The Great Commission in Matthew 28 is often used to encourage missions and evangelistic activities. Through the history of the church, we have seen a number of such examples from the first and second Great Awakenings, and the Billy Graham Crusades. They’ve continued more recently with a number of popular preachers whipping up large crowds in various parts of the world. In all of these, we find the urging to “be saved.”
The statement of Jesus comes at the end of Matthew’s Gospel which is significant. Jesus has already sent his disciples in sets of two to tell the gospel, giving them specific instructions as to what to do in different locales based on the reception they receive. This sending in chapter 28 then isn’t something absolutely new. Too, both John and Jesus preached a gospel – the good news – of the kingdom of God and it’s immanent and imminent coming. What is interesting is that the lead-in to the Great Commission is Jesus’s statement that “all authority in Heaven and on earth” had been given to him. Jesus is the King of the kingdom that he and John were preaching. Matthew’s Gospel is intended to tell us the gospel of that kingdom’s arrival.
Throughout the Gospel, Jesus spends a lot of time engaging other people, whether by poking religious leaders in their eyes with sharp sticks, or by attempting to teach the Apostles and the crowds that followed him around. It seems to me two points need to be made. First, the Gospel is bookended by kingdom talk which certainly gives us an idea of what Matthew is trying to get across. God has been faithful and Jesus is bringing the kingdom of God to reconcile the world to the Father, and that this Jesus in his resurrection has been given the authority of the king. Second, the parable of the soils and it’s surrounding stories form the center part of this Gospel. The entire narrative is both an urging and a challenge for people to examine themselves to determine what sort of soil they might be in the face of this nascent king who is among them. The kingdom is here. Do you recognize it; are you willing to enter it?
We arrive at the Great Commission. Read it slowly: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” What do we not see there? There is no explicit “go save people from Hell” in this statement. There is no “go save people” in this statement. What the king says is, because he has all authority, go make disciples...commanding them to observe all....” What Jesus tells them is to make disciples of the king.
What is a disciple? A disciple is more than someone who assents to some mental proposition and then goes about their business as usual. No, a disciple is someone who focuses on, who imitates, who learns from their teacher. In this case, that teacher is Jesus. Disciples of Jesus, imitate and become like Jesus. This is what the Great Commission says – make disciples. We aren’t doing our job if we aren’t making disciples whose lives reflect the life of Jesus more and more. The Apostles were to teach these disciples all that Jesus had commanded them. What had he commanded them? Well, it’s stuff like “your righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees,” “the leaders of the Gentiles lord it over them, but shall not be so among you,” or the sorts of things we find in both the Sermon on the Mount and the discussion of the judgment in chapter 25.
The Great Commission is to make people whose lives reflect that of Jesus, whose values and desires are parallel with those of Jesus, who are becoming the very embodiment of Jesus as though they were him. That’s the Great Commission. Our normal application of it is anemic and largely ineffective if the state of the church around the world is any indication.
This is important because we aren’t called to “save people” by some sort of formula or adherence to a mental affirmation that “Jesus is the Son of God.” That’s not the Great Commission at all. Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus has been trying to get people to see, to hear, to understand, to live, to become what he has been saying and doing; to assess themselves as to the type of soil they are. That again is the point of the Wedding Feast – it is for those who enter in with celebration with the King and who are there to be with him.
An excursus before we close. The parable of the Pearl of Great Price isn’t about “getting the prize,” but it is about pursuing the kingdom of God, entering that kingdom, and “possessing” that kingdom. It is about living with and in the kingdom, not because we could then say that we have something that others don’t or can’t have, but because we become disciples of Jesus and his life. In that way we possess, we take in, we become the kingdom of God.
The Great Commission doesn’t say “go save people.” It says, “make disciples.” Why is that? Because it doesn’t have to. You see, it is in becoming a disciple of Jesus, following him, and becoming like him – because that’s who we are becoming – that we are “saved.” It simply isn’t sufficient in the Gospel of Matthew to simply believe Jesus is the Son of God, or to acknowledge the existence of YHWH as the God of Israel. It is vitally important; it is necessary to be saved that we are disciples of Jesus and that discipleship is evident in our lives.
It isn’t that Matthew isn’t interested in people “being saved,” it is that in becoming and remaining disciples of Jesus we are saved. Which is why the Great Commission doesn’t mention saving people.
Comments
Post a Comment