Matthew 5:24, commentary and pictures

When bringing a gift to the altar and remembering that a brother has anything against you, leave the gift there, go away and first be reconciled to him, and then come back and offer it. Prayer, worship and offerings must wait while you go to make peace, and they are not acceptable to God while hatred, bitterness, an unforgiving spirit or a remediable grievance remains. The duty is immediate and urgent without letting even a day pass, requiring real effort to ease the other's mind and restore harmony before worship, and making that effort fulfills duty and prepares the heart to approach God even if the other remains unwilling. Being reconciled means going directly and privately to the person concerned, humbly confessing personal wrong without judging his motives, asking forgiveness, removing the cause of variance and making restitution where possible. The command shows that the law reaches beyond outward religious acts to motives and the heart, where hatred already begins the path to murder, so that obeying it produces unity, tender Christlike love and blessing, while neglecting it leaves alienation and division.

Sermon Setting and Wording

The saying belongs to Matthew 5, which is Christ's Sermon on the Mount. That sermon was given especially to His disciples but spoken within hearing of the assembled multitude. In it He taught the conditions of entrance into God's kingdom and corrected false ideas about that kingdom. Its principles describe the kingdom of divine grace rather than the earthly kingdom and political restoration many Jews expected.

There He defined the law's far-reaching claims and presented its requirements in their proper light, rather than as the cold code of commands and traditions taught by the religious leaders. The sermon opposed the religious leaders' teachings and practices and challenged their misrepresentation of God. God requires perfect obedience to His commandments, and His plainly revealed requirements are reasonable and just, while failure to walk in the light He has given separates people from Him and brings darkness in proportion to the light neglected. Christ gave a greater, certain wisdom to be accepted instead of the unstable words of men as exalted wisdom, standing apart from the teaching of the rabbinical schools of His day, whose minds were corrupted with the continually repeated "They say," or, "It has been said," which He did not encourage any to attend.

Its lessons are to be shown in the life, and living those lessons makes a deeper and more lasting impression than preaching alone. The gift left before the altar includes prayer, thanksgiving, free-will offering, petitions and worship. Such gifts must be left paused when the giver remembers that another holds something against him, and must not take precedence over making things right.

Money invested in God's publishing work is a gift left before the altar and must be allowed to remain there. Withdrawing it to recover a personal investment, even when pleading real necessity, is withdrawing a gift from the altar for selfish advantage, and one who does so cannot expect God's blessing to rest upon him, especially when the institution has sustained great loss and withdrawal would cripple the work. Bringing a gift to God does not excuse giving carelessly or grudgingly: the offering should be the best of one's substance, given willingly and sacrificially, not a lame or useless gift, because God will not accept an offering given grudgingly.

The verse is one of the blessings spoken upon the mount that are full of deep meaning and high value, with value in every symbol in them. It is one of the chapter's instructions to be cherished and obeyed, and all are to study Christ's words in Matthew 5 for individual benefit, to hear and to do by doing the will of the Father in heaven. They are to be dwelt upon often to bring divine virtues into life. They must be brought into practical experience and incorporated into the life and worked out in personal life and experience, and only then do they give experimental knowledge and understanding.

Believing and practicing Christ's teachings develops Christlike character and brings divine principles into the heart. Heeding such divine instructions transforms character and helps Christ's followers show His character. It sets a high standard for all done in God's cause to be without spot or wrinkle, correcting the low grade, backsliding, misapprehension, unkindness, retaliation, and strife in the church, and calls for earnest labor through Christ's grace to break up words that separate friends and to represent Christ as altogether lovely in word and attitude and action in order to know true doctrine by doing God's will. So doing makes one like a wise man who built his house on the rock, who will stand when rain and floods and winds come and will enter the kingdom of heaven instead of being rejected as a worker of iniquity who was never known. Many who claim to be Christians do not choose to bring it into their practical experience and only dimly appreciate it, but God's messengers who see its real value understand the true position they are called to occupy and manifest it when proved and tried and obtain knowledge of the highest value to them.

Reconciliation Before Worship

God has given a plain direction and rule for wrong between brethren: when bringing a gift to the altar and remembering that a brother has anything against you, leave the gift before the altar, go away, first be reconciled to the brother, and then come and offer the gift. Reconciliation takes priority over presenting the offering, so worship is to be paused in order to seek it first before returning to worship. Following this direction saves a large amount of mischief and removes many misunderstandings.

Worship must not take the place of making things right with another, be separated from making peace, or excuse leaving a damaged relationship unrepaired. Prayer, worship and gifts must pause and wait while the person goes to make peace, and reconciliation comes first and only then the return to offer the gift. This reconciling work is the first work to be done if the blood of Christ is to be efficacious, requiring careful thought and prayerful self-examination and earnest effort to end misunderstandings and unkindness that can provoke retaliation and spread strife and to restore friendship, while taking the initiative to make peace without sacrifice of principle. The same instruction is joined to church discipline, that members who sin and refuse to repent are to be approached and labored with, and if they persist, separated from fellowship rather than retained.

The duty to be reconciled is immediate and urgent, without delay and without letting even a day pass. It is urgent because the end of all things is at hand, as the destruction of Jerusalem was near at hand when believers were called to be sober and watch unto prayer. One turning to God must first seek out estranged relatives and others, even those not spoken to for years, confess and make wrongs right as part of thorough conversion, and this is urgent for one in the last stages of incurable disease with no hope for this life as preparation for the future life. The wrong should be addressed without delay and directly with the person, making every effort to make it right, for worship and prayers are not acceptable while this known duty is neglected and envy or suspicion is allowed to grow. The first step is taken without referring to what the brother has done and without judging his motives, even when the injury is only supposed and even when the brother has acted unwisely, with calmness and only wise and gentle words, showing tender compassion and pity and sympathy for a worn brother, which brings peace and pardon to the soul of the one who pardons and gives vantage ground over Satan and keeps brethren in fellowship.

Worship Rejected Without Peace

No prayer, worship, or offering is acceptable to God while hatred, revenge, bitterness, animosity, injustice, an unloving or unforgiving spirit remains in the heart, or while a grievance or reconcilable difference remains unresolved when it could be helped. Hatred and revenge already place a person on the path to murder, and hatred beginning that path makes offerings abhorrent to God. No religious service, zeal, or offering excuses leaving such differences in place, for God requires them to be removed before He will accept religious service.

The gift laid before the altar expressed faith that through Christ the offerer had become a partaker of God's mercy and love, so to profess faith in God's pardoning love while indulging an unloving spirit and treating another without love is a mere farce. Being reconciled means more than refusing to hate, because God's love is active and those who have Christ's love seek to show love to others. Wronging or injuring a brother misrepresents God's character to that brother, so the wrong must be acknowledged as sin in order to be in harmony with God. When the worshiper humbles himself, confesses personal wrongdoing, and seeks reconciliation, God forgives the sin and accepts the offering.

God requires effort to ease the other's mind and, if possible, remove the grievance and restore harmony before offering worship, and He does not accept religious service while a possible reconciliation is left undone. Before seeking God in prayer and bringing an offering, the person must confess the wrong, repair the harm where possible, and work to preserve Christian love and unity. Even if the other person rejects the gesture and remains unwilling to reconcile, making the effort fulfills duty and prepares the heart to approach God in faith and confidence.

Pride, refusal to confess faults, and failure to correct misunderstandings hinder prayer and damage peace and unity, while reconciliation includes explaining matters, admitting and correcting one's own wrongs, and removing stumbling blocks so that neither person's spiritual progress is hindered. When a remembered wrong between brothers remains unresolved, reconciliation must come without delay and directly with the person, and worship and prayers are not acceptable while this duty is neglected and envy or suspicion is allowed to grow. Harboring resentment with an unforgiving spirit is condemned by God's Word, takes away appetite for reading the Scriptures, and keeps God from answering prayer.

The command expresses the law's far-reaching demand reaching beyond outward religious acts to conduct toward others and to motives of the heart, so self-love breaks the law and worship does not excuse unreconciled wrongdoing. A person is to set aside the gift, seek reconciliation with a brother first, and then return to offer it, showing that worship must be joined with right relations. The law explained in the gospel requires love of neighbor, so unjustly acquiring money at another's expense falls short of its standard.

Steps to Be Reconciled

Go directly and privately to the person concerned to seek reconciliation, conversing with him and asking what needs to be made right and how to harmonize, rather than thinking and speaking evil, spreading reports, opening the matter to others, spreading the difficulty before the church, or making faults public before the whole church. Accusations must be taken to the accused to give opportunity to answer, and a neighbor who has done wrong should be approached privately to save him, for obeying this expresses love to neighbor. Public exposure creates disturbance, confuses and saddens seekers after truth, and lays a stumbling block before those trying to know the Lord's will. The duty is so plain that even the weakest intellect can understand it when the heart is set to do God's will. Doing this work requires grace in the heart and proves one a doer and not a careless, inattentive, unfruitful hearer, while neglect leaves alienation and division, and when difficulty is frankly spoken of between brethren alone in Christian love instead of criticism and evil reports it will in nearly every case be healed and the offending brother won.

The approach must be humble, confessing personal sin and asking forgiveness even when the brother has done the greater wrong, for the greater wrong does not lessen personal responsibility, and even when wrong is on both sides, even when the injury is only supposed, and even when the brother acted unwisely. Take the first step without referring to what the brother has done or judging his motives, with calmness and only wise and gentle words, showing tender compassion, pity and sympathy, meekness and lowliness, tenderness and prayer. Lack of meekness lets difficulties pass along, which God does not want. Wronging or injuring a brother misrepresents God's character to that brother, so the wrong must be acknowledged as sin in order to be in harmony with God, and when the worshiper humbles himself, confesses wrongdoing and seeks reconciliation, God forgives the sin and accepts the offering. Even when no wrong is known, still go and seek to be reconciled, asking how to harmonize and what was done wrong to clear it out of the way, and dwelling on another's faults instead of facing one's own defects prevents this reconciliation.

Being reconciled means explaining matters, admitting and correcting one's own wrongs, removing the cause of variance and the stone of stumbling placed before the other's feet, and taking the trouble from his mind. It means going personally to those injured to confess the sin, seek forgiveness, and make restitution as fitting fruit and evidence of repentance, and bitterness, wrath or malice toward a brother also requires going to him personally to confess and seek forgiveness. The wrong should be righted and the injury healed privately when possible without bringing the matter before the whole church, for some things are to be confessed to God alone, but a wrong leaving a brother with aught against you must first be reconciled. This applies especially to those who discouraged and disheartened fellow workers, spread false reports, judged those they had no right to judge, and put unkind interpretations on words and actions; they must confess, seek forgiveness, and repair the injury before service can be acceptable. It includes doing what one can to correct a misunderstanding, whether or not one caused it, and making amends when at fault, with pride, refusal to confess faults, and failure to correct misunderstandings hindering prayer and damaging peace, unity and spiritual progress.

Take initiative to make peace while preserving principle, not retaliating, removing so far as possible all cause for misunderstanding, avoiding the appearance of evil, doing all in one's power without sacrifice of principle to conciliate others, and not cherishing enmity or substituting one's own ideas for Christ's directions. Worship does not excuse leaving a damaged relationship unrepaired.

Duty rests on both sides, for those wronged or offended must be ever ready to forgive and take every possible measure to gain reconciliation or remove impressions of supposed injustice that build into alienation, with angels present in such reconciling interviews. Every true Christian should preserve unity by conceding even his own rights to cure confusion, disagreeable differences and enmity, forgiving everything thought an injury because Christ forgave his own mistakes, and instead of dwelling on brethren's faults talk with God about his own dangers and defects. Go directly to the brother, ask what needs to be made right, and do all in power to remove the difficulty, for making peace can remove an obstacle grown far larger than the original offense. Willingness to do one's part softens and subdues both, saves much evil-speaking and bitter feeling, and little misunderstandings can be removed easily.

Faithful effort to remove misunderstanding and pull up every root of bitterness completely so it cannot spring up again and poison minds places both in right relation to one another and to God so He can bless, but His blessing cannot be received while unwilling to do what can be done to make things right because it requires humbling of the proud heart. It removes hindrances and stumbling blocks from before others and the root of bitterness, makes it possible to offer prayer with a clear conscience, and creates unity, harmony, comfort, love and new power in Christian experience. It brings a sweet atmosphere, shining countenances, and praise to God and the Lamb, and prepares doers to be meek members of the royal family inheriting the purified earth with the city of God descended upon it.

Law Reaches the Heart

God's moral law is exceedingly broad and a matter of character rather than form, governing everyday life and reaching beyond outward acts in word and deed to thoughts, feelings, desires, motives, purposes, intentions and even unspoken thoughts. To restrict its injunctions to condemn outward acts alone is self-deception, for outward behavior alone does not reveal a person's full moral character. The state of the heart regulates life and character, so its claims require having the spirit of the law in the heart, and unless converts are impressed with this heart principle, labor to instruct them in the law is lost. The law therefore calls for inner purity and love as well as right conduct, condemning inner passions and motives as well as wrongs actually carried out.

Hatred, anger, revenge and other dark passions are condemned by the law even when they remain unacted upon. Murder begins in the mind, and giving hatred place in the heart already sets a person on the path of the murderer. Heart work leads to righteous actions, for the heart that loves God supremely will not narrow His precepts to the smallest possible claims but will cheerfully render full spiritual obedience when the law is seen in its spiritual power. It will give the largest interpretation to His far-reaching commandments and strive to bring the will, the affections, and all the heart to exemplify the great principles of His holy commandments in thought, word, and character, which is genuine sanctification. Then the commandments come home to the soul in their real force, sin appears exceedingly sinful and is cleansed from the soul temple, and self-righteousness, self-esteem, self-honor and self-security are gone. Deep conviction of sin and self-loathing in a sense of peril leads the soul to lay hold on the blood of the Lamb of God as the only remedy from the condemning power of sin, since human effort to overcome sin cannot by itself remove sin's condemnation or power.

Obeying the law means living out love toward others as well as toward God. The law rests on love to God and love to others, and obedience to it comprises the whole duty of life.

Unity, Discipline, and Blessing

Christ's rule for dealing with one another requires pausing worship to seek reconciliation first, and following this direction saves a large amount of mischief and removes many misunderstandings. It is to be carefully followed for the prevention of dissension and strife, and obeying it produces unbroken unity and a tender, Christlike love that respects and obeys Him who knows the needs of the soul. Christians are to pursue peace, unity, and love rather than cherish suspicion or let personal differences divide them, restoring friendship and ending unkindness that provokes retaliation and spreads strife. They must not cherish enmity or substitute their own ideas for His directions, but love one another as Christ died to save each alike, with softened hearts and no harsh words or alienation, criticism or superiority, combining ministry and medical missionary work in perfect harmony as one worldwide work. Its lesson calls followers to unity, love, and Christian fellowship.

The instruction belongs to the rules for church fellowship and discipline and guides how wrongs in the church are to be addressed with the aim of setting matters right. Members who sin must be visited, approached and labored with for repentance, and if they persistently refuse to repent must be separated from fellowship rather than retained, so that unrepentant names are not kept on the books and saints are not held accountable for evil deeds. Those stubbornly refusing to reconcile should be suspended until they can live in harmony. This duty to do all in one's power to become reconciled before offering worship applies to both brothers and sisters and helps keep the church free from error and defilement, since prayer and offerings do not excuse harboring hatred, speaking evil, or leaving disputes unresolved.

Accusing, faultfinding, speaking evil, criticism, evil reports, and cherishing suspicion or throwing suspicion on brethren contradict the lesson of unity, love and fellowship and bring condemnation. Instead, those at variance are to go directly to one another rather than opening the matter to others, speaking frankly alone in Christian love, which in nearly every case heals the difficulty and wins the offending brother. Voice, words, talent and every gift of power and influence are to work in harmony with Christ, drawing together in thought and practice without creating disaffection, with angels present in such reconciling interviews so God is honored. Doing this work requires the grace of Christ in the heart and proves one a doer and not a careless, inattentive, unfruitful hearer.

Obedience prevents suffering, closes the door where Satan enters to wound and bruise the soul, and faithful effort to remove misunderstanding and take the trouble from the other's mind places both in right relation to one another and to God so He can bless them. It clears the moral atmosphere of the soul, brings into close relation to Jesus and oneness with Christ, gives evidence that God sent His Son, shows grace on the heart, and opens the way for the glory of God when conviction comes. It brings living union in which sin separating from God is hated, brings peace and pardon with vantage over Satan, keeps brethren in fellowship, and clears the way for Christ's righteousness and salvation. It prepares for the holy ordinances and for receiving the preached Word, creates comfort, a sweet atmosphere, shining countenances, and praise to God and the Lamb, and prepares doers to be meek members of the royal family inheriting the purified earth with the city of God descended upon it.

Neglect leaves alienation and division among God's children. If a known difference remains or the heart is grieved by another's course, no one should come to the altar unprepared, but must leave the gift while going to seek reconciliation first. Reconciliation and confession of wrongs are necessary for coming together in unity and for practicing scriptural religion, and abiding in Christ's love means living truth before associates and carrying His love to them instead of cutting loose and refusing fellowship, which changes conduct and brings believers into line. The duty forbids making faults or supposed errors public before the whole church and requires speaking alone with pity and tenderness, since public exposure creates disturbance, confuses and saddens seekers and lays a stumbling block. It is so plain that even the weakest intellect can understand it when the heart is set to do God's will.