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CHAPTER 18.

MORAL TRAINING OF THE DISCIPLES.

In this and the next two chapters the centre of interest is the spiritual condition of the Twelve, and the necessity thereby imposed on their Master to subject them to a stern moral discipline. The day of Caesarea had inaugurated a spiritual crisis in the disciple-circle, which searched them through and through, and revealed in them all in one form or another, and in a greater or less degree, moral weakness: disloyalty to the Master (Matthew 17:22), vain ambition, jealousy, party spirit. The disloyal disciple seems to have taken to heart more than the others the gloomy side of the Master’s predictions, the announcement of the Passion; his more honest-hearted companions let their minds rest on the more pleasing side of the prophetic picture, the near approach of the kingdom in power and glory, so that while remaining true to the Master their hearts became fired with ambitious passions.

Matthew 18:1-14. Ambition rebuked (Mark 9:33-50; Luke 9:46-50; Luke 15:3-7; Luke 17:1-4).

Matthew 18:1. ἐν ἐκ. τ. ὥρᾳ, in that hour; the expression connects what follows very closely with the tax incident, and shows that the two things were intimately associated in the mind of the evangelist.—τίς ἄρα μείζων: who then is greater, etc.? The ἄρα may be taken as pointing back to the tax incident as suggesting the question, but not to it alone, rather to it as the last of a series of circumstances tending to force the question to the front: address to Peter at Caesarea Philippi; three disciples selected to be with the Master on the Hill of Transfiguration. From Mk. we learn that they had been discussing it on the way home.—ἐν τ. βασ.τ.οὐρ., in the Kingdom of Heaven; this is wanting in Mk., where the question is a purely personal one; who is the greater (among us, now, in your esteem)? In Mk. the question, though referring to the present, who is, etc., points to the future, and presents a more general aspect, but though it wears an abstract look it too is personal in reality = which of us now is the greater for you, and shall therefore have the higher place in the kingdom when it comes? It is not necessary to conceive every one of the Twelve fancying it possible he might be the first man. The question for the majority may have been one as to the respective claims of the more prominent men, Peter, James, John, each of whom may have had his partisans in the little band.

Matthew 18:2. παιδίον: the task of Jesus is not merely to communicate instruction but to rebuke and exorcise an evil spirit, therefore He does not trust to words alone, but for the greater impressiveness uses a child who happens to be present as a vehicle of instruction. The legendary spirit which dearly loves certainty in detail identified the child with Ignatius, as if that would make the lesson any the more valuable!

Matthew 18:3. ἐὰν μὴ στραφῆτε: unless ye turn round so as to go in an opposite direction. “Conversion” needed and demanded, even in the case of these men who have left all to follow Jesus! How many who pass for converted, regenerate persons have need to be converted over again, more radically! Chrys. remarks: “We are not able to reach even the faults of the Twelve; we ask not who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, but who is the greater in the Kingdom of Earth: the richer the more powerful” (Hom. lviii.). The remark is not true to the spirit of Christ. In His eyes vanity and ambition in the sphere of religion were graver offences than the sins of the worldly. His tone at this time is markedly severe, as much so as when He denounced the vices of the Pharisees. It was indeed Pharisaism in the bud He had to deal with. Resch suggests that στραφῆτε here simply represents the idea of becoming again children, corresponding to the Hebrew idiom which uses שׁוּב = πάλιν (Aussercanonische Paralleltexte zu Mt. and Mk., p. 213).—ὡς τὰ παιδία, like the children, in unpretentiousness. A king’s child has no more thought of greatness than a beggar’s.—οὐ μὴ εἰσέλθητε, ye shall not enter the kingdom, not to speak of being great there. Just what He said to the Pharisees (vide on chap. Matthew 5:17-20).

Matthew 18:4. ταπεινώσει ἑαυτὸν: the most difficult thing in the world for saint as for sinner. Raphel (Annot. in S. S.) distinguishes three forms of self-humiliation: in mind (Php 2:3), by words, and by acts, giving classical examples of the latter two. It is easy to humble oneself by self-disparaging words, or by symbolic acts, as when the Egyptian monks wore hoods, like children’s caps (Elsner), but to be humble in spirit, and so child-like!—ὁ μείζων. The really humble man is as great in the moral world as he is rare.

Matthew 18:5-7.

Matthew 18:5. δέξηται: the discourse passes at this point from being child-like to gracious treatment of a child and what it represents.—ἓν παιδίον τοιοῦτο: the real child present in the room passes into an ideal child, representing all that the spirit of ambition in its struggle for place and power is apt to trample under foot. So in effect the majority of commentators; a few, including Bengel, De Wette, Bleek, Weiss, hold that the reference is still to a real child. In favour of this view is Luke’s version: “Whoso receiveth this child,” etc. (Luke 9:48). But the clause ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματί μου raises the child into the ideal sphere. The reception required does not mean natural kindness to children (though that also Christ valued), but esteeming them as fellow-disciples in spite of their insignificance. A child may be such a disciple, but it may also represent such disciples, and it is its representative function that is to be emphasised.

Matthew 18:6. σκανδαλίσῃ: the opposite of receiving; treating harshly and contemptuously, so as to tempt to unbelief and apostasy. The pride and selfish ambition of those who pass for eminent Christians make many infidels.—ἕνα τ. μ. τ.: one of the large class of little ones; not merely child believers surely, but all of whom a child is the emblem, as regards social or ecclesiastical importance. Those who are caused to stumble are always little ones: “majores enim scandala non recipiunt,” Jerome. One of them: “frequens unius in hoc capite mentio,” Bengel. This is the one text in which Jesus speaks of Himself as the object of faith (vide The Kingdom of God, p. 263).—συμφέρει … ἵνα: vide on Matthew 5:29. Fritzsche finds here an instance of attraction similar to that in Matthew 10:25—καὶ ὁ δοῦλος, ὡς ὁ κ. α. Instead of saying συμφέρει α. κρεμασθῆναι … ἵνα καταποντισθῇ, the writer puts both verbs in the subjunctive after ἵνα.—μύλος ὀνικὸς. The Greeks called the upper millstone ὄνος the ass (ὁ ἀνῶτερος λίθος, Hesychius), but they did not use the adjective ὀνικὸς. The meaning therefore is a millstone driven by an ass, i.e., a large one, as distinct from smaller-sized ones driven by the hand, commonly used in Hebrew houses in ancient times. “Let such a large stone be hung about the neck of the offender to make sure that he sink to the bottom to rise no more”—such is the thought of Jesus; strong in conception and expression, revealing intense abhorrence.—ἐν τῷ πελάγει τ. θ.: in the deep part of the sea. So Kypke, who gives examples; another significantly strong phrase. Both these expressions have been toned down by Luke.—καταποντισθῇ: drowning was not a form of capital punishment in use among the Jews. The idea may have been suggested by the word denoting the offence, σκανδαλίσῃ. Bengel remarks: “apposita locutio in sermone de scandalo, nam ad lapidem offensio est” = “let the man who puts a stone in the path of a brother have a stone hung about his neck,” etc. Lightfoot suggests as the place of drowning the Dead Sea, in whose waters nothing would sink without a weight attached to it, and in which to be drowned was a mark of execration.

Matthew 18:7. οὐαὶ τῶ κόσμῳ, woe to the world, an exclamation of pity at thought of the miseries that come upon mankind through ambitious passions. Some (Bleek, Weiss, etc.) take κόσμος in the sense of the ungodly world, as in later apostolic usage, and therefore as causing, not suffering from, the offences deplored. This interpretation is legitimate but not inevitable, and it seems better to take the word in the more general sense of humanity conceived of as grievously afflicted with “scandals” without reference to who is to blame. They are a great fact in the history of mankind, by whomsoever caused.—ἀπὸ τ. σ.: by reason of; points to the ultimate source of the misery.—τῶν σκανδάλων: the scandals; a general category, and a black one.—ἀνάγκη γάρ: they are inevitable; a fatality as well as a fact, on the wide scale of the world; they cannot be prevented, only deplored. No shallow optimism in Christ’s view of life.—πλὴν: adversative here, setting the woe that overtakes the cause of offences, over against that of those who suffer from them. Weiss contends that it is not adversative here any more than in Matthew 11:24, but simply conducts from the general culpability of the world to the guilt of every one who is a cause of scandal, even when he does not belong to the world.