MATTHEW 18:15-20
WHEN I WAS IN FOURTH GRADE, Sister Mary Bernard, the principal of St. Philip the Apostle’s Grade School, called me into her office. There she sat uncomfortably behind her big brown uncomforting desk. I sat obediently in front of it. Sister leaned forward and asked quietly, “How was your time in the library yesterday?” I said, “Fine.” (The day before, I was volunteered during my recess to shelve new books.) She then asked, a little less quietly, “Young man, did you deface library property?” Not knowing what the word deface meant and honestly not remembering doing anything wrong, I replied, “I don’t think so.”
This response was the wrong response. She stood up, left the room, and quickly came back with two armloads of books. She said, “Open that one.” She continued, “And open that one.” And on and on I went opening the books. Then it dawned on me what the word deface meant. She stared at me in astonishment with that “save your lies” expression on her face. And I did save my lies, for there lying before my eyes were dozens of books with my full Christian name on each nameplate in fluorescent orange permanent marker. Douglas—I was the only Douglas in the school; Sean—I was the only Douglas Sean; and O’Donnell—I wasn’t the only O’Donnell, but I was the only Douglas Sean O'Donnell.
Have you ever been confronted? I have a few times, and sadly all but once it was perfectly appropriate. And every time I have been confronted it has been a humbling experience. It makes you feel small. But small, as we learned in the last chapter, is the appropriate size to get into the kingdom as well as to move up in it. Thus, if confrontation can lead to that kind of smallness, it is something we all, from time to time, very well need.
Why Confront?
This text is the Magna Carta of Ecclesia confrontation. It is about how the Ecclesia confronts the Ecclesia. But before we look at how such confrontation is to be done, I feel it necessary to start with why. Why confront? Christian confrontation (or more broadly, Ecclesial discipline) is as popular today in the Ecclesia as public spanking is at the local supermarket.
Ecclesial discipline is as popular as a public spanking, and Ecclesial discipline to some is as repulsive as a public hanging. For our generation to hear the verdict “Pat Smith has been disfellowshipped from the Ecclesia” sounds harsh, judgmental, unloving, so against the spirit of the age. And because that is the case (the sad case of our society and Ecclesias), I feel the need to begin where Jesus felt no need to begin, to answer the question “why?” before I answer the question “how?”
So, why? Why should one Christian confront another? There are four reasons, one of which is drawn from our text and three of which are drawn from the surrounding context.
The first reason for Christian confrontation is the value of one straying sheep. If you have a red-lettered Bible as I do (the words of Christ are in red), you will notice that there are no black letters in verses 3-14 or in verses 15-20. It’s all red. It’s all Jesus. Jesus moves from the Parable of the Lost Sheep, which is about how God values each individual Christian, even and especially the strayed sheep (vv. 12-14), to this proclamation (vv. 15-20). And he moves directly from one to the other because they are thematically linked. The Father’s concern for sinners and the Shepherd’s rescue of those who have wandered from the fold are now to be the Ecclesia’s concern. The Ecclesia confronts because we value each and every sheep, even and especially the straying sheep.
The second reason for Christian confrontation is the hope of forgiveness and family reconciliation. Again we look to the immediate context. The theme of 18:15-35 is the forgiveness of a brother’s sin. You’ll note that the word “brother” is found in both verses 15 and 35. Now, “brother,” as you know, is generic for “Christian”—that is, men, women, and children in Christ. But the term “brother” rather than “disciple” or “Christian” or “Jesus People" or whatever other term we might use for ourselves is significant. It is significant in that it highlights a family relationship.
There is nothing more beautiful and joyous for a family than a son or daughter who has wandered from home returning home. Consider the Parable of the Prodigal Son. When that boy journeyed away from his father’s house, all that father wanted was for his son to return. That is why when his son did return, the father responded the way he did. He didn’t reluctantly (after twenty-five knocks on the front door) meet his son with his arms folded in disgust and say, “Well, boy, wasn’t that stupid of you? Are you done wasting your life and my money?” Rather he was waiting (so it seems) at the door for his son to return, and when he saw him far off he ran to him, embraced him, kissed him, forgave him, and then, filled with immense joy, threw a big party. That’s why we confront (that joyous hope is before our eyes). We confront because the Ecclesia wants to throw a family forgiveness party! We want to celebrate God’s forgiveness of our sins by forgiving our brother who has sinned against the family of God.
The third reason for Brotherly confrontation is, a little laxity leads to a lot of lapsing. That’s my version of Paul’s “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” (1 Corinthians 5:6). This is just the way things work in a sinful world. A little leaven (neglected sin in the Ecclesia) leavens the whole lump (affects the whole Ecclesia); a little laxity (let this or that sin go unchecked) leads to a lot of lapsing (I guess if he does that, I can do this). One domino hits the next.
We talked about this idea in the last chapter with Jesus’ teaching on cutting off sin—that by guarding our own personal holiness we guard others, especially those weaker in the faith. If a newly baptized Christadelphian sees an elder in the Ecclesia sinning, and that elder is not confronted and corrected by the Ecclesia, then the younger Christadelphian will likely be tempted to similarly sin. In verse 7 Jesus notes that temptation isn’t going away anytime soon—“Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come.” But he warns mature Brethren not to let such temptations come from them: “but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!” And earlier he said, “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (v. 6). Brotherly confrontation helps protect and purify the Ecclesia, and it helps prevent the spread of sin throughout the Body of Christ.
I think you all get the idea. Suppose you say to one of your children, “Please go clean your room, and when you have finished you will get a brownie.” If this child does not clean her room and you say, “Oh, well, don’t worry about it. I love you so much I'll give you the brownie anyway,” what happens the next time she is told to do something? And what then happens to the behavior of the other children in the home? You see, a little laxity leads to a lot of lapsing. You’ll have a very messy house and dirty chocolate-crumbed faces.
The fourth reason for Brotherly confrontation is that it is a command of Christ. We are told to do so. It is a command of Christ, and Christadelphians are to keep Christ’s commands. That is the emphasis Jesus gives in the Great Commission. The Ecclesia is to be “teaching them [newly baptized disciples] to observe all that [he has] commanded” (28:20a). Thus, if he commands confrontation for sin, we do it because Jesus is Lord.
I’m so sick of people saying, “Oh, I’m a Christian, but I have a different understanding than Jesus did on race (I think it’s okay to have a black-only church and a white-only church in the same small town), on divorce (I think it’s okay to divorce if you feel you have become incompatible), or on money (I think it’s okay to stockpile money even if there’s a need in the church or the world).” Christadelphians do what Christ commands because he is Lord! And we do it because Jesus is the loving Lord of the Ecclesia.
The source of Jesus’ teaching here is likely Leviticus 19:17, 18 (cp. Leviticus 19:1-16, 19-37), where “reproof and love belong together.”’After a brother has sinned against you, we read this instruction on attitude and action:
You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with [him], lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against... [him], but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: Why? I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:17, 18)
Today we have torn asunder what God has joined together—love of the sinner and hatred of their sin. We think love means toleration of sin. We think open and affirming means anything goes. But in Scripture love and holiness and discipline walk hand in hand. Care and confrontation skip along together. Because God loves us, he disciplines us (see Proverbs 3:11, 12; cp. Hebrews 12:3-1 1). It's the loving (not the unloving!) shepherd who goes after the lost sheep. The unloving shepherd stays at home; he is either indifferent (“What’s one sheep out of 100?”) or he is lenient (“Oh. sheep will be sheep”).
So, Brethren are to confront sinning Brethren because we value one straying sheep, we hope for forgiveness and family reconciliation, we know that a little laxity leads to a lot of lapsing (we care about the unity and purity of the Ecclesia, and the glory of God’s holy name and gospel), and because Brotherly confrontation is a loving command from the most loving man who ever lived.
How to Confront
With those four reasons for Brotherly confrontation in place, let’s get to the substance of our text. This text is not so much about why but how. How are we to confront? Our Lord gives us three steps.
Step One: Go and Gain
Step one is, go and gain. 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, (v. 15)
Before I get to the actual step—the going and gaining—I want us to notice three important details found in the first half of that verse. First, notice who is confronting whom—it is brother to brother. These are not directions for the Ecclesia’s confrontation of the world. There is a time and place for confronting a non-believing neighbor and the non-believing world, but verse 15 isn’t describing that time and place.
Second, notice when this Brotherly confrontation is to occur—only “if your brother sins against you.” The “if’ is important. Here Jesus is not calling us to take a spotlight and look through everyone’s closet until we find some dirt. Rather, he is calling us to confront only if a sin has occurred, and a sin against you personally, if we are to leave in the phrase “against you” as the esv does. That is why the first step in the confrontation is a conversation “between you and him alone” (v. 15). Now this doesn’t mean that if you see a brother publicly disgracing Christ you wouldn’t say or do something, but it does mean that the emphasis here falls on two brothers whose relationship has been severed by some (serious? obvious?) sin.
And it is “sin,” behavior that is “clearly and consistently contrary” to Christ’s commands; in other words, “what Scripture calls sin is sin; nothing else.” Evil actions such as murder, adultery, stealing, lying, swindling, and drunkenness, for example, are “sins,” as are false beliefs and teachings, such as “Jesus is not the only way to God,” or “Jesus was not fully human.” It is sin (not bad personality traits or poor hygiene) that is to be confronted, and a wide variety of it—“whatever you bind... whatever you loose” (v. 18).
Third, notice (speaking of sin) that Jesus assumes Brethren will sin. True, he doesn't say “when” but “if a brother sins,” but the “when” is assumed. That’s why Jesus is not surprised by Peter’s question in verse 21: “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?” Jesus doesn’t reply, “A brother sin? A brother sin repeatedly? A brother sin repeatedly against another brother? I can’t fathom that, Peter. What are you talking about?” Our Lord assumes his Ecclesia will be full of sinners—saved sinners, trying-to-be-more-sanctified sinners, but sinners nonetheless. This is why the Ecclesia can pray every Sunday and every day the prayer our Lord taught us to pray: “Father... forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us” (see 6:9-13, nlt; Luke 11:4).
With all that said, finally we come to step one. When sin occurs we are to go in order to gain: “Go and tell him [your brother] his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother” (v. 15b). So step one is not to wait: “I’m not making the first move. He has to make the first move. He has to come to me to ask for forgiveness.” And step one is not to sit and sulk: “I can’t believe he would do that to me.” And step one is not to give the cold shoulder: “Hey, what’s wrong with you?” “I don’t know. You tell me. What’s wrong with me?” And step one is not indifference: “Live and let live. Who cares what he did. Let bygones be bygones.” And step one is not tit for tat: “He stole my dog, so I’m stealing his.” And step one is not to gossip: “Do you know what so-and-so did to me? Can I share it with you confidentially as a prayer request?” And step one is not public slander: “Welcome to New Covenant Church. Let’s begin our time of worship by letting everyone know that on Wednesday night Andrew Johnston nicked Sam Anderson's car, and I’m fairly sure he didn’t tell Sam he did it. I have seen it! The dent is deeper than it looks. Now I haven’t had a chance to ask Andrew, but based on their parking proximity that night and what I know about Andrew, trust me, it’s the type of thing he’d do. Now... let us quiet our hearts before the Lord.”' Rather, step one is a private conversation—underline “you and him alone.”
And this private conversation, depending on the certainty of the evidence and your relationship with the person, can be done with gentleness and/or with holy harshness. The prophet Nathan when he confronted David modeled this balance (see 2 Samuel 12:1-7), as did Paul throughout his ministry. Regarding false teachers within the Ecclesia. Paul tells Titus to “rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” (Titus 1:13; see also John’s reply concerning Diotrephes in 3 John 9, 10), and regarding Peter’s false actions regarding Gentiles, Paul says in Galatians 2:11, “I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.” (I think that confrontation had some holy harshness to it.) But later in Galatians Paul tells the Ecclesia, “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness” (6:1a). There is a time and place for gentleness and a time and a place for holy harshness, the holy harshness Jesus himself employs in 18:8, 9.
Whatever the demeanor (and each case and person will be different), the spirit is that of humility and love, a solemn concern for your brother’s soul. “My brothers,” James writes, “if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19, 20).
So we are to “go,” but to go hoping to “gain,” that is, to restore our brother to God and to fellowship with the Ecclesia. In our conversation we are attempting to bring to light this person’s darkness. If that person sees this darkness, if you will, and confesses it and asks for forgiveness, then you have “gained” your brother. You have reestablished real spiritual intimacy, as seemingly happened between Peter and Paul after Paul’s confrontation of Peter. Years after that face-to-face showdown, Peter called Paul his “beloved brother” (2 Peter 3:15), the brother whom he loves.
In his classic book on Christian community, Life Together, Dietrich Bon- heoffer summarizes step one so well. He writes, Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light... [But] In confession, the light of the gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin must be brought to the light... Since the confession of sin is made in the presence of a Christian brother, the last stronghold of self-justification is abandoned. The sinner surrenders; he gives up all his evil. He gives his heart to God, and he finds the forgiveness of all his sin in the fellowship of Jesus Christ and his brother. The expressed, acknowledged sin has lost all its power. It has been revealed for he has cast off his sin from him. Now he stands in the fellowship of sinners who live by the grace of God and the cross of Christ.
Step Two: Establish Evidence
If necessary (Lord willing, it is not), step two is to establish evidence. Again I get this from the language of our text. In verse 16 our Lord says, “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.”
In this passage Jesus is immensely practical, but he is also realistic. Most of us when confronted get defensive. We get defensive because we are proud. Instead of melting like butter before the light of truth, we harden like clay. So Jesus’ lesson on becoming like little children applies here as well. Humility is needed! And such humility is helped along by bringing others to hear the case.
What Jesus teaches here is based on Deuteronomy 19:15. (He has been in Leviticus; now he moves to Deuteronomy.) The “two or three” brothers join the first two brothers for two or possibly three reasons: (1) to protect against a false accusation—brother B is exaggerating or lying about brother A’s offense, (2) to help brother A, if he has been rightly accused, to see his sin as sin, or in other words, to add their voice of reproof so he might repent, and (3) to be public witnesses, if needed, if the matter comes to the attention of the whole Ecclesia (cp. 2 Corinthians 13:1; 1 Timothy 5:19).
Notice here with step two that the accused brother is not treated like a criminal. He is given time. He is walked through a careful and caring process. He is innocent until proven guilty. And he is treated as an equal. It is brothers to brother, or even sisters to brother. Here Jesus doesn’t say, “And when the elders and deacons come to hear the matter. Our Lord makes no mention of the bishop, his two inquisitors, and the local jailer knocking on the front door. Here it is democratic discipline, disciples disciplining disciples. Jesus, if I may put it this way, is “low” church. He has what high churchmen today would call “a low ecclesiology.” He must not have read John Henry Newman.
Step Three: Ecclesial Censure
Finally, we have step three, what I’m calling Ecclesial censure. A censure is an official reprimand and judgment. Here it is the Ecclesia saying, “Three strikes and you're out—you have been removed from the fellowship.”
Before I explain disfellowship, let’s be clear on who is to blame here. It is the unrepentant brother. He has refused to listen—“If he listens to you” (v. 15), “If he does not listen... [to] two or three witnesses” (v. 16), “if he refuses to listen to them” (v. 17a), and “if he refuses to listen even to the Ecclesia” (v. 17b). The key word here is “listen.” He’s not listening. (And this tells us that this is not just a text about how to confront but also how to respond to confrontation if true: do not “not listen”!) If you do “not listen,” it is all on your head. Three strikes and you’re out. If a sinner won’t cut off his sin, the Ecclesia cuts him off, as our Lord makes clear in verse 17:
If he refuses to listen to them [the two or three], tell it to [all] the Ecclesia. And if he refuses to listen even to the Ecclesia [seemingly everyone in the body], let him be to you [plural—the Ecclesia] as a Gentile and a tax collector.
That is, treat him like someone who has betrayed the covenant (a traitorous tax collector, for example) and someone who does not currently believe in the covenant (a Gentile or pagan). It’s not that tax collectors or Gentiles can’t become part of the Ecclesia. They did, and they do. But they can’t remain in their unbelief and sin.
Both the Old Testament (see Genesis 17:14; Exodus 12:15, 19; 30:33,38) and the New Testament make clear what this excommunication or “disfellowship” looked like (and should look like). In the New Testament it meant not allowing this unrepentant “brother” to participate in the public gatherings—a worship service, the Lord’s Supper, a prayer meeting, and a judicial meeting of some sorts (where a vote was taken on something). For some this shunning was limited only to that. It was okay to say hello in the market or at a wedding, for example. But for others it was unlimited. Here’s where you get language like this: If any false teacher “comes to you... do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting” (2 John 10), or again “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice [what we have taught here], have nothing more to do with him” (Titus 3:10), and “Do not... associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler — do not even... eat with such a one” (I Corinthians 5:11).
Yet for both—with limited and unlimited shunning—the hope was held out that this “severe measure” would make the sinner come to his senses, that this “brother” would act like a brother should—repent and return. As Paul put it, “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” (1 Corinthians 5:5), and in such discipline, “Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother” (2 Thessalonians 3:15). That is, “have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed” (2 Thessalonians 3:14), and that shame might turn to sorrow, sorrow to repentance, and repentance to renewed life and fellowship and joy—an Ecclesial potluck for the prodigal returned home!
Objection Sustained - Coming out of verses 15-17 (steps one to three), our Lord masterfully assumes an objection that would come in time when he was no longer physically present with his Ecclesia. The objection is simply this: “Says who?” You see, when a brother or sister is disfellowshipped, before they leave (and/or sue) the disciplining Ecclesia and go to another, they will nearly always reply to the disciplining Ecclesia, “You’re not God. Who gives you the right?” Anti to that objection our Lord leaves his Ecclesia verses 18-20, his gentle way of saying to us, “Tell that unrepentant brother to shut it.”
Truly, I say to you, whatever you [plural—as the Ecclesia]" 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.
These verses are not about the value of prayer meetings (“You should come on Wednesday night because Jesus shows up”). And these are not verses about getting the indwelling presence of the risen Christ into a building on a Sunday morning (Jesus indwells each believer always—“And behold, I am with you [singular] always” [28:20a]; “Abide in me, and I in you” [John 15:4a]). Rather, these verses are about Jesus giving his divine authority to forgive sins (to loose) or not forgive sins (to bind) into the hands of the Ecclesia. He gives the keys of the kingdom not just to Peter (16:19), but to the local assembly assembled to judge.
If the local Ecclesia gathers together in the name of Christ—even two or three—to judge another brother (that’s the context, v. 17 especially), then what these brothers decide on earth is decided in Heaven. Why? Jesus’ answer is, “Because I say so. If you follow my guidelines, if you bend your will to God’s holy, loving, and reproving will, you then get God’s endorsement and empowerment.” It’s a matter of transference of authority.
Due to Christ’s divine authority—divine because only God is omnipresent, and only God can claim that sins on earth are forgiven in Heaven, and only in God’s name (Jesus says it’s in his name, v. 20) are his people to gather—the Ecclesia has been given the authority to forgive (receive back into fellowship) or disfellowship (remove from fellowship). Yes, Immanuel’s (Jesus’—“God with us,” 1:23) Ecclesia has the Father’s authority to forgive—to keep closed the door to life or to open it. Jesus’ lowly Ecclesia has been given such high authority.
Rejoicing over One
A few years ago, a sister in my Ecclesia committed a grave sin. When a brother confronted her, she denied it. When he confronted her repeatedly, she finally admitted her sin, but she refused to abandon it. When two other “brothers” (my wife and I) were brought in to confront her, she began to soften, and in time she repented and was restored to fellowship. She came back to the fold and found the shelter and protection and forgiveness she needed.
I know I’m not to have favorites, but she’s my favorite because she comes to the table (we walk forward at my Ecclesia) with a rare mixture of hunger and joy. She still needs Jesus’ forgiveness, and she still delights in getting it.
You see, holiness and love and reproof and repentance and humility and authority are all necessary for the life of the Ecclesia, and the life of the Ecclesia is life for the world. There is no better witness to the world than Brothers acting Brotherly. So let us be faithful to Christ’s command to confront.
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)