A Brother Who Sins Against You
15 “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.16 But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
18 “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
19 “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”
Revival in the church is only possible when we see the holiness of God contrasted with our own wretched sinfulness and fall before a Holy God in total brokenness and humility to worship Him. Quoting from MacArthur's sermon (his 3rd one on this one passage!)....
Never, never is the church more like Jesus Christ than when it is engaged in dealing with sin. Never are you as an individual more like Jesus Christ than when you are seeking the purity of His church. And yet, on a wide scale, in the church across our land today, this is not in the thinking of the people...
Removing God's holy hatred of sin literally emasculates the church and hinders rather than helps evangelism....People think if you just talk about love and God's love and how God loves everybody, you're going to evangelize. But apologetically you have a tremendous problem, because on the one hand, you're proclaiming a God who is all love and then on the other hand, you are stuck trying to define to people how such a God can allow plagues and disease and disaster and war and famine and horror to exist.
And that is why we must proclaim a holy God who has a holy hatred of sin so that all of that stuff makes sense...And unless the church comes back to a message of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of sin, it will never be renewed and its evangelism will be shallow and ineffective and unable to explain what is patently obvious to an unbeliever who hears only a message of love how can a loving God allow what He allows...
true revival isn't people saying we've arrived spiritual. It's people being broken over the sense that they have not arrived....
The will of the Father is that His people be holy. That is the work of Christ in the church. He does it to the word, the spirit, and the work of the people. The word does its part as it's proclaimed. The Spirit does His part as He moves in the heart, but we are to join the word and the Spirit in human flesh and we are to act on behalf of Christ in the presence of His church to seek its purity and the prescription for that is in verses 15-20. We are to be Christ, moving in His church....
the place of discipline, the church; the purpose to gain your brother; the person, you; the provocation of discipline when do we do it?... whenever there's an unconfessed unrepented sin, whenever there's a continuing sin, whatever the sin, that's a provocation for discipline. The process of discipline, then, we saw in verse 15-17. Four steps, step one, go and tell him his sin alone, privately. If he responds that's the end of the process. If he doesn't, step two, verse 16, take one or two with you that his attitude and his response might be confirmed by two or three witnesses, which according to Deuteronomic law was the standard of legality. Now if he doesn't respond in that setting then, three, verse 17, tell the whole church and that means the whole church then goes to try to restore him....And if they still do not hear, then step four, treat them as heathen or a tax collector. And we pointed out that those were two people who identified or symbolized the idea of being an outcast. Treat them like you would somebody on the outside of your group. Put them out....Don't let them join the fellowship. Don't let them associate. Don't let them feel at home, make them miserable, turn them over to Satan, as Paul called it. But the second point was what? Put them out, call them back. Call them back....
You know when you come to the end of verse 17, you always sort of face the fact that there's that sense of inadequacy about this. If you're like I am, you say well, who in the world am I to go to somebody else and confront them with their sin?
I mean, this is a private world and everybody is sort of a private person. You just can't go blasting into someone's life and saying you are sinning. I mean, what right do we have? I'm not an apostle. I'm not perfect. And then people want to misinterpret Matthew 7, "judge not lest ye be judged." What right do we have to do that? How can we possibly publicize people's sin to the whole church and send everybody out after them and how can we put people out of the church publicly? I mean, doesn't this seem like we're going way beyond the bounds that would be permissible to us who are ourselves weak and failing sinners.
What is our authority? By what power do we do this? By what right do we do this? And that we find in verses 18-20 and this is the absolute climax of this text. It's hard to do this. It's a difficult work to do, but it must be done. And beloved, it must be done if ever the church is to know real revival and real renewal. And all the effort to have renewal without ever confronting sin and without ever proclaiming the holiness and the fear of God is just absolutely wasted effort. We must do this though it's difficult, but what is our authority? Two reasons why we have authority. Two reason, number one, the Father in heaven acts with us. Did you get that? You ought to write that in the margin of your Bible somewhere. The Father in heaven acts with us....
It is beyond conception that I could be acting in concert with the infinite holy God. But that's what it's saying. Look at verse 18. "Truly I say to you," it's a good thing He put the word truly there, because it's so hard to believe, truly, "whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven. Whatsoever you shall loose on earth, shall have been loosed in heaven."
Now that may seem at first obscure to you, but we've studied the same terms in Matthew 16:19 and in John 20:23 some years ago, because they appear there. These are rabbinical terms, very familiar to the Jewish audience. Very common terms to Matthew and to our Lord living in that time. They simply refer to the rabbis either binding someone's sins on them or loosing their sins from them. And it basically is the idea that you're either saying to someone your sins are bound you or your sins are loosed from you. In other words, you're still under the bondage of sin or you're free from sin. And the verse says, "that whatever you bind on earth," in other words, when on earth you say to someone you are still bound with sin, when you say that on earth, it'll already have been bound in heaven. Now one earth when you say to someone your sins are loosed, in other words, freed...you're freed from them, heaven will already have done that as well. That's a perfect passive form which means it's already been done with continuing results. In other words, when the church finally gets around to saying your sins are bound on you or your sins are loosed from you, the church is then beginning to act in accord with the Father who's in heaven, who's already said either their loosed or their bound based upon whether the person responded to the conviction of sin or not.
Now the point is this, a very simple point, heaven ratifies what is done on earth when the church follows this process of discipline. That's exactly what it means. Now that's authority. Listen, if you're a sinning person in the church and somebody goes to you and you don't repent and two or three go to you and you don't repent and the whole church is pursuing you and you don't repent, we can say your sins are bound on you and we can say that because we've gone through the process to determine that based upon the revelation of the word of God and when we say that we are simply saying what the Father has already said in heaven. In other words, the church is acting in the behalf of the will of God. The Father in heaven is acting with us. What a tremendous thought.
On the other hand, if you're in sin and we go to you and say you don't repent the first time and two or three go and you do repent and your heart is broken and you grieve and you turn from your sin, and we say your sins are loosed, welcome into the fullness of the fellowship. We are merely doing on earth what has already been done in heaven. So the authority then is that we are acting in behalf of the Father in heaven who's already done what is right to do in your case....And so I say it again, never, never is the church more like Jesus Christ. Never does the church more fulfill the will of God than when it acts out the principles of this passage. This is taking the kingdom in heaven and bringing it to earth. That's our authority. Heaven stands with us....
And verse 19 basically sort of repeats what it said in verse 18, because they're hard to believe. So hard to believe that the Father in heaven is acting with us. So He says "Again, I say to you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything," well, what things are we talking about here? What things are we talking about? Discipline, sin. Well, what two are these? Well, that's the lowest number of people who can confirm a person in a sin. So when you've gone and you've confirmed the person and you agree and you seek God's will on it, it'll be done for them by my Father who's in heaven. In other words, God's acting with you. The two here are the two witnesses who confirm the unrepentant heart or who, on the other hand, confirm the repentant heart. He starts with the lowest possible number. If two of you on up agree. In other words, you confirm the fact that this indeed is true then God is acting in heaven in accord with that....
I don't think this verse is talking about a blank check for prayer and it's been utterly misused. Just ripped out of it's context and these two people just have...most people think just mean any two people, and if you can just get two people to agree, God has to give you what you agreeing for.
I've heard that said so many times. That isn't the point. The two here are the two witnesses in a case of church discipline, a sinning person, and they really want god's will done and they really want what's right, but if they agree over this issue and the follow the biblical pattern, they can be confident that in their seeking for God's will they will receive it and God will do what's right....
not only does the Father in heaven act with us, but the Son on earth acts with us. This is a dual divine authority. The Son on earth acts with us, verse 20. And here's another verse that gets terribly misapplied, "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Now you've probably heard that with a dozen prayer meetings you've been at. If we can just get two or three people together God will be there. Listen, if you've just got one person, God's there, right? I used to worry about that when I was a kid because I heard some people preach on that sermon. "Where two or three are gathered together there am I in the midst." And I thought well, what happens when one person prays?
You see that isn't what that's talking about. What are the two or three in this context? Two or three what? Two or three witnesses and the discipline. You see that's why it's so important to teach the flow of the Scripture. Two or three witnesses, when you gather in my name, what does that mean? To do my works Jesus says. What's You work? I'm moving among the church. And when you gather together in my name to reflect my character and my will there am I in the midst of that.
Isn't that a great confidence? Not only is heaven acting...is the Father acting in heaven with us, but the Son is there on earth with us. Never are you more fulfilling the will of God and the work of the Son than when you're acting in the purging and the purifying of His own church. We all have to be a part of that beloved, ministers of holiness.
In closing, just a word about the victim in this. We really need to bring that brother back or that sister back don't we. You can't just let them go. You can't. They need to be brought back....What a ministry, the ministry of restoring the sinning brother. It is the key to purity of the church. It is the key to revival of the church, the renewal of the church, and the reaching of the world through a renewed church. We must hear these words of our Lord.
I especially appreciate what he said about those two verses being misused because of being taken out of context - it's almost impossible to overstate the importance of context when interpreting the Bible.
God wants His people holy.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Matthew 18:21-35
1 comment:
I agree very much with what you said at the end of the excerpt about the verses being taken out of context. I've heard them taken out of context numerous times. This makes much more sense to me.
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