The Authority Of The Congregation

Matthew 18 and the Misunderstood Meaning of “Where Two or Three Are Gathered”

Let me go ahead and read our text, which can be found in Matthew 18. The sermon is just on one verse, Matthew 18, 20, but I will read the preceding context. Matthew 18, beginning in verse 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 gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Truly 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. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. So as Josh said, this continues in the series, and last week Josh preached on the authority of Christ, and the idea there was that Christ's authority is not just the eternal authority that he has as the Son of God, but also a concrete authority that has been given to him by the Father as the incarnate Word to build up the church.

And if we are to be and build up his church, then we should be paying attention to the authority by which he does these things. And today, we begin putting that into practice by looking at what he says about how his church ought to be run.

We look at specifically this verse, Matthew 18 -20, for where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. Now when I think of this verse, the first word that comes to my mind is misunderstood.

In fact, I went and I looked at a list of misunderstood verses, and sure enough, whoever it was that compiled this list decided that this was up in the top three. Other verses I think of are maybe Matthew 7 -1 that says, judge not.

People like to use that to shut down any kind of criticism. Judge not. If that's really what that meant, then, you know, saying judge not would be another form of judgment, and it would be very self-contradictory.

But Jesus means that whatever standard you judge by, you should be willing to apply that own standard to yourself. It's a statement about hypocrisy. Another one I think of is Proverbs 29 -18 that says, wherever vision—without vision, the people perish.

That's frequently used to say, you know, the pastor needs to cast some vision so that the people can follow it. However, the point of that—while that idea is probably wise and very true—the point of that passage is instead that without prophetic vision, without a word from the Lord, the people perish.

And this is a time in the Old Testament before we had all the scriptures, and so people did need a prophet to come to them and give them the word of the Lord. So to use that to say that, you know, we need a vision or direction, it's not really getting at the point.

Which the point is that man did not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And when I look at this verse, for where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.

How is that frequently used? It's sort of a magic talisman for prayer, that if we're together, agreeing in prayer, the prayers are more powerful. Now, I think that's true. I think there is power in Christians coming together in prayer.

And I also think that this passage has some reference to that. However, the main thrust of this passage lies elsewhere, and that can be seen in the context in which it falls, where someone is being removed from the congregation.

So that context needs to inform how it is that we understand this. So as we look at this verse, we are going to ask ourselves several questions, just like happened last week. If you didn't notice last week, there were several questions that were asked about the passage.

Same thing here, we're going to ask who it is that Jesus is with, we're going to ask why Jesus is with them, when Jesus is with them, how Jesus is with them, and then last we're going to look at where the gospel is.

What is the gospel of this passage? And when we ask all those questions, what we're going to find is that Jesus is with the church to give the church the authority to discern the gospel, to pronounce judgments about his gospel, and this is something that we all should get excited about and be happy to participate in, is hearing his word and then applying it to matters of judgment.

Christ’s Presence with the Church

So this first question I have, who is Jesus present with? Well, very simply put, he is present with Christians. It talks about two or three gathered in my name. If people are gathered in Christ's name, then obviously these are Christians.

However, there's something more to it. He says of two or three. So this is not, is Christ present with us individually? He is. He's present through his Holy Spirit. However, this is talking about some special presence beyond that presence that he has with us individually.

It's about a presence he has with us corporately. And this is not just when an arbitrary group of Christians get together. This is about something more than that. And I have a little, I have a little game I want to play with you all, if you will indulge me for a minute.

So what do you call multiple buffalo together? Somebody. Somebody. A herd. There we go. A herd. Sheep. A flock. Okay. Good. Now harder ones. Lions. Okay. Otters. Does anyone know that one? A romp. A romp of otters.

Crows. Someone knows this. A murder of crows. Right. Quail. Covey? I think, I think that might be one I have written down as Bevy, but yeah, I think Covey also works. Porcupines. A prickle. A prickle of porcupines.

Owls. This is my favorite one. Owls. It was a parliament of owls. What about, and what about a group of disciples? A church. Right. This is talking about the church. So if you look at verse 17, he says, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

Let him be to you as a Gentile and tax collector. Sorry. And before that, if you refuse to listen, tell it to the church, and if you refuse to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and tax collector.

So this is talking about, this is talking about the church, not just when two Christians happen to walk beside each other, you know, that, that doesn't form a church. It is when a group of Christians is gathered together to define where Christ's kingdom, his heavenly kingdom is on earth, that we together are gathering as a church.

Christ's kingdom on earth. This is, this is who he was with. Now it has been objected that, well, you know, the church didn't exist back then. It didn't exist until Pentecost, and sure, it didn't have the same formality.

However, the Jews at that time were not unfamiliar with sacred assemblies. They were, they had synagogues in the New Testament. So this idea of disciples getting together and being a set-off people is not, not foreign to them.

So this refers to the church. Now if Jesus is present with his church in a special way that he's not present just with us individually, that needs to guide our thinking about what it is that we're doing as we are together as a church doing the things that a church does.

And so I hope as we continue asking questions, you'll be thinking, how is that presence supposed to guide my life, my actions, as I participate in this church? The next question I would like to ask you is why is Jesus present with this church?

Christ’s Authority to Render Judgment

Now to summarize, I would say he is present to grant us authority to render judgments. He's present to grant us authority to render judgments. And I'd say that on two accounts. Well, I could possibly say more, but one, if you just look at the passage that Pastor Josh preached last week, Matthew 28, verse 18, Okay, so Jesus says, All authority has come to me, so baptize.

He's giving them the authority to baptize, and then it continues, Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. When he's saying, I am with you, what is the point of his presence there?

The point of his presence is not, you will have this, you will have a lot of success as you evangelize. That might be part of it, but the point is that they have authority, they have authority to baptize, because all authority has been given to Jesus, and he is passing that on to the disciples so that they have the authority to say that this person is also a part of the kingdom of God.

And what is it that we see in Matthew 18? We see the opposite of that. They have Christ's presence wherever two or three gather to have the authority to say that this person does not belong in the kingdom of God.

Their actions are not reflective of the gospel. And the second thing I would point you to, to say that this is what Christ's authority, or his presence is for in this passage, is 1 Corinthians 5. If you look at 1 Corinthians 5, we see a different kind of presence, but a very similar situation where someone is being removed from the congregation.

In verse 3, Paul says, For though absent in body, I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Now once again, this is someone being removed from the congregation, someone who claims to be a brother, but does not live like one, and needs to be removed. And Paul says that his spirit, he is not bodily present, but his spirit is present.

Now why is Paul's spirit needed? What does he mean when he says that? He's saying that I have declared, as an apostle, that this person does not belong in the church. And so I am granting you the authority to proclaim this with apostolic weight.

So here you have another presence that grants authority to render a judgment. Now the Corinthian church already had the authority of Christ, but Paul is adding this additional apostolic proclamation that they are taking hold of when they gather to pronounce this.

So it is this authority to render judgment. It is also an authority to wield the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Now if that's not a phrase that is familiar to you, I will explain that. If you look at verse 19 in Matthew 18—so Matthew 18, 19—.

Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. Sorry, I need to go back one more verse. Verse 18. Truly, 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.

That is a phrase that didn't come too much earlier in Matthew, and if you're using the pew Bible, it's just on the other side of the page. So in Matthew 16, verse 19, when Peter says that Jesus is the Son of God, he responds and says, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

So when he uses that same phrase here in Matthew 18, he's letting us know that the keys of the kingdom are being used. They're being used to bind and to loose. Basically, to bind would mean to say that someone is guilty, and to loose would mean to say that someone is innocent.

To, by the word of God, bind someone or loose someone in the name of Jesus Christ. And how are these keys? If they are keys to the gate of the kingdom of heaven, then they are opening and shutting the doors, letting people in and out of the church, and declaring that even though we can't see the kingdom of heaven, even though it's invisible, we are painting a picture of it here on earth for the world to see.

It's very much like a forensic artist. The forensic artist only receives words to describe what that picture is, you know, this person had bushy eyebrows and a curly mustache, something like that. We are getting a picture, we are getting the gospel given to us in words, and we are painting a visible picture of that heavenly kingdom on earth by saying that this person belongs in the kingdom of God because he is truly repentant of his sins.

This person does not belong because they are not repentant as judged by us. This is a picture of what is going on. So this is something that Roman Catholics would say, since this is Peter in Matthew 16, belongs to Peter, but as you see in Matthew 18, it is the whole church that wields these keys.

It is not just one individual. It is the one, and then the one or two others, and then the whole church gathering together to wield the keys, to let people in and out. And that is why our particular church practices congregational voting, because this authority that Christ has given, he has passed on to his disciples to make such judgments, such proclamations about this kingdom of heaven.

So as we are, once again, as we are participating in church, we should be thinking about how it is that we are discerning the gospel, making biblical judgments according to his word. The next question I have for you is, when is Christ present with us?

Christ’s Presence in the Church’s Gathering

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. So he gives us a where, but it is very similar to a when. When two or three are gathered, so it is at the time of the gathering, and if I would, if I could read again from 1 Corinthians 5 that we were just looking at a minute ago.

He says something very similar, but with a when instead of a where. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus. So once again, removing someone from the body, in Matthew 18, where two or three are gathered, 1 Corinthians 5, when you are assembled.

This is the idea. It is when the church is assembled. Now, this might open up a can of worms, but I would like to, I would like to plant a little seed for you to think about maybe later, which is, what this says about the nature of a church is if the church's authority, Christ's presence, is with it when it gathers, what that says about churches that have more unique models of gathering, right?

Some churches have multiple services, not like ours, but where it's two different congregations celebrating the sacraments separately, or where you have churches that have multiple sites where you have two different gatherings, or I once, a year ago, met a man who has a church in virtual reality where everyone in the comfort of their own living rooms puts on goggles and, you know, takes a little wine and bread themselves while, you know, waving at people in virtual reality.

At the bare minimum, this first challenge is whether or not that can really be considered a church. And I would say that if Christ is present when believers gather as a church, then these models don't constitute a singular church, but distinct churches that are happening by themselves.

And that should, that should govern the way we think about these things. I don't think it invalidates all those things as churches, but it changes the way we should think about them as maybe not one church, but two churches, or three churches, depending on what the model is.

But this is not just when they gather. This is when they gather, like I said, you know, it's not just when a handful of the church gathers for Bible study or something. This is when they gather to pronounce judgment, as is happening here.

They are judging that this person does not belong. That is something that happens regularly, right, as we celebrate the Lord's tables. We gather together to make a statement about these people who participate with us are all members of God's kingdom, as it is expressed here on earth.

That is one example of that kind of judgment. That judgment also happens at meetings where we have congregational voting, and we admit people into the body, or remove people from the body. That is another example of where we are rendering such judgments.

And to show you that this is talking about judgment and not—and I'm saying judgment broadly, like I say, even gathering right now, as we're doing here for the table, that would even count in an implicit way.

To give you, to show you that a little bit more, if you look at verse 19, it says, again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask—okay, this is, you know, this matter of judgment that they're asking about—anything in English just looks very—it looks like a normal word that you use very frequently.

It's one word, right, anything. In Greek, this would be two words, any and thing separately, and then thing would be more like the word matter. In Greek, it's the word pragma. It means matter, and it is frequently used to refer to judicial matters, not just things in general, not just, you know, this chair is a thing, that other thing is a thing.

And so, for example, in 1 Corinthians 6, it talks about a judicial matter, and it says in 1 Corinthians 6, 1, when one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?

So when it says, when one of you has a grievance, you know what that word grievance is? It's pragma. It's not some word that means mourning. It's some word that means matter, and as I said, you know, with an emphasis on a judicial kind of matter.

2 Corinthians 7, 11 says, foresee what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, clearing, you know, in the legal sense. What indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment, at every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter.

Once again, pragma, matter. So when it says, if you ask about anything in my name, that anything is not about, you know, if we pray for a new job, yes, Christ answers our prayers and he loves it when we pray together, but this is not talking about asking for a job together in Jesus' name.

This is asking for his blessing as we render judgments together in Jesus' name, standing in his place. This is what we do. We are—do we have the ability to remove someone from the kingdom of heaven? We do not.

But we have the authority to stand where Jesus would be if he were on earth, and since he is not on earth, we stand here and we make proclamations in his stead so that others watching on can look at them as though they are statements that come from heaven.

Messengers sent by a king can get things wrong, they can misrepresent the king, but still they are to be regarded as having been sent by the king and delivering his message. And that is what we do when we gather, to make a statement about this is Christ's body.

This is one of his local churches that are a part of the large universal church. That is something to get excited about, that we have not been called just to come here and passively receive whatever is thrown at us, but we have come here to actively participate in defining Christ's kingdom on earth and expanding Christ's kingdom on earth.

Christ’s Presence by the Holy Spirit and the Mind of Christ

So the next question I would have us consider is how is Christ present with us? Now I've already answered that in part because the how is largely found in his authority, just like Paul's spirit is present.

Paul's spirit doesn't have, you know, magic teleportation abilities to come and visit the Corinthians. Paul's spirit was present to grant authority, and so that's the primary way. However, there is another way that is very important here, and that is Christ is present with us through the Holy Spirit.

If you look at, sorry to keep making you jump back and forth to 1 Corinthians, I probably should have warned you, but if you look at 1 Corinthians 3, if you look at 1 Corinthians 3 .16, it says, do you not know that you are God's temple, and that's you plural, you all, are God's temple, and that God's spirit dwells in you?

If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. So we are a temple of God. God dwells in us together, because Christ's spirit dwells in us together.

And that is how, one of the ways that Christ is present with us, and that is important for when we think about these judgments that we are rendering together as a body. If you look at chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians, in verse 10, it says, these things God has revealed to us through the spirit, for the spirit searches everything, even the deep depths of God.

For who knows a person's thoughts, except the spirit of that person which is in him? So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God, except the spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

And we impart this, not in words taught by human wisdom, but taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. So in this passage in 1 Corinthians, where he's very concerned about worldly wisdom versus spiritual wisdom that comes from God, he's saying that we have been given the mind of Christ, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, to discern what is true or false according to the word of God, according to the gospel.

Now that gives a very particular shape to the judgments that we are rendering together as a church, that we are to be judging things not based on human wisdom, but based on God's wisdom given to us in Scripture.

And it would be very easy for us to appeal to human wisdom so that we might raise up our own preferences, but this would be a model for disunity, right? And I can give you an example on this. Let's say that someone wanted to become a member of the church, we're all gathering to have a meeting to decide this, and we decide, well, you know, this person does live a Christian life, but they're rather smelly, and I don't think other people would want to join us, and they might shoo members away.

That would not be going by spiritual wisdom. That would be going by human wisdom. Or the opposite, we're meeting together to decide a matter of discipline, whether or not someone should be removed from the body, and we ask ourselves, should this person be removed from the body?

Well, you know, he isn't really living a Christian life, but I really like him. Or maybe he is living a Christian life, but I never liked that guy, I think we should just go ahead and get rid of him. That would be human wisdom, not spiritual wisdom again.

Judging things by the Gospel, by the Word of God, set before us. This, like I said, this is a model of unity, right? We all gather together, we're all—especially in this area, you know, we're very diverse people, we come from all sorts of backgrounds, we have all sorts of things that we prefer, ideas that we have in mind, and how is it that we can come together in unity?

How is that even possible? The thing that unites us, that shared interest, is the mind of Christ. It is not expected, as we gather to decide these things, that, you know, it'll be about 50 -50 and, you know, we'll kind of lean this way or the other.

It is expected that we largely agree in unity. How can that be expected of us unless there is some unifying feature, and that unifying thing has to be the mind of Christ, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.

So as we gather, once again, to expand Christ's kingdom, to do the work of building the Church, let us be considering, what is the mind of Christ in the matter? What is the Gospel? Now, I would like to also ask, what is the Gospel of this passage?

The Gospel of a Redeemed, Unified Church

I didn't come here to teach a Sunday School lesson, I came here to preach the Gospel. So let me tell you what the Gospel is of this passage. So first of all, the fact that you have people gathered here to render judgments shows that Christ has a redeemed people.

He has purchased us with his blood, dying, shedding his blood, providing forgiveness of sins, so that we could be gathered together as a people, his people, his kingdom. It is also a Gospel of assurance of salvation, because not only do you have salvation through Christ's blood and through his gathering, but as you look at this, and you have this mutual affirmation of brothers saying, yes, this person is also a brother, or watching out and saying, no, this person does not belong among us, this mutual affirmation provides assurance of salvation.

If you want to know whether or not you're a Christian, one of the things you can look at, you know, there's several things you can look at. You can look at your fruits, things like that, but one of the things you can look at is do other Christians say that I'm a Christian through the means that Jesus has given me, which is membership in a local church in his body.

This is also a Gospel of unity, because once again, you have the Gospel going out into all the world. I mean, let me talk about that first. If two or three are gathered to admit or remove somebody, this is not how things were done in Israel, right?

In Israel, you have, just by national birth, that's what you're a part of. The fact that there are two or three gathered and making judgments about these things show that the Gospel is going forth to all the nations.

So it's a Gospel of going forth everywhere, and this is why I'm leading into a Gospel of unity, because that diversity that is entailed in being a Gospel that spreads to all the nations, and not just a Gospel that fits a people that have a lot of shared interests, requires some uniting factor, and that is that we can come together and we can agree on things.

If two of you agree on earth about anything, we can agree because we have a shared mind of Christ. So I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to mention something else that I've forgotten before. I don't want to distract too much.

But another statement about this being a judgment, the two or three, I hope maybe some of you know this, that's a reference to Deuteronomy, where two or three witnesses are needed to judge someone guilty of something.

Another example of this being about judgment. Anyway, this is a good Gospel. This is a Gospel about us coming together as a redeemed people in unity. And as you look at this passage that is a very, very frequently misunderstood passage, or a passage that may be partially understood, not fully understood in context, I hope this has provided some clarity to you, and I also hope that as you look at it, you can be encouraged to be a part of the Church, participating and rendering such judgments, that you can be encouraged to excite other Christians to join with their local Church, to mutually affirm others in the faith.

And I hope that as we do this, we can keep our mind on Christ, not going by our own preferences, our own prerogatives, but instead following Christ's authority, being led by His Spirit. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your Word.

Thank you for the direction it gives us, and the clarity it gives us. You have not left us on our own to figure out how it is that we are to go about the work of building Christ's kingdom, but you have given us instructions.

I pray that you would help us and lead us by the Holy Spirit to honor you and to honor your Son. In Jesus' name, amen.