Then immediately following, in verse 18, the Lord Jesus said something about the exercise of the authority of the church. He said, “Whatsoever ye [that means the church] bind, the heavens will bind, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, the heavens will loose.” This is the authority the Lord gave to Peter in chapter sixteen. The Roman Catholic Church says that this authority was given only to Peter; so today only “the successor of Peter,” the Pope, has it. But they neglect to see that in chapter eighteen the same authority has been given to the church, to the whole church. The church has the authority to bind. To bind whom? To bind the one who neglects to hear the church. Read the context again and you will see that this is the meaning. The church has the authority to bind him who neglects to hear the church.
How could this decision be carried out? By what way could the church execute this decision? By verses 19 and 20, that is, by the saints meeting together to pray concerning this matter. Read the context and you will see that this is the meaning. You see the Lord said something regarding the meeting, because to exercise the authority of the church, to bind the dissenting one is not an individual matter, but a matter of the church, the corporate Body. The Body must execute the decision. By what way? By the way of prayer. The saints must come together to pray that the church may execute what the church decides. By this we see that the meetings of the believers must be something belonging to the church.
People today pluck out verse 20 and say, “Look, the Lord Jesus said that where two or three are meeting together in His name, there He will be in their midst.” They use this verse to justify any meeting where two or three are gathered in His name. But they simply neglect the context of this verse. The context tells us that the meetings of the believers must be something of the church, must be something which take the stand of the church. They should not be isolated from the church; they should be connected and belonging to the church. Today Christians misapply verse 20. They take verse 20 as a ground for their meeting, but they never stand with the church. They do not have the church standing; they just meet by themselves without the church. They have the meeting, but they do not have the church; their meeting has no ground of the church, and their meeting is not taking the stand with the church.
How then should we meet? Firstly, if we would meet properly, our meeting must be related to the church, and our meeting must belong to the church. Our meeting must be standing with the church and be a part of the church. The purpose of our meeting must be to execute the decision of the church.
I’m very sorry for the situation of today’s Christianity. All the free groups take Matthew 18:20 as the justification, the basis for their meeting. If you inquire of them regarding the church, they answer that they do not understand anything concerning the church; they say that they just meet together upon the scriptural ground of Matthew 18:20. I can assure you that this is true not only in the western world, but also in the Far East. So many Christians are meeting together, but they simply do not know that when they meet together they need the standing of the church. The meeting of believers, the meeting of Christians, must be a part of the church, must take the stand of the church, and must be for the purpose of executing the church’s decision.
Perhaps there are some who are reading this book who still have such a concept. They feel that as long as they meet in the name of the Lord Jesus, that is sufficient. But according to the context of Matthew 18:20, that is not sufficient. You must have the church. If your meeting is taking the stand with the church, if your meeting is part of the church and belongs to the church, if your meeting is for the execution of the church’s decision, that is sufficient. If it is not, your meeting is wrong. That is not a proper meeting; that is a divisive meeting. That is not the meeting of the church; that is a meeting of division. I say again, the proper meeting of believers must be a part of the church, must stand with the church, and must execute the church’s decision.
To take a verse out of context is exceedingly dangerous and utterly wrong. We should not cut verse 20 out of this chapter; we must care for the context. I know a number of brothers whose first name is John, but if I care only for the first name without bothering about the last, I will find myself in a mess. I must not cut off the first name from the last. Likewise, if I cut off verse 20 from verses 15 through 19, I will miss the point and intention of the passage. We need verses 15 through 19 to substantiate us in the proper use of verse 20. According to the context, the Christian meeting is something which is absolutely related to the church, the local church.
For example, suppose that six or seven brothers feel unhappy with the local church. For whatever reason they may have to be unhappy, they begin a meeting in one of their homes, declaring and even claiming Matthew 18:20 as their scriptural ground. They can say to others, “It is perfectly all right for us to meet in this way; we are more than two or three, and we are meeting in the name of the Lord Jesus.” But if they spoke in this way to me, I would ask them, “Brothers, do you consider your meeting a part of the local church in the city where you live? Is your meeting taking the stand of the church? Is your meeting executing what the church has decided to do?” If those brothers would not listen to the church in that place, they become divisive. They must go back. They need the assurance that their meeting is just a part of the local church. It is so clear.
Suppose that you and others in the city where you live are fed up with Christianity; so you start to meet together separately in the Lord’s name. You say, “We give up Christianity; we’ve had enough of the old system of religion; now we are just meeting by ourselves in the name of the Lord Jesus, assured according to Matthew 18:20 that we have His presence.” We would simply ask you, Is your meeting taking the stand with the true local church in your city? Or is your meeting some isolated thing, something without the church as a standing? If so, your meeting is divisive and not a proper meeting. Do not isolate Matthew 18:20—it must be understood by the context. Read the context, and you will see the right meaning of meeting in the name of the Lord.