33 - Matthew 18:18

’Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ -Matthew 18:18. The declaration previously made to Peter alone is here made to the apostles generally. In the first instance, the context intimately connects the promise with the exercise of faith in Christ. In the present instance the context has special reference to the decision of the Church regarding an offending member; also to the offering up of united prayer; finally to the presence of Christ in the midst of his people. The sum of the whole is this: Where there is a body of united believers, Christ himself is in the midst of them to guide them in their decisions; according to the measure of their faith and consecration is the will of Christ made known to them and declared by them; their decisions, thus prompted by Heaven, shall be ratified in heaven. The Holy Spirit is given for the very purpose of making known the judgments of God, and getting them expressed in the words and ways of the believers; and God the Father will not disown the teaching of God the Spirit. In the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles there is a great deal of binding and loosing. In Galatians, Romans, and Hebrews we find Paul very zealously loosing bonds which had been imposed for fifteen centuries. The bonds of the ceremonial law, the least of which no man had been privileged to loose before the Christian dispensation came, he boldly and remorselessly gave to the winds. The bondage which made it impossible for the Jews to have intercourse with the Gentiles on fellow terms, the apostles took away. The obligation to offer sacrifices which had continued from the beginning of the world was annulled. And in all the Epistles we have the obligations of the Christian plainly and authoritatively set forth, and no one that believes in Christ doubts that all these have been ratified in heaven. It was the office of the apostles to unloose the bonds of the Jewish Sabbath, and to bind the people of God to the observance of the Christian Sabbath. Our Lord saw fit to accomplish the stupendous work of substituting the Christian for the Jewish dispensation, not personally, but by means of his disciples; and it was therefore necessary that they should be constituted plenipotentiaries, and clothed with unquestionable authority. It was to be made evident to all who were morally capable of receiving the evidence, that they had unrestricted power to bind and to loose; it had to be made fully manifest that Christ was with them, the Spirit of God in them, the truth of God declared by them. Who is sufficient for these things? they asked. Where is the man whom it becomes, by wisdom of his own, to set aside the sacred commands of God himself? The zeal of the entire Jewish nation stretched like a rampart before them, forbidding them to lift a finger against the everlasting decrees of God; it was necessary clearly to establish the fact that Christ, of God, was made unto them strength and wisdom and righteousness; that he was with them always, even unto the end of the world.

Wert thou once oppressed with a painful sense of obligation, with a deep sense of sin, with an insupportable sense of the Divine displeasure? And did there come an hour when thy spirit rejoiced with joy unspeakable in the assurance that all its sins were blotted out, that the loving favour of God was thine, that Christ was thy friend for ever, that none would be able to separate thee from the love of God in Jesus Christ? Well, how came that hour to thee? How was this mighty deliverance effected? By what instrumentality didst thou escape from darkness to light? An evangelist met me; he told me of my sins, my danger, my need, and of the way of salvation opened up in Christ; I received his words into my heart, and was saved. Were the words his indeed? They were first spoken by the apostles and prophets; holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Were the words theirs indeed? The words that spake peace to thy soul, that took away thy sins, that brought thee to God, whose were these mighty words? Ah, they were the words of Christ, the words of God. I heard the voice of Jesus say, Come, take my yoke upon you, learn of me, and find rest; I came to him and found the rest. Hence is it evident that the way in which Christ gave to his apostles power to bind and power to loose was by giving them his word, and by sending them to the sinner, and by sending along with them the Holy Ghost to make the word effectual in the heart of the sinner.

Bonds that were loosed by the apostles, some in our days are seeking to bind again; and bonds that were imposed by them some are seeking to unloose. Liberty conceded is rejected; and liberty is claimed that was never conceded. Many are clamoring for a liberal Christianity that the apostles knew nothing about; for a Christianity that shall allow them to conform to the world in expenditure and style and deference to fashion and amusement; for a Christianity that shall spare them the necessity of telling their associates unpleasant things about their spiritual state; for a Christianity that will supply them with excuses for all sinners, and with hope for the multitudes who die in their sins; for a Christianity which will give them the privilege of sitting in judgment on the Scriptures, and deciding for themselves what is authoritative and what is not; in a word, for a Christianity which will wall up the strait gate, and cause the broad road to lead no longer to destruction, but to life. But there is a little flock that hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, speaking to them by those whom he has chosen and inspired and commissioned; and the voice of a stranger will they not hear.