“If your brother sins [against you]...."
Mt18:15-20
This passage explains how Christians are to fulfill the teaching in what has gone before (18:10-14). There a parable has been told of the sheep that has gone astray. How to bring back the lost sheep is explained beginning with the words: “If your brother sins….” The issue here is not forgiveness but the sin of one member of the community. Every effort is to be made to bring the erring brother to repentance: first in private, then before a few, finally before the whole assembly of disciples. If he is still unrepentant, he must be excluded from the assembly of the new Israel. The decision of the Church will be the decision of God: as he inspires them in making the decision, so he will honor it; and Christ himself will be with them, guiding them and directing them.
v. 15. “If your brother sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.
Your brother: another member of the Christian community.
Against you: This should probably be omitted as in some of the most important manuscripts.
If he listens to you: If he pays attention to and acts upon what is said by repentance. Behind this verse lies an OT passage which was frequently quoted by the first Christians: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with [same word in Greek as “tell him his faults” in this verse] your neighbor, 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 neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord (Lev 19:17f). Matthew will refer to this passage again in 5:43; 19:19; 22:39.
v. 16. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’
If a private rebuke fails, then, before the matter is brought before the Church, it must be heard before one or two others, in fulfillment of another passage in the OT (Dt 19:15).
v. 17. If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.
The church: See also 16:18. Here presumably the local congregation. If the sinner refuses to listen (that is, to repent), he is to be treated as a Gentile and a tax collector, that is, he is to be excommunicated from the congregation. A Gentile, because the Church is the new Israel, and so those who are not members of it are now Gentiles. A tax collector because tax collectors were excluded from the old Israel by their trade and their uncleanness.
See also 5:46f for the two words in the same context.
v. 18. Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Bind and loose: Here they may mean being banished from the community and recall to it. Josephus in “Jewish Wars” uses the words in this way.
“In heaven” means “with God”: God will stand by the decision of the Church.
v. 19. Again, [amen,] I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.
The idea of the relationship between earth and heaven, the Church and God, continues in this verse. The prayer of two who are in agreement will be heard and answered by God, just as the decisions of the Church are his decisions.
v. 20. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
Two or three: See v. 16. Even where there are only two or three gathered to-gether as Christians (in my name, cf. v. 5), Jesus is present with them.
The Jews had a similar saying: “Rabbi Hanina ben Teradion said: ‘When two sit and there are not between them words of Torah, lo, this is ‘the seat of the scornful’, as it is said: ‘Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful’. But when two sit, and there are between them words of Torah, the Shechinah (that is, the presence of God) rests betweenthem….”
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