The Greatest In The Kingdom
THE GREATEST IN THE KINGDOM
MATTHEW 18:1-14
Do you welcome and respect children and the childlike?
The “discourse” contained in this chapter consists of a number of Jesus’ sayings to the disciples dealing with various aspects of fellowship in the kingdom of heaven. The disciples appear to have been repeatedly concerned about the achievement of greatness in the kingdom. Here Jesus’ answer to their question, showing that true greatness in the kingdom consists in true humility, is illustrated by the example of a child, too young to have lost the unassuming truthfulness of infancy. Far from being greatest in the kingdom, they cannot even enter it unless they change their outlook completely and abandon all thought of self-seeking (18:1-4). To “turn” (18:3) or “be converted” (KJV) is not to be understood in the restricted sense which the latter term has acquired in popular evangelical parlance.
Our Lord’s practical identification of a child’s well-being with his own (18:5; cf. 25:40,45), coupled with his warning of the sure damnation incurred by teaching a child to sin (18:6), leads on to a further warning against all sources of temptation to sin (18:7-9; cf. 5:29f.).
The “hell of fire” (18:9) is Gehenna, as in 5:22-29f. The dignity of children is emphasized by the statement that their guardian angels (or angelic counterparts; cf. Acts 12:15) have direct access to the presence of God (cf. Luke 1:19; Revelation 8:2); their helplessness calls forth a special degree of divine interest and protection (18:10). “Little ones,” said one of the rabbis, “receive the presence of the Shekinah” (cf. 19:14). The lesson is further inculcated by the parable of the hundredth sheep (18:12f.), appearing here in a different context from that of Luke 15:3-7. As for 18:14, it has been well described as “a text to display in the nursery of every Christian home” (Sir Robert Anderson, The Entail of the Covenant, p.18).