IX. Greatness, Restoration, and Forgiveness (Matthew 18:1-35)

IX. Greatness, Restoration, and Forgiveness (18:1-35)

18:1 So who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? That’s an unexpected question. Yet, notice that in 18:2-5 Jesus didn’t condemn the disciples for asking it or for desiring to be great. Instead, he challenged worldly assumptions about the methods used to become great.

18:2-4 Jesus drew attention to a child to teach these grown men a lesson about greatness (18:2). He said, Unless you . . . become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (18:3). So what quality in children is Jesus looking for? Whoever humbles himself like this child . . . is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

True greatness, then, comes through humility and a childlike faith that trusts God completely. In the Roman world, children had no rights and were completely dependent on others to care for them. Therefore, believers in Jesus Christ are to be humbly dependent on their heaven Father. The Lord of heaven and earth doesn’t ascribe to the world’s criteria for determining greatness.

18:5-6 Jesus also highlighted the importance of treating children and those with childlike faith well. To welcome them and serve them is to welcome Jesus (18:5). So if you want fellowship with Jesus, you need to be in fellowship with the humble. In fact, this principle of caring for children and those who are childlike is so significant that Jesus warned of the serious danger of causing one of them to fall away (18:6). To trip up children spiritually is to incur greater judgment. How bad will this judgment be? According to Jesus, drowning in the sea with a heavy rock hung around your neck would be preferable!

18:7-9 It’s one thing to be a stumbling block to yourself. It’s far worse to be a spiritual stumbling block to others. Jesus pronounced woe—judgment—upon those who cause offenses, those who make people spiritually stumble (18:7).

If your hand . . . causes you to fall away, cut it off. . . . If your eye causes you to fall away, gouge it out (18:8-9). Jesus wasn’t calling for self-mutilation. Sin ultimately begins in the heart and mind (see 5:21-30). Jesus, then, called for radical efforts to avoid hellfire (18:9). The spiritual is vastly superior to the physical. People must be willing to avoid eternal judgment at any and all costs.

18:10-14 In no case are we to despise children and those who are humble, because God is their advocate and assigns angels to watch over them (18:10). He goes to great lengths to rescue them, as Jesus’s story about the great love of God illustrates. If a shepherd with a hundred sheep loses one, he’ll search high and low to find it (18:12). When he finds the lost sheep, he rejoices over it (18:13). Similarly, it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones perish (18:14). Jesus’s mission is to save the lost, and he wants nothing to hinder the fulfillment of that mission.

18:15 In 18:15-20 Jesus addressed the matter of church discipline. He clearly considered it a weighty issue, since he provided principles for disciplining church members before the church officially came into existence. Though these verses represent the foundational text for guiding churches through the disciplinary process, there are a number of other relevant passages as well (e.g., 1 Cor 5:1-13; 2 Cor 2:5-8; Gal 6:1; 2 Thess 3:14-15; 1 Tim 5:19-20; Jas 5:19-20).

To be a member of a local church is to live under the authority of Jesus Christ in fellowship with and accountability to other believers. The church is called to bring honor to God in all she does. So the purpose of church discipline is always to glorify God and lovingly restore wayward church members.

If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. Notice first that the matter involves “a brother”—a fellow believer. We’re not talking about non-Christians, then. This is a matter for the family of God.

Second, the concern is your brother’s “sin.” It has nothing to do with a clash of personal preferences. The issue is a violation of God’s standards. And importantly, we’re not talking about rebuking a brother or sister for any and every offense. We all fall short, and Proverbs 19:11 reminds us that it’s virtuous to “overlook an offense.” The passages cited above make it clear that Jesus has in mind flagrant sin that is reflected in persistent, unrepentant spiritual rebellion.

Third, according to Jesus, such behavior calls for a “rebuke” in “private.” Parents are to discipline their children out of love to keep them from harmful foolishness; so too are we to care enough about fellow believers that we’re willing to correct them—with humility, patience, and love. Yet, Jesus calls us to do this privately. Matters should be dealt with quietly to help, not publicly to gossip.

“If he listens to you, you have won your brother.” The end goal of confrontation isn’t punishment or embarrassment or harassment. The end goal is to win him over—to come alongside a brother going in the wrong direction and help him turn back to God.

18:16 But if he won’t listen, take one or two others with you. If the sinning saint refuses to repent, Jesus said to invoke the Old Testament principle of establishing every fact through two or three witnesses (see Deut 19:15). This helps to ensure that the matter isn’t a mere personal squabble, a false accusation, or an overreaction—but a refusal to repent over sin. Notice, too, that this small group of witnesses must be able to testify to the truthfulness of the charge. It’s a serious accountability process. The church is about more than sermons and songs. It’s about holiness, grace, and tough love.

18:17 If he doesn’t pay attention to them, tell the church. If a persistent sinner has been confronted—in patience and love—by several spiritually mature believers and still rejects the Lord, the congregation is to become involved. When a member of the church at Corinth was guilty of sexual immorality that was public knowledge, Paul commanded the entire church there to take action (see 1 Cor 5:1-5). The church is the final court of appeal, but it’s also a family. This is the time for brothers and sisters in the Lord to rally around a brother so he might be restored.

If he fails to listen even to the church, though, the unrepentant member is to be like a Gentile and a tax collector. In other words, if he insists on living like an unbeliever, it’s time to treat him like one unless and until he repents. This is the sober and unfortunate step of excommunication in which the person is no longer considered a member of the congregation and is removed from fellowship. The church is no longer to associate with him as they would a brother in Christ (see 1 Cor 5:3-5, 9-13; 2 Thess 3:14-15). One of the primary ways this discipline is carried out is around the Communion table. The Lord’s Supper is a meal for believers, not unbelievers.

All the while, the church should pray for the straying sinner, holding out hope that the Lord might lead him to repentance. If he rejects his sinful lifestyle, the church should welcome him with forgiveness and an affirmation of love (see 2 Cor 2:5-8).

18:18-20 Jesus repeated the promise he gave to the disciples in 16:19 about binding and loosing (18:18). When a congregation acts in accordance with Scripture to promote God’s glory and the good of an erring member, heaven backs up the church. If two or three under the umbrella of the church gather, agree, and pray about a matter—based on the application of God’s Word—the Son of God will show up and validate it (18:19-20). Anything God has authorized to be bound or loosed in heaven will be bound and loosed when the church makes an earthly request for heavenly intervention.

18:21-22 Jewish rabbis taught that forgiveness need only be extended three times. So Peter may have thought he was being generous by suggesting that he forgive his brother seven times (18:21). By saying, seventy times seven, though, Jesus insisted that forgiveness has no limits (18:22).

18:23-24 After emphasizing that his followers must always be prepared to forgive, Jesus illustrated with a story. He compared the kingdom of heaven to a king settling accounts with his servants (18:23). One owed his master ten thousand talents (18:24). A talent was the largest unit of currency. Ten thousand talents would be equivalent to an unfathomable amount of money today. If he were telling the story to modern U.S. listeners, Jesus would have said “millions of dollars.” The point was the servant owed a debt that was impossible to pay—just like the sin debt we owe to God.

18:25-27 Since there was no chance the servant could ever repay the debt, the master commanded that he, his family, and his property be sold (18:25). So the servant did the only thing he could do: he begged for mercy (18:26). As a result, his master had compassion and forgave him the debt (18:27).

18:28 Here’s the twist in the story. That same servant went to one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii (that is, about a hundred days’ wages). He grabbed him, started choking him, and demanded that he pay back what was no small amount (18:28). However, the amount was child’s play compared to what he’d owed the king.

18:29-34 The second servant begged for mercy—just as the first had done (18:29). But this lender was unwilling to show the same compassion he’d been granted and threw his fellow servant into prison (18:30). When the other servants found out, they were grieved and told their master (18:31). The king denounced him as a wicked servant and asked the obvious question: Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you? (18:32-33). Then he threw him in prison to be tortured until he paid his debt (18:34).

18:35 So also my heavenly Father will do to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister. If God cancels our sin debts, we must do the same for those who sin against us. We cannot expect or demand mercy that we’re unwilling to give. According to Jesus, we should offer forgiveness in the same way and to the same degree that we desire it from God. Why? Our debt to God is infinitely greater than our brother’s debt to us. Recognizing that positions us to receive from God the very thing that others desire from us.