“Then Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen. –Matthew 28:18-20.
Jesus’ final post-resurrection appearance to His disciples occurred ‘on a mountain’ outside Bethany. It was what we might term a ‘mountain-top’ experience. Jesus gave His followers this final assignment, their ‘marching orders’ for how they were to conduct their lives and ministry until his Second Coming. Read Luke’s account of this major event and commissioning in Acts 1:1-14, with Acts 1:8 specifically stating what we have come to call our “Great Commission.”
This was, first of all, to reassure the disciples. The kingdom was not to be political but spiritual, and He was to be the head of it. “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth,” Jesus said. He had been absolutely victorious in what He came to earth to do. Now all authority was His to bestow on those who followed His commission. He was leaving them for awhile and they had a job to do.
The parameters of the Great Commission were to all nations—no one excluded because of nationality, race or location. Go…everywhere and make disciples. How do we accomplish this going? By telling forth the Good News of Jesus Christ to everyone. He has given us the partnership of proclaiming! What a privilege! How do we respond to this challenge daily? “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things!” So wrote Paul in Romans 10: 15, quoting Isaiah 52:7. This is not to say that everyone is to become an ordained minister, a preacher of the Word. But every Christian should and does have a message to proclaim, to share. In our own way, we can reach those “as we are going about anyway,” according to the “Cottonpatch Gospel” interpretation the Great Commission.
Those who become disciples are to be baptized, an act of obedience and identification, saying that each believer is dead to sins and resurrected to new life in Christ.
Next occurs the “teaching to observe all things.” This is the “feeding the sheep” that Jesus told Peter to do. It is the next sequential part of the Great Commission. New believers, all believers, need to be taught the things of God.
If we love the Word of God and are consistent about both living and teaching its precepts, its truth, we are fulfilling the Great Commission. How is my life an example? How is my teaching? Are each in line with what Jesus Christ has commissioned me to do?
Because many have been faithful to Christ’s command in the Great Commission, we today are Christians. We reach our hands back in faith to them who paved the way for us to meet Christ personally. We stand at a pivotal point. We reach our hands of faith out to others who need to know the message. As someone has aptly said, ‘We may be the only Bible the careless world will read.”
The Great Commission is mine to obey, mine to live out, my marching orders for sharing Christ with others. And His promise is as true today as it was on the mountain of ascension centuries ago: “And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
c Ethelene Dyer Jones; Thursday, April 8, 2010
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