Matthew 18:20

δύο ἢ τρεῖς. Jesus deals in small numbers, not from modesty in His anticipations, but because they suit the present condition, and in jealousy for the moral quality of the new society. συνηγμένοι εἰς, etc., not gathered to confess or worship my name, but gathered as believers in me. It is a synonym for the new society. The ecclesia is a body of men gathered together by a common relation to the name of the Christ: a Christian synagogue as yet consisting of the Twelve, or as many of them as were really one in heart. ἐκεῖ εἰμὶ ἑν, etc.: there am I, now, with as many of you, my disciples, as are one in faith and brotherly love; not with any more even of you: far away from the man of ambitious, not to say traitorous, mind. There am I in reference to the future. His presence axiomatically certain, therefore expressed as a present fact, even with reference to a future time a promise natural from One looking forward to an early death. Similar in import to Matthew 28:20. For similar sayings of the Rabbis concerning the presence of the Divine Majesty, or the Shechinah, among two or three sitting in judgment or studying the law, vide Lightfoot and Schöttgen.