Matthew 28-18-20 Another Look at the Great Commission
Matthew 28:18–20 (NASB95) 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
After I decided to write this, I realized that some of the points I wanted to talk about are more suited to a seminary classroom than these kinds of articles. That’s all to say that there is a lot more here than most people will realize. But there’s still a lot left.
The Great Commission appears in a slightly different form in Mark. Some people might wonder why. My explanation is that when Jesus gave these great commissions, they were part of a longer conversation, and He probably said both of them as a part of it.
The wise approach here would be to study the two passages together and use the one to explain the other.
For example, each commission has one main command. In Mark it’s to preach the gospel, and Matthew says to make disciples. Mark is looking for people to believe, Matthew for people who keep His commandments.
But if you look earlier in Mark’s gospel, when Jesus first began preaching to the people, He said: Repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:15
So believing in the gospel is not just a mental assent, a short prayer; it’s a life commitment to follow Jesus. You can’t believe in the gospel without it changing your life. The good news of the gospel isn’t merely that we can now go to heaven, but that now God comes to reside in us so that we can now live a new life, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
In Matthew, the command is to make disciples. And how do we do that? We baptize them and teach them.
Notice that baptism is at the beginning of this new life.
Bible scholars differ over the meaning of baptism, how to do it, and who all should get it. I understand that. But there should be no confusion over the fact that baptism is to be at the beginning of this new life and not years down the road. Maybe we scare too many people out of getting baptized, because we make such a public spectacle out of it with the person having to talk before the entire church. Perhaps I should say that the idea of moving baptism down the road started early in church history, because a lot of people who had gotten baptized didn’t stick with it, but then I don’t think this is our call to make.
Then we are to teach them. Teach them what? It seems that Jesus wants a particular emphasis on the things that He taught them.
We often suggest to new believers, or anyone, to read the Book of Proverbs every month, one chapter a day, or the Book of Psalms once a month, 5 psalms a day. I just decided to read at least a chapter of the gospels every day. I want to focus more on things that Jesus actually said and did. I include the book of Acts with this, because Luke and Acts are two volumes of one book.
Jesus didn’t say, teach this new disciple the Bible. He said, teach them what I have taught you, the disciples.
You would think churches would have ongoing classes on the gospels every week, seeing how important this is.
And notice that the new believer is called a disciple. We had discussions in Bible school about whether a person could be a Christian and not be a disciple. Yet in the book of Acts, the word ‘disciple’ is probably how Christians are referred to more than any other name. When you realize that the Book of Acts is actually volume two of the Book of Luke, you need to do a Bible study of Luke to see how he uses the word ‘disciple.’ You will probably be surprised.
Bible teachers will often tell you that the apostles, the twelve disciples, lived under different rules than we do. God wanted them to do miracles and have the power of the Holy Spirit more than believers after their time did.
Except that Jesus’ command in the Great Commission for new believers is to teach them to do everything that God had commanded the disciples. So I find it hard to believe that God expected Christians down through the centuries to live their lives any differently than these twelve did.
Maybe our biggest problem is that both Great Commissions begin with the word ‘Go’, and we don’t know how to go when we are living among the very people we are to go to. We don’t know how to engage our neighbors with the gospel. The apostles seemed to be able to go to new places and immediately begin preaching, and we don’t know how we can do that.
I’ll have to think about that.
