of the kingdom are not our subject, and we merely remark that "the kingdoms of the heavens" supposes the King absent in heaven consequent upon His rejection by Israel, and hence its formation and character are in keeping with this fact.
In Matt. 16 the Lord calls the Jews, headed up in their rulers, "a wicked and adulterous generation," and leaving them He goes with His disciples into the coasts of Caesarea-Philippi. Alone with them there, He asks them what men generally thought and said about Him. The answers they gave showed the general unbelief that was in men as to Him. Some said one thing, some said another. It was not the bold and fanatical rejection that characterized the scribes and Pharisees, but the indifference of men's hearts to Him that showed all con—science towards God, as well as all true knowledge of God, to be wanting. He then asks His disciples, "Whom say ye that I am?" To this Peter replies, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Peter's answer gave evidence of a work of grace in his soul that went far beyond all that connected itself with the promises and prophecies that relate to Israel and the earth, and became the occasion for the Lord to disclose the counsels of God concerning the church. He replies, "Blessed art thou,. Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in the heavens. And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my assembly, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it." The Father had revealed to Peter the personal glory of His Son; a glory that far exceeded that of the Messiah as the begotten Son of God in time, according to Psa. 2 He was " the Son of the living God "the One who had life in Himself, against which all the power of Satan, as having the power of death, should not prevail. Resurrection would be the proof of this, and He would be " declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead " (Rom. 1:44And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: (Romans 1:4)), but Peter knew this already by the Father's sovereign revelation, and upon this knowledge of Himself, as Son of God according to the divine glory of His Person, Christ would build His "assembly." In this new building Peter should be a prominent stone; and, He adds, " I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of the heavens; and whatever thou mayest bind upon the earth shall be bound in the heavens; and whatsoever thou mayest loose on the earth shall be loosed in the heavens." Thus the assembly, which He Himself would build, and the "kingdom of the heavens," which Peter should open and administer, take the place of Israel on the earth.
The revelation concerning "the kingdom of the heavens," and "the assembly" closed all testimony to Himself as the Messiah-the Christ, and "from that time forth," we read, "began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day." He thereupon teaches His disciples that if they would still be His disciples, and have part in the new order of things He had revealed to them, they must follow Him in His rejection by their nation, and if needs be suffer death as well. Their portion would be in heaven with Himself, and when He came as Son of Man in His glory He would reward them in accordance with their doings during His absence. To confirm them in their faith as to Himself, and the hopes He had given them, He gives some of them, as we learn in the next chapter, a revelation of Himself coming in His heavenly kingdom, again declaring to them, that as " the Son of Man," He must suffer death and rise again before that kingdom could be His, or theirs with Him.
Occupied with this kingdom according to their own fleshy thoughts, and unheeding all He had been saying to them about His sufferings and the path that would lead to it, the disciples, in Matt. 18 ask Him "who then is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens?" Their inquiry, while revealing a sad moral state in themselves, gave the Lord the opportunity of unfolding the great principles that belong to this new order of things that had been revealed to them.
The instructions given relate to the kingdom and the assembly, the subjects specially referred to chapter 16, and they suppose the Lord rejected by Israel and absent in heaven, with glory revealed in the intermediate chapter not yet to come.
He first declares the characteristics of the kingdom. Those composing it must bear a character suited to Him whose kingdom it was. For entrance into it, and for greatness in it, they must be as little children; weakness and helplessness characterize such. They cannot force their way through a hostile world; they are the objects of the care of another. Of Him who watches over the weak and helpless; "their angels," says the Lord, "do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." The followers of the absent king must be characterized by lowliness and dependence; and with this they must imitate their Father in heaven, who considers and receives the lowly and worthless, and whose will was not, " that one of these little ones should perish," and Christ Himself, the Son of Man, was come "to save that which was lost."
Another thing must also characterize them. As brethren they were to deal with one another in the spirit of grace. They were to pardon those that wronged them. God pardons those that have sinned against Him, and they were to do the same. In a word, they were to act as Christ had done; to represent Him during His absence as the witnesses for God on the earth. All this was individual, and acting in this way they would be the true children of the kingdom.
But beside their individual walk and testimony they had a corporate one as the assembly of Christ, and in this position they would specially represent Him on the earth. Israel, as having the throne and temple of God in their midst, being entirely set aside, the assembly takes the place of Israel on the earth. The government of God would henceforth be displayed in the assembly. Discipline would be exercised by it in Christ's name, and what it bound or loosed on earth would have the seal of heaven. Hence, when the individual exercise of grace was fruitless, and had to cease in the case of the one who wronged his brother, the assembly took up the matter, and declared the government of God with reference to the unrepentant brother, who was henceforth to be treated as a "heathen man" and "publican" by the one he had wronged.
In Matt. 16, where the Lord first speaks of the assembly, He says He will build the assembly. The aspect of it there is that of the whole assembly, in its divine completeness and durability, as built upon Himself, the Son of the living God. It answers to Ephesians 2:33Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. (Ephesians 2:3), and 1 Peter 2:4,54To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, 5Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:4‑5). In this building Peter was a stone, and had personally given to him the keys of the kingdom, with the special power of binding and loosing-an authority which he could not, and did not, delegate to any; nor was he to have any successor, as far as the Lord's words go. The outcome of such a thought is popery, where man usurps the place of God. The apostle Paul took no such place, and, when writing to the Corinthians, he says, "To whom you forgive, also I forgive." Not that the assembly were to forgive, because Paul had forgiven the man. If the assembly forgave, he forgave as acting with them.
In Matt. 18 it is the disciples generally who are addressed, and the aspect of the assembly is that of those gathered unto Christ's name. It is not a statement as to the whole assembly on earth, but as to those locally, but truly, gathered to His name. Numbers and apostolic powers have nothing to say to this. Those truly gathered to His name, if only two or three, would have Himself in their midst. His authority was in them and with them in virtue of His presence. What they did in His name, on earth would be ratified in heaven. Moreover He was in their midst according to all His privileges with the Father, and if but two, so gathered to His name, in the spirit of unity and agreement, asked anything in His name it should be done for them, of His "Father who is in the heavens." His presence with them thus gathered would be as cisions, as well as their prayers, would have the sanction efficacious for intercession as for authority. Their de-and ear of heaven, because they had Jesus in their midst.
The being truly " gathered unto my name" necessarily involves the presence of Jesus in the midst of those so gathered, and this carries with it, for all time, the power to exercise authority in His name, and the efficaciousness of united prayer, when addressed to the Father in His name. No scattering of God's children, or ruin outwardly of the church, can invalidate the precious and holy position of responsibility and privilege, thus given by Christ to His people during His absence. We would remark that the Lord's teaching here gives us indication that two saints, agreed about some request that they will make to the Father, can count upon the answer to that request because of their simple agreement. It is as being gathered to Christ's name as His assembly, and therefore having Him in their midst, that the promised answer hinges. To lose sight of this, is to falsify the entire position in which the Lord sets His people in association with Himself in this chapter.
The unity of the Spirit and the Lordship of Christ are thus bound up together with the blessed fact, not promise, that " where two or three are gathered unto my name, there am I in the midst of them." c. w.
(To he continued.'