What is the Great Commission?

This splendid passage of Holy Scripture sets before us the great commission which the risen Lord entrusted to His apostles just as He was about to ascend into the heavens, having gloriously accomplished all His blessed work upon earth. It is truly a most wonderful commission, and opens up a very wide field of truth, through which we may range with much spiritual delight and profit. Whether we ponder the commission itself, its basis, its authority, its power, or its sphere, we shall find it all full of most precious instruction. May the blessed Spirit guide our thoughts, while we meditate, first of all, upon the commission itself.

So the Lord resumed links in resurrection with that remnant, the eleven disciples being the most prominent members of it; and though we do not hear of His being caught up into heaven yet He commissions them as though He were speaking from heaven, for all power was His, in heaven as much as on earth. The time had not yet come to reveal fully the Christian enterprise of gathering out of the nations a people for His name: the terms here are more general. They were to go and make disciples and baptize them, and this is a commission which can be taken up by the believing remnant of Israel after the church is gone. As Israel were baptized to Moses their leader, so the disciple is to be baptized to the risen Christ as coming under His authority, and the baptism is to be in the name of God as He has been fully revealed. It is not plural but singular — not names but name — for though revealed in three Persons, the Godhead is one.

The closing word is, "I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age," so that in this closing word we have "all" no less than four times. Our exalted Lord wields all power in both spheres, so that nothing is beyond His reach. If anything adverse happens to His servants it must be by His permission. All nations are to be the scope of their service, and not in the midst of Israel only as heretofore. Those baptized from the nations are to be taught to observe all the Lord's commands and instructions, for the servants are to be marked by obedience, and to bring those that they reach into obedience also. Then all the days to the finish they can count on the support and spiritual presence of their Master.

Such is the commission with which the Gospel ends. As we travel on into the Acts and pass through the Epistles we find coming to light developments which furnish us with the full gospel commission of today yet we do not lose the light and benefit of what the Lord says here. We still go to all nations, baptizing in the Name. We still have to teach all the Lord's word. All power is still His. His presence will be with us all the days till the end of the age, no matter what may betide.

Having announced peace for the second time the risen Lord commissioned His disciples in words which, though very brief, are full of profound significance. Each Gospel records a commission, though with characteristic differences. Matthew records it in terms that would specially strike a Jewish reader. They were no longer to make disciples from the very limited sphere indicated earlier in that Gospel (Matt. 10:5-11), but from all nations, and they were to baptise in the Name that had come to light in Christ, and not with John's baptism or one akin to that. The commission there is so worded as to have an application to those who may make disciples after the church is gone. In Mark also the universal aspect of the Apostolic preaching and service is emphasized. This is the case also in Luke, where the fulness of grace seems to be the point; grace which could begin at Jerusalem, the worst spot, and extend to all nations. The three synoptic Gospels have this in common however; the commission in each is concerned with the apostles' preaching and service.

As we realise our privilege in this day of grace, this age of long-suffering mercy to a guilty world in which we once had our part, our hearts are thrilled by the enheartening words of our LORD as He proclaims the four great "alls" of Christianity. "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach (make disciples of) all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always (all the days) even unto the end of the world."

"All power," all authority vested now in Him; "all nations," the sphere of service; "all things whatsoever I have commanded you," the scope of the commission; "always," all the days, the confirming presence even unto the end of the age.

There is no single inquiry of the will of God, but the wisdom of this world, to gain their ends. Their opposition to the Lord was deliberate and wilful. They knew from their own guard what had happened, and if they could give but thirty pieces of silver for the Lord, as His utmost worth, they would furnish much money to evade the evidence that He was risen, and discredit Him when the need arose. They spread their report. The Lord's testimony puts us behind the scenes. The eleven went to Galilee. Here it was Peter went a fishing — active-minded Peter! They met at the mountain where the Lord had appointed, and, seeing, they worshipped Him, but some doubted. So constant and strong their unbelief — the heart of unbelief in all. Then, however, Jesus met them, and, in speaking, stated the entirely new ground on which His present commission to them rested — not Messiah's authority over the Jewish people, whatever gathering may have been to that," but the wide-spread and universal authority of the risen Son of man, due by virtue of His death, which alone redeemed them to God, and vindicated His character, and to which He had creation's title, though thus taken as Heir of them all, as Son of God. Here, however, He speaks of authority given to Him which is as Son of man, given Him in heaven and on earth. The heathen were His inheritance. They were to go and call all nations unto the obedience of faith. Heretofore He had, as the Seed of David after the flesh, presented Himself to Israel, and was sent but to them. Now He was declared to be the Son of God with power, and the isles were to wait for His law.

There are four different commissions in the Gospel directed to each. Here it is the exaltation of Messiah to all power in heaven and earth, and the consequent commission to disciple all the Gentiles, in contrast with the mission in chapter 10. Now His exaltation, through the rejection of Him, took a wider scope, the result of Israel's rejection of Him. They were accordingly to baptise the Gentiles, not into John's or even Messiah's baptism, but into what was fully revealed by His death and resurrection — the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. This was the position and unfolded fellowship with God into which they were brought, both for God's display of Himself and the economy of grace, not Jehovah and Messiah, but Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, paramount and superior to all previous, and all the unfolded fulness of the Godhead, in fellowship with the glorified Lord, and the Holy Ghost dwelling in them. Mark, being more expressly the ministry of Christ, gives not the outreaching power of dispensation now opened by His death, and founded on the place of power where He was, but the new power of ministry itself, and its consequences. "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature [or the whole creation]" — (compare Rom. 1; Col. 1:16-23) — though there is the ministry of the church also here.

217 The Lord addresses them on the ground of the place which now belonged to Him, which He will fully take in power hereafter, which belonged to the risen Lord, being His in right of the new place into which He had entered as man. "All power is given to me in heaven and in earth." All is not accomplished, all things not yet put under His feet, but it is His place as the risen Man who has glorified God and accomplished the work given Him to do. Hence He sends them forth beyond the limits of the King of Israel in Zion, that had been set forth fully in chapter 10, then and on to the future. Here connected with the remnant of the Jews, associating them as brethren with Himself, having accomplished redemption, they were to disciple the nations, baptizing them (not to Jehovah, not to Messiah or the Son of David, but) to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that in which the one God of Israel was fully and completely revealed; teaching them to observe that which they had learned from Him on the earth; and He would be with them to the end of the age. It is thus before the millennium, not the mystery of the church, nor the future gathering of all things. The former was revealed and confided to Paul, the latter to come in when the age was finished. Not the mission from Bethany (which the Acts follow throughout), not starting from Jerusalem nor beginning it as that did; but accepting the poor of the flock as brethren to Christ; they were to bring in, disciple all the nations on the footing of their relationship with Him as thus risen.

If I were asked what right we have to preach the gospel and where we got our commission, I should say we got it from Luke 24. The commissions in Matthew's and Mark's Gospels have a Jewish character, they were given specially to "the eleven." The Matthew commission has yet to be fulfilled, and the Mark commission was fulfilled in apostolic days; but this in Luke's Gospel is ours and will continue until this gospel day is finished. It was given not to "the eleven" only, but to "them that were with them" also (v. 3), and we come in there. Luke's Gospel is the Gospel of unmeasured grace. In it the Lord is not presented as the King of the Jews, nor even as Jehovah's Servant to gather Israel, but as the Son of Man come to seek and to save the lost, whether they be Jew or Gentile. Indeed, I believe that I am right in saying that it was written by a Gentile to a Gentile, and so it is very specially our Gospel, and while we value Matthew's and Mark's inspired presentation of the Lord — for every view of Him is wonderful and indispensable — we ought specially to prize the Gospel of Luke.

In Matthew this commission runs thus: — "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Now, this commission was strictly to the apostles, who had been already ordained by the Lord, and associated with Him as Minister of the circumcision. Rom. 15:8. It contemplated them as in Jerusalem, and going forth from thence for the discipling of all nations, and for the keeping of them in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord. For it is the purpose of that Gospel to present the Lord in Jewish connection as the Hope of Israel, to Whom the gathering of the nations was to be. And, accordingly, the conversion of nations, and the settlement of the whole world around Jerusalem as the centre of worship, is assumed. A system of restored and obedient nations rejoicing with Israel will be exhibited by-and-by; and the risen Lord looks to that, when committing ministry to His apostles in the Gospel by Matthew.*

Observe that the commission was to preach to "all nations," as recorded by Matthew and Luke, and to "all the world" as given in Mark. That is wide enough. It is the individual servant who is responsible to carry out the commission. He does not exactly say "Go" to the Church, because the Church does not teach or preach — the Church is taught, and preached to. It is to the individual, because ministry is the exercise of the gift given to the individual by Christ. He communicates that gift, and He alone should direct its use. He holds the stars in His right hand, in Revelation 2:1, for they belong to Him, and Him only, hence the possessor of any gift is responsible only to the Lord for its exercise.

"All the world" and "every creature" are expressions which set aside every difficulty, and render salvation as free as the air, and as wide as the human family. It is not said, "Go ye into a given section of the world, and preach the gospel to a certain number." No; this would not be in keeping with that grace which was to be proclaimed to the wide, wide world. When the law was in question, it was addressed to a certain number, in a given section; but when the gospel was to be proclaimed, its mighty range was to be, "All the world," and its object, "Every creature."