The prayer in one accord to exercise the authority given to the church to bind and loose what has been bound and loosed in the heavens should be in the gatherings of two or three with the Lord’s presence. There is no need to have a big meeting but simply a meeting of two or three gathered into the name of the Lord. When we are gathered into the Lord’s name, we are gathered into His person. Then surely we have Him with us. We have His presence, and His presence is the authority of the kingdom of the heavens for us to deal with a sinning brother. Actually, we do not deal with the brother but with the Devil and with the demons. If we attempt to exercise the kingdom authority without the Lord’s presence, it will not work. Exercising the authority of the kingdom of the heavens to bind and loose must be done in the Lord’s presence.
The context of Matthew 18 indicates that the reality of the church is the Lord’s presence. The church must be certain that it has the presence of the Lord as its reality; otherwise, it has no genuine authority. The real and practical authority of the church is the Lord’s presence. If anyone does not listen to the church, he rebels against the Lord’s presence. The church has the ground to exercise authority in the presence of the Lord over any case of rebellion.
We need to consider 18:20 in some detail. In this verse the Lord says, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst.” These two or three meeting in the Lord’s name are not the church but members of the church. However, we may think that as long as two or three meet in the name of the Lord and have His presence, they are the church, and the reality of the church is there. But if we read Matthew 18 carefully, we shall see that the two or three mentioned in verse 20 are not the church. These two or three are the two or three in verse 16. They may gather together in the Lord’s name, but they are not the church, for if there is some problem, they need to tell it to the church (v. 17). If those two or three were the church, there would be no need for them to take the problem to the church. The fact that they need to “tell it to the church” proves that they are not the church but rather part of the church. They belong to the church and they are members of the church, but they are not the church.
In Matthew 16 and 18 the universal church and the local church are unveiled not in a doctrinal way but in a very experiential, practical way. In Matthew 16 the Lord unveiled the universal church by saying that He would build His church on the rock of the divine revelation concerning Christ. Then in Matthew 18 the Lord unveiled the local church in an experiential way by telling us how to recover a sinful brother. In His fellowship concerning how to recover a sinful brother, the Lord opened a window for us to see how the believers in a local church should meet.
First, the Lord’s word in 18:20 indicates that the basic way to meet with the saints in the local church is by two or three. Due to tradition and to our environment we may not consider a gathering of two believers a Christian meeting. Nevertheless, the Lord’s word indicates that a local church should have meetings by two or three. Basically speaking, we should meet not in large meetings but with a small number. The smallest number for gathering is two. Without two, we cannot have a gathering.
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