Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

Matthew XVIII. 19-23. 591
(Compare further as to prayer in the name of Jesus on John xiv, 13,
14 ; xvi. 24.) If, moreover, the Father is spoken of at ver. 19, and
the Son is at ver. 20 represented as he who is present in the assem-
bly (and consequently, as he who acts and who fulfils prayer), this
is explained simply by the relation of the Father and the Son. For,
in so far as the Father manifests himself only in the Son, and the
Son performs only what the Father prompts (John viii. 28), the
operation of Father and Son is one and the same agency of the
living God. To assemble in the name of the Father, and to pray
in him, apart from the Son, is an impossibility, it is merely to pray
in one's own name, which is no prayer ; for, whosoever dcnieth the
Son, hath not the Father. These last verses, finally, have again the
elevated tone of John, and seem to have been spoken in moments
of holiest exultation. The parable which follows, at once sinks
again into a lower region, doubtless, however, for this reasonj be-
cause Peter's question proved that he (and with him, certainly the
other disciples also), was not yet prepared for the full understand-
ing of the foregoing thought.
Ver. 21, 22.—If Peter in what follows speaks of forgiveness,
there had yet been no express mention made of that subject by
Jesus in the preceding discourse, but the whole precepts (ver. 15,
seq.) as to the treatment of erring brethren, had proceeded necessarily
on the supposition of forgiveness. The man who, in his own
heart, gives way to anger, will continue to cherish a sense of the
individual offence ; but the man who forgives will strive as a peacemaker
(Matth. V. 9), to remove the ground of the sin from the heart
of his brother. The imperfect moral culture of Peter, however, did
not admit of his understanding even the fundamental idea of forgiveness.
Mistaking the nature of pure love, which never can do
otherwise than love, he conceives of some limit to forgiveness, being
apprehensive, as is usual with natural men, that boundless forgive-
ness must be a thing impossible. (The inrdKig, seven times, as also
the following t:[36oiiT]icovTdiug k-rrd, seventy times seven, contains
merely the idea of the limited and the unlimited, expressed, accord-
ing to the Jewish practice, by the number seven. Compare Gen.
xxxiii. 3 ;
1 Kings xviii. 43.)
Ver. 23.—The Saviour, having perceived from Peter's question
how far his discernment was here at fault, proceeds to explain to
him in a parable the grounds on which a member of God's kingdom
must ever stand ready to grant forgiveness ; as, only through for-
giveness extended towards himself could he have obtained entrance
into that kingdom. To every individual, even to such as took their
stand on the footing of the law, this must have formed a decisive
motive to forgiveness. It was only the law of recompense to which
expression was thus given. While, therefore, the inquiry of Peter