We have here the Spirit which characterizes the Kingdom, and what belongs to the Assembly, in duty and authority. Unless, as a little child, they should not enter (for it was not yet come) and the most like a little child should be the greatest. What is most opposite to the spirit in which men, accustomed to evil, make as much of themselves as they can-the world. The child is simple, has no consciousness of place or self-importance, and, in the practical sense, is guileless and confiding, un-habituated to evil. Then as to self, the ruthless excision of everything that would be a snare to lead one into this, or to one such little one believing in Christ. Offenses there would be, but woe to the world because of it. But Christ did not come to seek what had a place in this world or its esteem. He came to save the lost. These little ones had great value in His Father's sight, were honored by and present to Him. There Christ's heart could, in a certain sense, find complacency, rest; to Him the spirit of the world was a wearying thing. It is strongly expressed morally in this passage. The application of the parable of the lost sheep is very striking here.
Next, if a brother offended, what was to be done? Grace—gain him personally, if possible. If that could not be, take two or three. It would not then be mere personal complaint, but persevering wrong proved. If he would not hear them, tell it to the Assembly; if he would not hear the Assembly, they might treat him as a stranger to it. The direction is to an individual, how to deal with an individual, but, in doing it, the Assembly, as locally constituted, replaces the synagogue. Remark here, we have the Church, as Christ builds it, not yet built, and an assembly, not the Assembly as known to and established by Paul, but a local body, though from other Scriptures we fully learn they act for and in the unity of the Body, as t Corinthians. But the assembled two or three to Christ's name, have Christ with them, and here only, as to the Church, have we binding or loosing, not the Keys, they, as we have seen, are of the Kingdom of heaven. Christ's administration from on high, of and by the Word. So, as to prayer here, the agreeing of two or three obtained the request, for Christ still was there. This provision so graciously meets the Church in its ruin, but that has been spoken of elsewhere. It is the element of order before the public body was formed. The unity has not to be given up, but the resource for its practical ruin, as to its full development, is here. We have the general principle that, when two or three are gathered together to His name, Christ is there. Then comes the spirit of forgiveness, though I doubt not that there is allusion to the Jews being forgiven on Christ's intercession, and coming fully and completely under the guilt of rejecting Him by refusing the grace which went out to others after His death. I am not afraid of taking the broad ground of not measure in "as," but principle, just as one not poor in spirit will not have the Kingdom of heaven. I doubt not that grace makes him poor in spirit, still he must be it. This last is the principle of the administration of the Kingdom, and hence is individual. After Peter personally, binding and loosing belongs only to the two or three assembled. Paul may make good his claim in power, but in the orderly administration of what took the place of Israel, this it was. Paul stands alone.
The connection of the Kingdom is this, that when the Word which is now the instrument of the Kingdom begets and orders the path of the soul according to the spiritual nature of the Kingdom, it is God's mind to gather them in one around Christ. Then comes the action of the Assembly, having Christ there. The Holy Ghost alone can conciliate individual responsibility to Christ, and His Word, the first claim to it is absolute, with the suited action and walk of the Assembly, and by His individual action in grace and truth, forms them for their common action together. For the Spirit leads according to the mind of Christ. But the Kingdom always is individual, and regulated by the authority of the Word. They are the two things developed in grace—saving the individual, and then gathering together in one.