"19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
The sentence above is a verse taken from Matthew 28:19-20. It is also well known as the great commission.
Jesus told his disciples this when the disciples met Him after He was resurrected. This two verses had spurred many hearts of the people to take up the call to reach out to the people and preach the gospel. Without Jesus commissioning them to make disciples, I personally think many of us would not had even heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
At the same time, I'm sure many of us had also take up this call and tried to preach the gospel to our friends, relatives and family members and so on too. And I know there are times where we get discouraged when our friend just seem so uninterested and not convicted by the Holy Spirit. I know it because it's a feeling that I feel it too sometimes.
But you know what? The very God who commissioned us, Jesus Himself has promised to be with us always to the end of age too. Indeed that is a comfort and encouragement that God is always there with us even during that period of time.
However, we always miss out something really important here. if you read carefully in this two verses, the first word of verse 19 is "therefore".
SO, I think this verse should be read together with the verse before it if we want to get a clearer perspective of the verse. Verse 18 states that "18Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."
If you read both together, it will sound something like Jesus saying because He(Jesus) now has complete authority on both heaven and earth, so go and make disciples and......
We are to make disciple of all the earth because we have to tell them the good news that Jesus is the one and only God and the King that is sovereign over all, and THE KING died for us. Besides that, because He has all authority, it makes things hopeful even when our friends are not convicted by our message because we know that God has complete authority over all and He has his own plans.
In short, find your comfort and encouragement in this two promises:
1. God is always with you till the end. (verse 20)
2. God has all authority even when you reach out, and even over the lives of your friend and the conviction of the Holy Spirit in the heart of your friend. (verse 19)
Fight the good fight and run the good race, persevere! God Bless!
2 comments:
The meaning behind the 'therefore' is actually more significant.
To understand it, we have to go to Romans, where Paul says Jesus died for our sins and was raised for our justification (Rom 4:25).
Crossing over to Philippians, Paul says that as a result of Jesus' perfect obedience, He was considered righteous and therefore God exalted Him to the highest place. It is this righteousness that is imputed to us - thus Jesus was raised for our justification.
This exalting is essentially referring to the reality that Jesus had all authority in heaven and on earth, as we can also see at the end of Ephesians 1.
Summing up the argument, the basis for commissioning the apostles to make disciples of all nations, baptising them and teaching them to obey everything Jesus had commanded them was that all authority in heaven and on earth belonged to Jesus. Jesus was essentially describing His Father's act of exaltation. And we know the foundation of that exaltation was the perfect obedience, and thus righteousness, of Jesus. And it is this righteousness that is imputed to us for our justification. Therefore the basis of our evangelism and discipleship is that Jesus had indeed completed His mission to secure our justification and reconcile us back to God.
actually, He just mean GO.
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