CRITICAL NOTES
Matthew 18:5. One such little child.—Whether literally or only morally a little child. Our Saviour had reference, we doubt not, to both phases of childhood. That He refers to literal childhood may be inferred from Luke 9:48. But such a reference, though real, would be only bridging the way for His far more important reference to moral or spiritual childhood (Morison). In My name.—Literally, upon My name, upon the ground or footing of My name, i.e. in consideration of Me—out of regard or respect for Me (ibid).
Matthew 18:6. Offend.—Or morally ensnare. “Whosoever shall give him occasion for relapsing into unbelief, as was done by hierarchical arrogance” (Lange). It were better for him.—It is profitable for him (R.V.). Literally, it is advantageous to him, in order that a millstone might be hanged about his neck. There is an awful and august irony in the literal expression. It it assumed that be who leads astray one of Christ’s little ones had an end in view. He contemplated some advantage or other. Let it be so! says our Saviour. Advantage! Let him have the paltry advantage which he seeks. It is an advantage with a tremendous disadvantage coming behind. The spiritual wickedness which is impelling him to seek the imagined advantage has a terrific aim beyond. And thus, poor infatuated creature, he is advantaged—is he? If he be, it is in order that a millstone may be hanged about his neck! Such is the graphic force of the Saviour’s idea, when his expression is resolved into its constituent elements (Morison). A millstone.—Literally, a millstone turned by an ass, and so larger than the ordinary millstone. The manner of death alluded to appears to have been unknown to the Jews. But Plutarch mentions this punishment as being common to Greece and Rome. Cf. Juv., Sat., xiv. 16, 17, where, as in other places, it is named rather than the cross as a swift and terrible penalty for crime (Carr).
Matthew 18:7. Woe.—The interjection is one of sorrow as well as denunciation, and here the former meaning is predominant, as the latter is in the next clause of the verse (Plumptre). Needs be.—Especially in the age blessed by the presence of the Messiah; just as insects abound in summer (Bengel). Offences.—The occasions (R.V.). It is possible that Matthew here (Matthew 18:7-9), according to his custom, has grouped cognate sayings, not originally spoken in this connection (Maclaren).
Matthew 18:10. In heaven their angels.—A difficult verse, but perhaps the following may be more than an illustration: Among men, those who nurse and rear the royal children, however humble in themselves, are allowed free entrance with their charge, and a degree of familiarity which even the highest state-ministers dare not assume. Probably our Lord means that, in virtue of their charge over His disciples (Hebrews 1:13; John 1:51), the angels have errands to the throne, a welcome there, and a dear familiarity in dealing with “His Father which is in heaven,” which on their own matters they could not assume (Brown).
Matthew 18:11. For the Son of man, etc.—Omitted in the Sinaitic, the Vatican, and other important MSS., also in R.V. However, as Carr says, it falls in precisely with the train of thought, and is almost required to connect Matthew 18:10; Matthew 18:12.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 18:1-14
True greatness.—How the opening question of this passage came to be asked seems to be taught us by St. Mark. It was after a dispute on the subject of inquiry, which had occurred “by the way” (Mark 9:33-34). The same reference also seems to throw light on the exact purport of the question itself. Tell us “then” (Matthew 18:1, R.V.) what is the truth about this subject of greatness. Who is greater and who is less, in regard to this point? The Saviour answers by placing a little child in the midst of them, and then taking it in His arms (Mark 9:36), as though He would say by that action, This is to be great in My kingdom, and to be dear unto Me, viz., to be as this babe is, and think nothing about it. True greatness in My kingdom consists, in other words, in not seeking greatness at all. In the rest of the passage the Saviour goes on to further explain and enforce this statement, by showing, first, what is true of such persons on earth; and, second, what is thought of them in heaven.
I. What is true of them upon earth.—Viz., that they are those on whom the welfare of the world itself turns. We may see this, on the one hand, by what is true of their friends. How well it is with all those who show them kindness and love! How well it is even in the case of the very humblest among them! To receive the least of such as being what he is, viz., a believer in Christ, is all one, in Christ’s sight, with receiving Himself (Matthew 18:5). This is the well-known principle of Matthew 25:40. And this is, also, if we think of it rightly, having a crown of greatness indeed. What, for a creature, can be a greater privilege than that of ministering to the Creator (see Revelation 22:3). It is a privilege certainly of which the holy angels seem glad indeed to partake (Matthew 4:11; Luke 22:43). Can any persons be greater, therefore, than those who can put this privilege within any man’s reach? And who are in this way, therefore, as it were, the ambassadorial representatives of Christ Himself upon earth? We may see the same also, next, by seeing what is true of those persons who are the enemies of such men. Unhappily, that there are such is only too plain. There are those, who, so far from “receiving” (Matthew 18:5) these, seek to hinder them in their course; and, either by persecution or opposition, on the one hand, or by persuasion and temptation, on the other, seek either to drive them or seduce them into wrong. Evil indeed is it with any man who attempts anything of the kind. All such attempts are things, in God’s sight, of the most serious kind. Nothing more so, in fact. Better anything, in fact, for any man than to have this true about him. Better have round about him in the most helpless position the heaviest possible weight (Matthew 18:6). Better lose also any part of himself—even the limbs he moves with, the eye he sees with—than in this way to lose all and lose it also for ever! (Matthew 18:8-9). Nothing is more evil, in fact, than being the “occasion” (Matthew 18:7) of evil to those that are Christ’s. See, therefore, on the whole, what a double crown of greatness these carry about with them as they move. There are none more to be cherished than these—none more to be feared than these—amongst all the inhabitants of the world. Can any of its inhabitants either expect or ask to be really higher than that?
II. What is thought of them in heaven.—Under this head we are shown, on the one hand, that they are the constant objects of God’s regard. In Genesis 28 we read of the angels of God “ascending and descending” between heaven and earth. In Ezekiel 1:14 of “the living creatures that ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.” In Zechariah 6:5, of “spirits” which “go forth from standing before the Lord of the whole earth.” And in Zechariah 1:11 of some such bringing in their report of what they have seen on the earth. A like way of speaking seems to be employed in this place. Even Christ’s “little ones” are represented as having “angels” who bring back tidings about them. And of such angels we seem taught that they all have immediate access to the presence of God. Whatever the mysteries and the difficulties and the errors connected with the subject, this much appears plain. What happens to these “little ones” is of immediate interest to the Great Father of all. Through these higher ones the eye of the Highest of all is for ever bent upon them. Is not this to be “great”? Next, they are shown to be the special objects of God’s recovering grace. Even when astray and so “less than the least,” they are not only within—they are even specially within—the scope of His thoughts. Almost inexpressible, indeed, is the degree of tenderness with which they are thought of at such times. It is like that which happens, when, in a flock of one hundred sheep, one amongst them is lost. Immediately that one sheep, in the shepherd’s mind, has a place of its own. Immediately, therefore, he leaves all the rest of them to go in search of that one. And naturally, therefore, if he finds it, he rejoices in finding it more than over the ninety and nine (Matthew 18:12-13). It is a true picture, though an inadequate one, of the will of the Father. His straying “little ones” are not less precious to Him because they are in danger of “perishing.” They are rather—if not more precious, which could not very well be—more thought about, and more longed for, and more sought after by Him (Matthew 18:14). Never, it would seem indeed, are His thoughts tenderer than they are to those who need His tenderness most. How great a thing, therefore—how truly great—to be numbered amongst them at all!
1. See, therefore, in conclusion, in the first place, what a secret of contentment is here.—What other distinctions are comparable to this of really belonging to Christ? What can they add to us if we possess this? How far can they compensate us, if we do not? And what have we really lost, if possessing this, we only attain them in part? Also, and lastly, can we really miss what is good in them, if this other possession be ours (1 Corinthians 3:22)?
2. See, in the next place, what an incentive to effort is here.—Why should those who enjoy this greatness desire to keep it to themselves? Will it not, in reality, be all the greater if they do not? There is no blessing like that of being a blessing. There is no greatness greater than that of sharing greatness with others. The more light we communicate to our fellow-travellers, the more there will be for us all.
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 18:2. The ministry of children.—The Evangelists never hesitated to tell the truth about themselves; however humiliating, still it was told; so that if this be not a veritable record, the men who wrote it must, of all men, have been the most singular in their taste. What can be more humiliating than the spectacle of the disciples as it is presented to us in this chapter? The little child is their teacher. We are in a world of children. They are the poetry of life.
I. The little child has something to give us.
1. What an opening of the heart is made by the coming of a little child.—It is a great lesson for us in more ways than one. It suggests that there is no power by which we are so likely to move the hearts of an adult generation gone from God as the power of little children.
2. When the world is redeemed the spirit of the little child will be supreme. “A little child shall lead them.”
II. We have something to give the little child.—I speak especially to Sunday-school teachers. Your primary work is to train children for Jesus Christ. Teach them that they are the children of God, that they are not the children of the devil; that they are not meant to do the devil’s work; that the love of the Father is towards them, that though they may have evil passions and sins and frailties, yet they are God’s children. Surround them from their infancy upwards with an atmosphere of love. Expect them to feel the power of the love of Christ early. Welcome every sign of a gracious, gentle, loving heart towards Jesus.—J. G. Rogers, B.A.
A child in the midst (A Sunday-school anniversary sermon).—Jesus set a little child in the midst!
I. This is what God did in redeeming the world.—By the incarnation there was “set in the midst” of the prophets, philosophers, armies, governments of the world, “a little child.” The sign that God has come to redeem the world was not in blare of trumpets, volleys of artillery, edicts of emperors, but in the swaddling-clothes that swathed a Babe in a manger. Among the lessons of the holy manger are:—
1. The might of gentleness.
2. The love of God.
II. This is what Jesus did in teaching the disciples.—Some have said it was Ignatius, some Peter’s child. He takes him into His arms. There is a fourfold lesson here.
1. Imitate childhood.
2. Receive childhood.
3. Consider childhood.
4. Care earnestly for childhood.
III. This is what the church does here to-day.—The Sunday-school calls us round the cradle—sets a child in our midst.
1. It indicates faith in the worth of childhood.
2. Admits the need of childhood.
3. Promotes loyalty to the Saviour of childhood.—U. R. Thomas, B.A.
Our Lord’s object-lesson.—The child I suppose to have been a very young child. For such a little child is completely free from folly, and the mania for glory, and from envy, and contentiousness, and all such passions.—Chrysostom.
Matthew 18:3-4. The greatest in the kingdom.—
I. None but the lowly are in the kingdom (Matthew 18:3).—A most heart-searching lesson! What grave doubts and questionings it must have suggested to the disciples! They had faith to follow Christ in an external way; but were they really following Him? Had He not said, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself?” Were they denying self? On the other hand, however, we need not suppose that this selfish rivalry was habitual with them. It was probably one of those surprises which overtake the best of Christians; so that it was not really a proof that they did not belong to the kingdom, but only that, for the time, they were acting inconsistently with it; and therefore, before they could think of occupying any place, even the very lowest in the kingdom, they must repent, and become as little children.
II. The lowliest in the kingdom are the greatest (Matthew 18:4).—Though the thought was new to them at the time, it did come home to them; it passed into their nature, and showed itself afterwards in precious fruit, at which the world still wonders. They did not, indeed, get over their selfishness all at once; but how grandly were they cured of it when their training was finished! If there is one thing more characteristic of the Apostles in their after life than any other, it is their self forgetfulness—their self-effacement, we may say. Where does Matthew ever say a word about the sayings or doings of Matthew? Even John, who was nearest of all to the heart of the Saviour, and with Him in all His most trying hours, can write a whole Gospel without ever mentioning his own name; and when he has occasion to speak of John the Baptist does it as if there were no other John in existence. So was it with them all.—J. M. Gibson, D.D.
Matthew 18:3. Meetness for the kingdom of heaven.—What is this “conversion” concerning which Jesus says that without it entering the kingdom of heaven is impossible for any man?
I. It is aversion from sin.—Education, society, natural temperament may lead a man to dislike some sins. But with sin, as sin, the unconverted man lives at peace. Conversion changes all this. What the chill of an iceberg would be to a tropical plant, or the gnawings of an ulcer to a sensitive nerve, sin is to his soul. He fears it, he hates it. And this aversion from sin includes all sin—sins of the heart, as well as of the life.
II. It is inclination towards God.—Just as the flowers open to the sun; just as the child runs into the parent’s arms; so does the converted man rise in all his being towards the God who is at once his life and joy. His God-ward tendencies take a practical shape. He loves and delights in all that God loves—God’s book, day, people. Now, to such a man “the kingdom of heaven” is open. He has an eye for its beauty, an ear for its song, a heart for its service. This here on earth. But hereafter the same will be true. Let death come when it may, he is ready for the “kingdom.”—A C. Price, B.A.
Children a parable of the kingdom of heaven.—Every reader of the Gospels has marked the sympathy of Jesus with children. How He watched their games. How angry He was with His disciples for belittling them. How He used to warn men, whatever they did, never to hurt a little child. How grateful were children’s praises when all others had turned against Him. One is apt to admire the beautiful sentiment, and to forget that children were more to Jesus than helpless and gentle creatures to be loved and protected. They were His chief parable of the kingdom of heaven. As a type of character the kingdom was like unto a little child, and the greatest in the kingdom would be the most child-like. According to Jesus, a well-conditioned child illustrates better than anything else on earth the distinctive features of Christian character:
1. Because he does not assert nor aggrandise himself.
2. Because he has no memory for injuries, and no room in his heart for a grudge.
3. Because he has no previous opinions, and is not ashamed to confess his ignorance.
4. Because he can imagine; and has the key of another world, entering in through the ivory gate and living amid the things unseen and eternal. The new society of Jesus was a magnificent imagination, and he who entered it must lay aside the world-standards, and ideals of character, and become as a little child.—John Watson, M.A.
Matthew 18:4. Receiving the kingdom of God as a little child.—There are three senses in which this humility may be understood.
1. As opposed to the pride of intellectual self-sufficiency—in receiving the doctrine of the kingdom in a spirit of docility, without doubting or disputation, as when the child shall receive his father’s word with implicit faith.
2. As opposed to the pride of self-righteousness—in receiving the blessings of the kingdom without any consciousness of desert, as when the child shall expect and take favours at his father’s hand without the faintest sentiment of any merits of his own.
3. As opposed to ambitious pride—in receiving the kingdom in a spirit of love for the brethren, without contention for preeminence, as when the nobleman’s child shall, if permitted, make a companion of the beggars on a footing of the most perfect equality.—W. Anderson, LL.D.
Humility.—A farmer went with his son into a wheat-field to see if it was ready for harvest. “See, father,” exclaimed the boy, “how straight those stems hold up their heads! They must be the best ones. Those that hang their heads down I am sure cannot be good for much.” The farmer plucked a stalk of each kind, and said, “See here, foolish child. This stalk that stood so straight is light-headed, and good for nothing, while this that hung down its head so modestly is full of the most beautiful grain.”
Matthew 18:6. Injuring others.—The atmosphere of carnality and selfishness in which the disciples were moving, as their question showed, would stifle the tender life of any lowly believer who found himself in it; and they were not only injuring themselves, but becoming stumbling-blocks to others by their ambition. How much of the present life of average Christians is condemned on the same ground! It is a good test of our Christian character to ask—would it help or hinder a lowly believer to live beside us? How many professing Christians are really, though unconsciously, doing their utmost to pull down their more Christ-like brethren to their own low level! The worldliness and selfish ambitions of the church are responsible for the stumbling of many who would else have been of Christ’s little ones.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Matthew 18:7. Giving occasions of stumbling.—If there is any work in the world which peculiarly deserves the name of the work of the devil, it is the hindrance which men sometimes put in the path in which their fellow-creatures are called by God to walk.
I. The most glaring form of the sin of tempting others is that of persecuting and ridiculing the conscientious.—Every one who endeavours to live as God would have him is sure to lay himself open to ridicule, if nothing worse. How easy it is to ridicule the imperfect virtue, because it is imperfect; how easy, and yet how wicked!
II. Are Christians quite safe from doing this great and sinful mischief?—I fear not.
1. Christians are not exempt from the common failing of all men, to condemn and dislike everything which is unlike the ordinary fashion of their own lives.
2. Christians are quite as liable as other men to be misled by the customs of their own society, and to confound the laws that have grown up amongst themselves with the law of God.
3. Christians are very often liable, not, perhaps, to put obstacles in the way of efforts to do right, so much as to refuse them the needful help without which they have little chance of succeeding.
4. Christians are quite as liable as any to give wrong things untrue names, and to take away the fear of sin by a sort of good-natured charity towards particular faults.
5. Christians are liable to that which is the common form of tempting among those who are not Christians; not to persecute or ridicule what is right, but to seek for companions in what is wrong. They are tempted, whenever sin is too powerful for their wills, to double it by dragging others with them on the same path.—Bishop Temple.
Responsibility for wrong-doing.—The words, “It must needs be that offences come, but woe unto that man …” unite in strange contrast the two truths which all the history of human guilt brings before us. Crimes seem to recur with something like the inevitable regularity of a law, and yet in each single instance the will of the offender has been free to choose, and he is therefore rightly held responsible both by Divine and human laws.—E. H. Plumptre, D.D.
Matthew 18:8-9. Self-injury.—
I. How, and when, and in what, do men thus injure themselves?—
1. We may take the hand and eye and foot as symbolical of what belongs closely and intimately to our being and nature; our habits, affections, dispositions, tendencies. Do not these perpetually offend us; harm and obstruct the growth, and mar the beauty and symmetry of the spiritual life? Indolence, pride, lust, passion, selfishness.
2. Under this symbolical language we may include things that we blindly and foolishly turn into means of offence and self-injury, viz., outward relationships and circumstances and duties and pleasures.—Anything that makes a man less virtuous, Christlike, less humble and heavenly-minded and self-sacrificing, becomes, in its measure, an “offence” unto him, a means of self-injury.
II. What is the prevention?—A decisive one: “cut them off,” etc. We may think, as we hear people say of a child with some physical weakness or deformity, “in the course of time he will outgrow it.” We fear the reverse will be the case with character. Our habits, weaknesses, obstacles, snares, offences, all these would only gather power with time, undermine our character, and do us deeper harm. It must be no momentary self-chastisement or penance—no mere determination to try to repress—we must adopt no half-measures whatever. Just as with dross in gold, and speck in fruit, and moth in garment, as with parasite and weed, so with these moral offenders, we must “cast them out.”
1. For our own sake.
2. For Christ’s sake.
3. For the sake of others.—Theodore Hooke.
Self-regard involves self-sacrifice.—There are stringent principles in these vivid words. Lawful things may be occasions of sin. Taste, occupations, the culture of some bodily or mental aptitude, study, art, society, all perfectly innocent in themselves and perfectly permissible for others who are not hurt by them, may damage our religious character. We may be unable to keep them in bounds, and they may be drawing off our interest and work from Christ’s service. If so, there is but one tiling to do, put your hand on the block, and take the axe in the other, and strike and spare not. It is of no use to try to regulate and moderate; the time for that may come. But, for the present, safety lies only in entire abstinence. Other people may retain the limb, but you cannot. They must judge for themselves, but their experience is not your guide. If the thing hurts your religious life, off with it. Christ bases His command of self-mutilation on the purest principles of self-regard. The plainest common sense says that it is better to live maimed than to die whole. He is a fool who insists on keeping a mortified limb, which kills him.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Complete, yet lost; maimed, yet saved!—Note, too, the possibility of a man cultured, full-summed in all his powers, yet, for lack of the one thing needful, perishing, like some tree, rounded, symmetrical, complete, without a branch broken or a leaf withered, which is struck by lightning, and blasted for ever. And, on the other hand, a man may be maimed in many a faculty, and extremely one-sided in his growth, ignorant of much that would have enriched and beautified, but if he have the root of all perfectness in him, then, though he passes into life maimed, he will not continue so there, but every grace which he abjured for Christ’s sake, will be given him, and then “shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing.”—Ibid.
Matthew 18:10-14. Consolation respecting the little ones.—In the Saviour’s words, there appear three guarantees for the safety of His “little ones”:—
I. The care of the guardian angels (Matthew 18:10).—It does not follow from this that each individual has one guardian angel assigned to him as a good genius to watch over him from the cradle to the grave. Of this Scripture reveals nothing. Enough that to the good angels as heavenly servants is committed the care of the heirs of salvation.
II. The love of the Good Shepherd (Matthew 18:11-13).—The Son of man, the Lord of angels, has saved those little ones, and He will not suffer them to perish. There is no weakness in His purpose, no negligence in His oversight, no change in His love. In regard to those who are actually children a fine passage occurs in the second part of the Pilgrim’s Progress. “By the riverside in the meadow there are cotes and folds for sheep, and a house built for the nourishing and bringing up of those lambs, the babes of those women that go on pilgrimage. Also there was here One that was intrusted with them, who could have compassion, and could gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom. Now to the care of this Man Christiana admonished her four daughters to commit their little ones, that by those waters they might be housed, harboured, succoured, and nourished, and that none of them might be lacking in time to come. This Man, if any of them go astray, will bring them back again. He will also build up that which was broken, and will strengthen them that were sick. This Man will die before one of those committed to His trust shall be lost. So they were content to commit their little ones to Him.” In a word, all young children who are committed to the Lord in faith, and all childlike Christians, are “safe in the arms of Jesus.”
III. The will of the Father in heaven (Matthew 18:14).—It is the Father’s will which the Son interprets and fulfils in saving the lost. It is the same supreme will which secures by the providence of the Son, the guidance of the Spirit, and the ministry of good angels, that none of the rescued ones shall perish. “Not one of these little ones.” The Father has a smile for this child and correction for that; a promise for this one and a warning for that, as each may require; but for every one He has love.—D. Fraser, D.D.
Matthew 18:10. Interest in the children (For a Sunday-school anniversary).—
I. Christ’s interest in a little child.—Because the thing on earth most like Himself. So much in men and women unlike Christ. So much in child like Him. Because of the mission Christ came to fulfil. Put into word “save.” Can we clothe the idea in other forms?
1. Christ came to win love. Just what a child can do. Wins his mother’s love first.
2. To keep up the sense of beauty. The most beautiful thing on earth is a little child.
3. To raise the idea of innocence. Purity is taught through innocence.
4. To teach dependence on God.
II. Christ’s revelation of His Father’s interest in a little child.—In heaven God keeps the picture, photograph, vision, correspondent, of every child. God has with Him ever our glorified children, and also the picture of the earth-children. Then:—
1. He knows all that happens to them on earth.
2. He knows what we do with them—how we treat them; how we neglect them.
3. He knows the children that bear, in bodily, and in home, and social, disability—and in early death—the sin-burden of humanity. The pattern, the picture, of every suffering child is always before God. What a precious thought for the children! What a searching thought for those who have to do with the children!
III. Christ’s command to His disciples to take interest in little children.—Our temptation is to “despise the little ones.” We may fail of our duty in two ways.
1. In active faithfulness to them.
2. In receptivity of influence from them.—Weekly Pulpit.
Matthew 18:11. Salvation for the lost condition.—Every kind of work supposes something to be done, some ground or condition of fact to be affected by it; education the fact of ignorance, punishment the fact of crime, charity the fact of want. The work of Christ, commonly called a work of salvation, supposes in like manner, the fact of a lost condition, such as makes salvation necessary. “Was lost.” This work is to be a salvation, not as being a preventive, but as being a remedy after the fact.
I. Clear away some obstructions, or points of misconception.—
1. Christ does not mean, when He says “was lost,” that the lost condition is literally accomplished in the full significance of it, but only that it is begun, with a fixed certainty of being fully accomplished.
2. “Total depravity,” is no declaration of Christ, and He is not responsible for it.
3. Your want of sensibility to the lost condition Christ assumes, may prove the truth of it. “If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.”
4. God wanted, in the creation of men, free beings like Himself, and capable of common virtues with Himself—not stones, or trees, or animals—and, being free, and therefore not to be controlled by force, they must of necessity be free to evil. This being true, creatures may be made that perish, or fall into lost conditions.
5. The amiable virtues, high aspirations, and other shining qualities you see in mankind, make the assumed fact of our lost condition seem harsh and extravagant. But, considering how high and beautiful a nature the soul is, it should not surprise you that it shows many traces of dignity, even after it has fallen prostrate, and lies a broken statue on the ground.
II. Look at the evidence of the fact and accept the conclusion it brings.—
1. Our blessed Master, in assuming your lost condition, is not doing it harshly, or in any manner of severity.
2. Possibly, He knows you more adequately than you know yourself. What does He in fact say? Notice His parables of the lost sheep and the lost piece of money, etc.
3. Think it not strange if your heart answers, after all, to the heart of Jesus, and reaffirms exactly what He has testified. You live in a world where there is certainly some wrong—you have seen it, suffered from it, and consciously done it. But all wrong, it will be agreed, is something done against the perfect and right will of God, and a shock must of necessity follow it.
III. Speak of the salvation—what it is, and by what means or methods it is wrought.—Manifestly this can be done only by some means or operation that respects the soul’s free nature, working in, upon, or through consent in us, and so new ordering the soul. Christ works by no fiat of absolute will, as when God said, “Let there be light.” He moves on your consent, by moving on your convictions, wants, sensibilities, and sympathies. He is the love of God, the beauty of God, the mercy of God—God’s whole character brought nigh, through a proper and true Son of man, a nature fellow to your own, thus to renovate and raise your own. The result can never be issued save as we on our part believe.—H. Bushnell, D.D.
“Was lost.”—If you see a man topple off the brink of a precipice a thousand feet high, you say inwardly, the moment he passes his centre of gravity, “He is gone”; you know it as well as when you see him dashed in pieces on the rocks below; for the causes that have gotten hold of him contain the fact of his destruction, and he is just as truly lost before the fact accomplished as after. So if a man has taken some deadly poison, and the stupor has begun to settle upon him already, you say that he is a lost man; for the death-power is in him, and you know as well that he is gone as if he lay dead at your feet. So a soul under evil once begun has taken the poison, and the bad causation at work is fatal; it contains the fact of ruined immortality, in such a sense that we never adequately conceive it, save as we give it past tense, and say, “was lost.”—Ibid.
Matthew 18:12. Seeking the wanderer.—I. Look at the figure of the one wanderer.
1. All men are Christ’s sheep. All men are Christ’s, because He has been the Agent of Divine creation, and the grand words of the hundredth Psalm are true about Him, “It is He that hath made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.” They are His because His sacrifice has bought them for His. Erring, straying, lost, they still belong to the Shepherd.
2. Notice next the picture of the sheep as wandering. The straying of the poor half-conscious sheep may seem innocent, but it carries the poor thing away from the shepherd as completely as if it had been wholly intelligent and voluntary. Let us learn the lesson. In a world like this, if a man does not know very clearly where he is going he is sure to go wrong. If you do not exercise a distinct determination to do God’s will, and to follow in His footsteps who has set us an example, and if your main purpose is to get succulent grass to eat and soft places to walk in, you are certain, before long, to wander tragically from all that is right, and noble, and pure.
II. Look at the picture of the Seeker.—In the text God leaves the ninety and nine, and goes into the mountains where the wanderer is, and seeks him. And thus, couched in veiled form, is the great mystery of the Divine love, the incarnation and sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord. Not because man was so great; not because man was so valuable in comparison with the rest of creation—he was but one amongst ninety and nine unfallen and unsinful—but because he was so wretched, because he was so small, because he had gone away so far from God, therefore the seeking love came after him, and would draw him to itself.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Matthew 18:14. The love of God for little children.
I. A love of utter unselfishness.
II. A love of delight in them.
III. A love of compassion towards them.
IV. A love of trust in the almost infinite capacities of children.—T. Gasquoin.