(Matt. 18)
A main design of the Holy Spirit in this Gospel is to mark, not only the true glory of the Messiah presented to Israel, but the consequences of their rejecting Him who was not more surely Son of David and Son of Abraham than Emmanuel and Jehovah. Hence here only do we find “the kingdom of the heavens,” here only in the Gospels “the church.”
But as our Lord in Matt. 16 speaks of building His church or assembly as a future thing, so uniformly is the kingdom of the heavens said to be “at hand,” never come. Indeed it is one pointed difference from “the kingdom of God” (though of course substantially the same, and so corresponding in Mark and Luke), that this last phrase admits of a moral force (Matt. 6:33), and might be applied when Christ exercised its power as a present thing (Matt. 12:28); whereas “the kingdom of the heavens” is a state of things, which supposes Messiah's rejection in order to His glory as Son of man on high. Accordingly in the great cycle of parables in chap. 13 the first is not a likeness of that kingdom; for the Sower is viewed as on earth. When He from heaven carries on the work in the world, the kingdom of the heavens is likened to a man that sowed good seed in his field. It was that kingdom in mystery according to the Gospel whilst the Son of man is above; it will be that kingdom in manifestation according to the prophets when He comes on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
The very aim of the first similitude is to show that under the kingdom in mystery the crop is spoiled by the enemy, darnel being mixed with the wheat, till judgment come in the consummation of the age. It will not be so for the millennial age when the kingdom, ushered in by a judicial clearance, is established in power. Matt. 17:24-27 in no way teaches the contrary, but witnesses to His divine rights, which He shares in grace (as far as this can be) with His own, without at all denying the necessity of the cross to free the disciples from Judaism or of His ascension to bring in the kingdom of the heavens. Conversion so as to become like little children is inseparable from being “born again,” as John 3 puts it, and goes with real entrance into the kingdom. Now as always is the heart purified by faith. It is the character of those actually blessed, when Jesus though come is rejected and does not reign manifestly. It is not the means or title to enter, which is and will always be of faith according to grace, never by works or making sacrifices, though faith working by love does deny self and suffer.
Obedience of faith is preeminently demanded now. Rom. 1:5; 16:16. Rom. 2:7-10 is not another way of salvation for another day (which is strange doctrine), but God insisting on moral reality before He develops the grace which can justify the ungodly through faith in Christ. The very terms “glory and honor and incorruption” imply Christian knowledge by the gospel, and neither a past state nor a future. The believer profits by such warnings as Matt. 18:6-10; unbelief explains them away for another time and other people, and will surely pay dear. “We (not others by and by) must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God,” say the apostles. If we heed Paul, we must now preach the kingdom, the gospel, and the church, all deeply (though I say not equally) concerning Christ's glory. The Lord was not referring to the crisis, but to all the time while He is away, any more than in the beginning of Luke 12 or the end of xiv. His own grace in saving the lost is the pattern of all loving care for the least and weakest, while He urges unsparing self-judgment, which are conspicuously, if not distinctively, Christian principles.
Chap. 16 gave us, on the evident and unbelieving rejection of the Messiah, His promise of the church, and to Peter His gift of the keys of the kingdom, the new and two-fold order of things which we know since Pentecost in contrast with Judaism, not future but present. So here in chap. 18 we have the spirit suitable to the kingdom, and practical ways for those within the assembly or church to be founded as distinct from the synagogue. Those the disciples deeply needed to learn, and we too. The allusions to the law, and Jewish imagery, do not touch this in the least, being found everywhere. It is the Christian, and the assembly, as the disciples would ere long walk in the power of the Spirit, far indeed from the earthly righteousness of the law. Every intelligent reader has seen that the passage does not go beyond the offended saint who seeks to win the offending brother, even to the point of bringing him before the assembly. Putting away is not spoken of here, but in connection with wicked leaven in 1 Cor. 5 What the assembly may do is not said, but that if the offender will not listen to it, he becomes, to the brother who in vain sought to win him, as one of the heathen or the publican. The individual's line is pursued to the end, which closes the account. Only in this connection we are told most solemnly of authority to bind and loose, and also of assured answer to united prayer, all being set on the blessed ground of the Lord's presence with even two or three gathered unto His name.
The various parts form one whole, the order is perfect; and the provision of grace is bound up with that which is most vital, the Lord's presence in the midst of two or three gathered to his name. Inspiration has nothing to do with the case, but authority from Christ for His own to act in His absence. Neither “Verily,” (verse 18), nor “Again,” (verse 19) severs; but as the one draws attention to the heavenly sanction of what they do judicially on earth (with which compare 1 Cor. 5 and 2 Corinthians the other assures of the Father's making good their requests in one mind, both having the blessed guarantee of the Savior's presence in their midst if gathered to His name. The whole characteristically savors of grace to and in the church throughout, if but two or three were thus gathered.
Nor can any authority be higher than His there. An apostle or a far less than he might rouse the saints to their responsibility; but it was theirs to bind and loose, as well as to expect answers from the Father, because He (Christ) is in their midst. I do not speak of power as in Acts 5, or as in 1 Cor. 5:5, and 1 Tim. 1:20, but of authority to act in His name—of course by His word in obedience. To put obedience in opposition to authoritative action is erroneous; it is obedience of His word on the contrary which gives firmness no less than humility: And the greatest of the apostles writes; “To whom ye forgive anything, I also": not, To whom I forgive, ye must, as man rising up against the Lord soon made it in the world-church.
So, in John 20:23, the disciples were charged of the Lord, as receiving the Holy Spirit: “Whosesoever sins ye remit; they are remitted to them; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.” Some divines, we know, have misapplied this to inspiration; others to miracles; but it is the inalienable place of grace and holiness which the saints have as God's assembly here below to represent Christ, in that divine love which is superior to evil where faith is discerned, and in that holy jealousy which discerns unbelieving evil under the fairest forms. As an eternal question the Lord alone decides; but we speak of the assembly as here privileged, and now as ever bound, to act for Him in the Spirit according to His word.
Hence our being in the church is quite consistent with our being also in the world field of the kingdom of the heavens, where wheat and darnel both grow together until the harvest.
A renewal of inspiration for future saints seems as dangerous a doctrine as taking away the kingdom and the church in Matt. 18 from those who wait for the Son of God from heaven.