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(**This series began in 2023. These recent posts are the conclusion to that series. To view the entire series, please click HERE)
As a brief reminder, this series is an exposition from Jesus’ own discourse to his disciples. There is no higher authority, nor clearer blueprint for what Jesus envisioned for his Church (assembly, congregation, gathering). He was not inaugurating a new alternative religion. He didn’t start an oppositional institutional authority. He was both describing and prescribing what a group of people following Him would be like.
Textually this discourse comes from Matthew 16:13-18:20 and is visible by way of the chiastic structure, functioning like parentheses of “Binding and loosing that which is on earth being bound and loosed also in Heaven.” (Matthew 16:19 & 18:18) The textual flow includes a hiatus up a mountain for Jesus’ transfiguration, essentially underscoring that this ecclesia is the embodiment of Christ himself, bound and loosed both on earth and in heaven…both realms coexisting in and through Christ… That is the Church. The paragraphs in the discourse answer the functional questions of how this living, dynamic, organism is to operate compared to organizations. Today we regain this series in Matthew 18:7-9:
7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! 8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.
This verse is our proof that no pastor, bible teacher, or church member actually believes the bible is to be interpreted literally. Is Jesus threatening a literal eternal Hell as most assume? How could He if this isn’t to be interpreted literally? If He is threatening such a literal eternal Hell, then where are all the one-eyed, one armed Christians? Further, where are other biblical teachings which reveal that bodily dismemberment is the means by which we eisersomé-(begin to experience, enter) heaven. Clearly this is saying something more, and the Greek helps us immensely.
Oúai-(horror, disaster, woe, how terrible) it is for the world due to those causing sin, indeed causing sin is inevitable, but how terrible for the person through whom the causing of sin happens. The ESV uses the term “temptation” but that is a deficient translation. The Greek has a better word for trial or temptation and it is not used here. The term skándalon-(trap, cause of sin, offense) is precisely what this section is describing: causes of sin. Notice how Jesus doesn’t specify any causes of sin? That’s not the point. The teaching is that when diverse people gather together as followers of Christ, we must take seriously (not literally) the causes of our personal sin. Essentially this is an admonition for self-awareness, not a focus on the sins of others.
Secondly, this is not a threat of eternal conscious torment. Most eisegete this text by assuming that Hollywood horror films, Dantes Inferno, and the culture love affair with an eternal conscious torment of “the other” by a vindictive God, are what this text means when using the terms eternal fire (v.8) or Gehenna (v.9). I’ve discussed this at length in one of my most popular series entitled: What the Hell. Gehenna means “valley of hinnon” which was the city dump right outside of Jerusalem. It is not only where the trash would burn night and day (eternal fire) but also the hills where the pagan gods would have the fires of their alters going night and day in the sight of the temple. To end up in Gehenna meant that your life was essentially over. Life was found inside the city walls, not outside them where criminals and the unclean were relegated to fight the gnashing teeth of dogs for scraps.
The blueprint then is that Jesus’ Church, His community of followers, are those who are self-aware and realize that everyone of us is a contributor to the terrible state of the world by our own causes of sin within us. As we become self-aware and take drastic measures (seriously not literally) to cut off that which ruins life for everyone and ourselves. The implication is that those who lack self awareness and who do not stop the causes of sin in their own lives, are ballo-(thrown, let to fall, brought about) become the horror or terrible causes of inevitable destruction.
Jesus’ Church is shown here to be the stop-gap, the counter balance to the inevitable horror and decline of humanity. She is the salt of the world, the light of the world, and is graced with the ability to become self aware and identify the causes of sin within her. The bringing of Heaven to earth is not a cosmic end of the world event, it is the moment by moment internal transformation from obeying our appetites and impulses, to trusting Christ as the Word of life. He’s not describing a perfect group of people, only ones that avoid perpetuating the ruin of the world, by way of a graced self awareness and the will to live in fidelity to the Heaven emerging within us.
Then as we each follow Christ and live this way in aggregate, Heaven becomes increasingly more visible and reachable to everyone. Earth becomes heaven, by way of the self-aware Church.
