Commentary on Matthew 18:15-20

Matthew 18:15–20 details the ecclesial stipulations for resolving conflict between two people. Jesus states, “If your brother or sister sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone” (18:15). If the sinner does not listen to the offended party, “one or two others” join the discussion “so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses” (18:16). Barring resolution in the presence of these witnesses, the entire assembly (or “church,” ekklesīa) gets involved (18:17). If the guilty congregant continues to refuse correction, Jesus says, “let such a one be to you as a gentile and a tax collector” (18:17).

This scenario echoes legal requirements from the Law of Moses. When Jesus refers to the “evidence of two or three witnesses” (18:17), he recalls the biblical conditions for court proceedings in the book of Deuteronomy. Moses declares, “On the evidence of two or three witnesses the death sentence shall be executed; a person must not be put to death on the evidence of only one witness” (Deuteronomy 17:6). In his demand for multiple witnesses, Jesus follows this Deuteronomistic precedent. Yet whereas Moses requires two or three people to enact capital punishment, Matthew envisions the sinner’s exclusion from the community.

This shift from execution to expulsion is not unique to Matthew’s Gospel. In the Second Temple period, Jewish commentators began to interpret the Torah’s calls for the death penalty as references to excommunication. For instance, whereas Leviticus 20:27 states that a “man or a woman who is a medium or a spiritualist shall be put to death,” the first-century Jewish commentator Philo of Alexandria asserts that “Moses banished … diviners and fortune-tellers and sorcerers and enchanters” (Special Laws 1.60).

Similarly, Paul recommends that a man who is sleeping with his father’s wife in Corinth should be expelled from the church: “You are to hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 5:5). In this way, Paul tells the Corinthians, you shall “drive out the wicked person from among you” (5:13).

Yet this Pauline phrase comes from a Deuteronomistic context that demands capital punishment: “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die. … Thus, you shall remove the evil one from Israel” (Deuteronomy 22:22, Septuagint). Paul forgoes the death penalty in favor of an excommunication that will result in the sinner being “removed from among you” (1 Corinthians 5:2). When Matthew refers to a church member being removed after standing before “two or three witnesses” (Matthew 18:17), the evangelist affirms the traditional Jewish interpretation of Mosaic capital punishment in terms of public expulsion.

The Gospel implies excommunication in its reference to the unrepentant sinner being treated “as a gentile and a tax collector” (18:17). Since Jesus’s followers are limited to Jews in Matthew’s narrative, the terminology suggests a status outside the Jesus-believing community. Yet the phrase also alludes to hope for sinners’ restoration, since tax collectors and gentiles are the very groups that Matthew earmarks for evangelization (see also Matthew 9:9–11; 10:3; 11:19; 28:19).¹ Ideally, then, any expulsions from the assembly would be temporary separations pending successful reintegration.

Immediately after mentioning tax collectors and gentiles, Jesus says that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (18:18). Several options exist for interpreting this statement, of which three are particularly intriguing.

First, since the reference to binding and loosing appears in the context of sin and potential forgiveness (18:5), Matthew 18:18 may refer to the binding and loosing of sins. Since John’s Gospel contains a similar dictum—“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23)—it appears that the fourth evangelist interpreted Matthew’s “binding” and “loosing” as references to forgiving and retaining sins.²

Second, the Matthean logion may allude to the disciples’ ability to expel and readmit church members—a meaning that would fit with the broader context of Matthew 18:15–20 detailed above. The first-century CE Jewish historian Josephus notes that the Pharisees of the first century BCE were “becoming administrators of everything—to banish and recall whom they want, to loose and bind” (Jewish War 1.111).³

Third, binding and loosing could pertain to exorcism and authority over demons. Multiple Second Temple texts use the terms in this way, including when the angel Raphael “bound” the demon Asmodeus and thereby freed Sarah from her demonic affliction (Tobit 8:3). The New Testament echoes this usage in its reference to Satan being “bound” and “loosed” in Revelation 20:2–3, and in Luke’s description of a woman whom “Satan had bound” for 18 years before Jesus “loosed” her from this bond on the Sabbath (Luke 13:16).⁴ However, since the context of Matthew 18:15–20 does not mention the devil or demons, the first two interpretive options may be preferable.

The Matthean passage ends with a declaration of God’s authority over church proceedings and Christ’s ongoing presence with the assembly. Jesus proclaims, “If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:19–20). These concluding remarks remind Gospel readers that while internal disputes are inevitable, fellowship and cohesion will ensure continued divine oversight among believers.

Notes

1. For tax collectors and gentiles as “people requiring evangelization” in Matthew’s narrative world, see Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds., The Jewish Annotated New Testament, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 44.
2. See James W. Barker, John’s Use of Matthew (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), 37–38.
3. See Barker, John’s Use, 46.
4. See Richard H. Hiers, “‘Binding’ and ‘Loosing’: The Matthean Authorizations,” Journal of Biblical Literature 104 (1985): 233–250.