Moreover if your brother sins against you, go, reprove him between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not hear you, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to hear the church also, let him be to you just like the Gentile and the tax collector. Truly I say to you, Whatever you bind on the earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on the earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Again, truly I say to you that if two of you are in harmony on earth concerning any matter for which they ask, it will be done for them from My Father who is in the heavens. For where there are two or gathered into My name, there am I in their midst.
Matt. 18:15-20.
These verses, concerning the way to deal with a troublesome brother in the church, reveal something very precious. In Matt. 16:18, the Lord Jesus revealed the church for the first time, the universal church as the unique Body of Christ. But here, we see something related to the practice of the believers in a certain locality. While the Body of Christ is universal, spanning both time and space (starting from the day of Pentecost and stretching forward to the day when the millennial kingdom ends and the New Jerusalem descends from heaven, and including every believer in every place), it must also be practical, because as finite beings, we can only exist in one place at one time. The church has a universal aspect, and it has a local aspect.
In order to be in the kingdom of the heavens in a practical way, we need to be in a local church. According to the context of verse 17, both the reality and the practicality of the kingdom are in the local church. In a chapter dealing with relationships in the kingdom, the Lord speaks eventually of the church. This proves that the practicality of the kingdom today is in the local church. Without the local church, it is impossible to have the practicality and reality of the kingdom life. Many Christians today talk of the kingdom life, but without the practical local church life, this talk is in vain.
What is a local church? A local church is not a building on the corner with a pointed roof and a bell; instead, 1 Cor. 1:2 shows us that it is simply all the believers in a city; the believers in Corinth were "the church of God which is in Corinth". The situation that Paul addressed in Corinth was full of division, sin, confusion, abusing of gifts and heretical teachings, yet the apostle still called it "the church of God", because the divine and spiritual essence which makes the assembled believers the church of God was actually there. If you look at Christianity today, the believers are divided into a 1001 denominations, taking a person or a practice as a means of denominating, or differentiating themselves. This is absolutely wrong, for God Himself is one, and cannot be divided; yet these believers together, each having the divine and spiritual essence of the Triune God, whether they know it or not, whether they practice it or not, are the church in that locality.
In chapter sixteen, the Lord revealed the universal church. But the universal church requires the practicality of the local church. Without the local church, the universal church cannot be practiced; rather, it will be something suspended in the air. The local church is the reality both of the kingdom and of the universal church.
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