The Great Commission: Making Disciples, Matthew 28:18-20

Matthew chapter 28:18-20 are the last three verses in Matthew. We started Matthew 4 and 1/2 years ago and I hope that has been a rich study for you as it has been for me. There's a tremendous amount here. It is the longest of the Gospels and it has the most teaching of our Lord. We have five different discourses, teaching of our Lord, for different purposes, some of which has been quite misunderstood and misapplied over the ages, so that to take a lot of time on that. But when we come to the end here we see that after the resurrection Jesus has laid the foundation for the church age. In the past few weeks as we studied about the resurrection we began to look at the resurrection appearances—the appearance to Mary, the appearance to the other women that went to the tomb that morning in Matthew 28:9. All of these occurred on that resurrection Sunday.

Then there was the appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Then we looked at the appearance to Peter, which is just barely mentioned but we know that's the time when in privacy Peter confessed his sin of denying the Lord and he realized his forgiveness at that point. And then there's the appearance to the ten. By the time of the appearance to the ten Judas has committed suicide and Thomas was not present. Then the sixth was the appearance to the ten plus Thomas.

As we came to the end of that section in John 20:30, 31, John summarizes that "Jesus did many other signs other than the eight that are described in the Gospel of John. "He did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these [that is, these signs] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name".

At the next appearance, which is the appearance of Jesus in Galilee to his disciples, there were only seven there. There are four, who are missing. He appeared to those seven and this is when we emphasize that in the first part of the narrative He is providing the fish for the men as are out fishing, and demonstrating that He is the source of their nourishment; He will provide all of their needs. Then when they recognize Him on the shore they come ashore, and He has prepared breakfast. He is again feeding them, providing for them, and this becomes the object lesson for His conversation with Peter. When He is talking to Peter he emphasizes that their role is to feed the sheep. That is one of several different ways in which this mission that is given the church is identified.

The reason I say that is because we live in a time today when as a result of maybe the specificity of Matthew 28:19, 20 this is elevated, it's called the great commission, and is elevated as if these other statements don't occur. What we see is that there were many different times that Jesus stated the mission in different ways, so this isn't the only time that that He does this.

What we know in terms of His activities is that following that morning Jesus, according to verse 16 in Matthew 28, Jesus met with his disciples on the mountain. Matthew 28:16,  "But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated".

Now that's just the summary statement. Once Matthew gets us to a certain point he just really compresses and summarizes what happens after that. He doesn't talk about all of the appearances to the disciples, he doesn't talk about anything that Jesus talked, he doesn't talk about the conversation there on the sea of Galilee with the other disciples; he just compresses and summarizes what Jesus did and said.

Now we know that His first appearance to them after they went to Galilee was what we saw in John 21, and was on the shore the Sea of Galilee. So this would be another appearance. Some people identify this with his appearance to the 500 that is mentioned in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, but this seems to be an appearance that just involves the eleven disciples, and He is giving them their apostolic mission at this point. We know also from 1 Corinthians that He appeared some time during this time to James, the half-brother of the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and then He appeared to Paul "as one out of order"; it was sometime later, but there's that physical appearance that took place.

I want to take a little time as we look at this passage to analyze the context because it will help us understand a little bit about what's going on here. We have to look at this in terms of what it is saying and not what is usually imputed to it. There are a lot of things that are said about this particular passage and so we have to be careful that we interpret it correctly.

Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus came up 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 the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

We are going to have to first of all understand a little bit about the setting when they go to this mountain, but then we have to look at what is said here in terms of what Jesus said.

First of all, He makes a statement that "all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth". What does that mean? Don't run past that too fast. What does it mean when He says all authority has been given to Me? What doe He mean, "all"? And what realm of authority is He talking about here?

Second, He says, "Go therefore". There have been, I dare say, hundreds of thousands of missionary sermons based on this as it's expressed in English with the command to go; therefore, you should go and be a missionary. But it's not a command in the Greek; it is a participle. The only command in these verses is to make disciples. So the command isn't to go, the command is to make disciples, which is the next statement, "Go therefore", and then He says, "make disciples of all nations". What exactly does that mean?

If you think about this, "making disciples" has become a real buzzword in evangelical Christianity's sense in the post World War II era. You have discipleship groups, discipleship programs, all kinds of things related to discipleship, and really when you hear that phrase today what probably comes to most people's mind is that there's one way to do this, and that's with a small group, because that's what Jesus did. He had a small group of twelve disciples. But we will have to look at Scripture to see if that is so.

Then we have the phrase, "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". What is the significance of this phrase? What is being talked about here?

It is then stated, "teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you". Neither of these terms, baptism or teaching, are imperatives, so how we to understand that?

Then Jesus that makes the closing statement, "I am with you always, even to the end of the age".

As we look at the context we recognize that Matthew doesn't record all the appearances of our Lord to His disciples. The last time that we were in Matthew specifically, I pointed out that at this particular point Matthew just begins to summarizing compress these events, he doesn't go into all the details. What we have seen so far in Matthew, back In Matthew 28:5 the women have come to the tomb, one of the Angels is at the tomb and addresses the women on that resurrection morning, and after showing them the empty tomb, he says what she says you need to go meet the Lord in Galilee. The last thing that our Lord told them before the crucifixion was, "Go before me and I'll meet you in Galilee". But they didn't believe it, they are still in Jerusalem, which shows that they never understood that He was going to be raised from the dead, they were skeptical, they were doubting. It never occurred to them when the tomb was empty that they were going to really meet Him in Galilee.

In verse nine as the women leave the tomb of the Lord appeared to them. Matthew 28:9, 10 And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me.”

So again they are told to tell the disciples to go to Galilee. What can we assume from that? That when they did report to the disciples they told them to go to Galilee. Did they go? No, they didn't go. All this, remember, is in the morning of the resurrection Sunday. What we learn is that Jesus later will appeared to Peter, later He appears to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and they report back that they seen the resurrected Lord. Then the Lord appeared to the ten. All that was on that on that resurrection Sunday.

They are still not leaving and going to Galilee. They are there for another week through the feast days, which is the feast of unleavened bread, which would have ended the next Sabbath; and so the next Sunday morning is when Jesus appeared, and that's when Thomas is with them and we have the scenario with Thomas believing that the Lord has now been raised from the dead.

Finally they get it, and they go to Galilee. The next scene is the seven who were fishing on Galilee and not I catching anything, and Jesus, provided the fish for them, and cooks their breakfast for them. At that point He is talking to Peter and He gives a mission statement there to Peter. He tells Peter, "You are to feed my sheep". He states that in three different ways. One has the idea of feeding "my little lambs", providing for the spiritually young, the spiritual newborns, and feeding them. Then the second way He states it is "Shepherd my lambs", and there He uses a term where He is talking about older mature lambs, and He uses the phrase for leading, for being a shepherd. Then the third time He goes back to the first word, which has to do with attending or feeding, and then it's directed towards the mature sheep.

The point of this is, if you just had the Gospel of John, what you would hear is that the primary mission is to feed the sheep, which is an idiom for saying you need to teach them the Word; you need to teach My sheep, My followers the Word. That is the mission as expressed by Jesus to Peter.

Earlier in the first meeting when He met on that resurrection Sunday, He told them, "I am sending you". So again and again Jesus is telling them in many different ways, "I'm sending you out. I'm sending you on a mission, you are to feed the sheep". And here it is expressed in terms of discipleship. We can't separate the command to make disciples from those other commands; they're all related. They help us to understand what's going on here, and it should affect the way we understand or evaluate what is so popular today in terms of small groups, because that's not the pattern of the early church. They didn't understand the command that we are to go out and have small discipleship groups. That can really be traced back to some of these campus ministries that sprung up in the post-World War II era. They had a great impact—Navigators, Crusade for Christ, and numerous other groups that were involved in evangelism, involved in teaching the Word. But those types of para-church organizations are not the vision that is expressed in what Jesus is teaching His disciples.

Matthew 28:16, 17   But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped {Him;} but some were doubtful.

Now I bet that most of you are like me, and when you first read that as a summary you were thinking they still doubted the resurrection. That might be possible, because remember five of the disciples were not there on the Sea of Galilee when Jesus told him where to catch the fish and then Jesus cook breakfast for them. But I don't think that's what this is talking about. I think by this time they believed in the resurrection. They're all there, they all see Him in front of them, and they've heard about Thomas; at that point they are all believers in the resurrection.

I want you to pay attention to what is said here. "When they saw Him they worshiped Him, but some doubted". The contrast is not with unbelief of the resurrection, it's in terms of worship, and the basic idea of the word for worship is to submit to God, to submit to His to His authority, and that is expressed through this word that means to bow the knee. That word PROSKUNEO originally had this idea of throwing a kiss, but it was seen as like a salute to us to a king or ruler, someone who was in authority over you. So the contrast isn't with unbelief, it is with the uncertainty about His authority at this point. That's important because the first thing that Jesus says is, "All authority has been given to Me".

I always go back and say we have to understand what is and always within the context of what surrounds it. What surrounds it is it is an issue of worship, expression of authority, and in the middle of that this question about doubting. They are not doubting the resurrection. They may be doubting the mission: so where do we go from here, what do we do now? The religious leaders have crucified you, and we are now being hunted down by these religious leaders. So what's the game plan? Where do we go from here? Probably it came from the five—I'm just guessing because the other seven were there on the sea of Galilee, they would've heard that clear mission statement given to go feed the sheep.

Now we get to verse 18 and see the first statement that Jesus makes. Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth".

This is an interesting statement. What exactly does He mean when He says, "all authority". Is this an expression of universal dominion? Is this an expression that He now is the ruler of the earth? Is this an expression of His kingship? That is how much of Christendom historically has understood this, and it's taken some new twists in the 20th century and has been read within the context of the history of Pentecostal thought that Jesus now has kingdom authority.

I was listening to some videos recently that had a lot in there about archaeology and this archaeologist kept saying, "Everything about Jesus was about the kingdom". And the more she talked I thought she doesn't understand anything about the kingdom. What is sad today is that we have too many Christians who just think very superficially, don't understand what exactly is going on with all the stuff related to the kingdom, and they read this as kingdom authority.

Nearly every writer connects this to Daniel chapter seven, but you have to understand that people interpret Daniel seven usually within a false grid of what happens in the end times. So let's just go over to Daniel seven, one of the most important passages. Daniel seven is a vision that Daniel has that focuses on four beasts that arise out of the sea. The sea would be the Gentile nations and these four beasts represent characteristics of four successive kingdoms. Each one continues certain characteristics of the previous kingdom (the previous animal) and then it culminates in a fourth beast.

Daniel 7:7 “After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns.

As you go through the previous bees you see the succession of these empires from Babylon to Media-Persia to Greece, and then this last one is Rome, but Rome has two stages. Rome has the historic Roman empire, but then there is the picture from here and from the image of the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had of the statute, that it gets restored. So there's a restored Roman empire that is made up of ten nations. These are the ten horns mentioned at the end of verse seven. So there's a historical chain here. You go through these different kingdoms and you're still in the Roman kingdom. It's made up in the future of these ten kingdoms.

Then there's another horn, an eleventh one. It is called the little horn. It pops up and Daniel says, "I was considering the horns"—he is meditating. What are these kingdoms about? "…then another horn, a little one comes up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots". Now that's violent. So what he sees is are these ten nations, then another nation, another power—horn always represents power or authority--

pops up, and he's going to pluck out three of the others. That indicates a violent takeover by the little horn. He plucks them out by the roots. And in this horn, were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking pompous words. So he's arrogant, he's pompous, the concept of a lot of eyes indicates knowledge, and then the next thing that we see in this chronology is in verse nine.

Daniel 7:9   “I kept looking Until thrones were set up, And the Ancient of Days took {His} seat; His vesture {was} like white snow And the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne {was} ablaze with flames, Its wheels {were} a burning fire.

These previous events have been taken place on the earth and then these thrones are put in place and the Ancient of Days was seated. This is God the father. His garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head was like pure wool. All the whiteness and brilliance all emphasizes His holiness and His righteousness. His throne is like a fiery flame, and a burning fire often represents judgment. Then He has His court before Him. It is reminiscent of what we see in the description of the throne of God. This represents very close to what John describes as the throne of God at the beach before the Tribulation begins. That would fit here. It doesn't get into all the events of the Tribulation, but this is the heavenly scene, it's all about judgment. That's what the Tribulation is; it is God's pouring out of judgment on the earth during that seven years.

Daniel 7:12 “As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time.

They each were successive, but it's prolonged for a season and a time. So there's a time when all that power sort of develops and feeds into the next kingdom and culminates in this little horn's kingdom.

Daniel 7:13  “I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him.

This is very similar to the Lamb of God coming to the throne of the Father in Revelation chapter 5 where He is going to take the seven-sealed document, which is His title deed to the earth.

Daniel 7:14 “And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and {men of every} language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.

The giving of dominion and authority to the Son of Man doesn't occur, according to the chronology and Daniel seven, until just before He returns to the earth to destroy that fourth and final kingdom. That's not the scenario of Matthew 28:19. So to think that when Jesus says "all authority there" just out of the blue, is sort of like you would a Rorschach test is where you have just an inkblot and you say oh, what does it look like, and you just sort of use your imagination and say it looks like a butterfly, or looks like a snowman, or it looks like the map of China, whatever it is. And that's what people do when they see the phrase "all authority is been given to me". They say all this sounds like familiar, it must be Daniel seven, and there's no further thought taken, no analysis of Daniel seven. They say that can't be what it's talking about there.

The picture that we see in Daniel seven is that God is on His throne, judgment on the earth is taking place, at that time there is this fourth kingdom that is coming into its final phase, and the Antichrist who is the little kingdom has taken control; and it is at that time that the Son of Man comes to the Ancient of Days and given dominion and glory and kingdom.

Our conclusion, then, is that Matthew 28:18, when Jesus says "all authority has been given to me", is not the delegation of kingdom authority, because that doesn't come until just prior to the Second Coming.

The idea of kingdom authority has its roots in Pentecostal theology, which historically was pre-millennial. But they weren't always so precise in their theology, didn't have a lot of training, and it blended in by the 50s with certain things that were coming out of amillennialism. Amillennialism is the idea that there is no literal millennium, no literal earthly kingdom, and it's a spiritual kingdom. That would mean that right now were living in the kingdom. And that developed into a theology call kingdom now theology—we are now in the kingdom, so we can exercise kingdom authority, and that became blended at the same time with something that came out of a hyper- Calvinism, post-millennial, the Christian Reconstructionist movement, and he gave rise to theology call dominion theology. Somebody named Tommy Ice and Wayne House wrote a real thick detailed book called Dominion Theology, Blessing or Curse back in the late 80s, and that's when it became popular.

This movement has just kept going and it's been very popular in charismatic circles having to do with the restored apostolic movement; something like that.

It became popularized by music. That's one of the reasons I'm real critical, not in a sort of a negative sense, but we have to think about the words we sing and why I'm careful about any terminology in hymns that relate to Jesus presently, being a king. In 1978 there was a Pentecostal pastor who was quite well known and quite influential by the name of Jack Hayford out in Southern California. He wrote a chorus called Majesty and some of you have sung that before and probably didn't think a whole lot about the words. That was a popular song in the church that I took over when I went to Irving, and I knew a lot about Jack Hayford and learned a lot about this, and pretty much cut it out of our repertoire.

It is in our hymnal you can look it up later, but this second strophe (just one verse) is sung to Jesus, and the second line reads, Majesty, kingdom authority flow from His throne". Who is the "His"? It is not the Father's throne; it's the Son's throne. But the Son is not on His throne yet. But this fits with in the whole idea of kingdom authority.

The problem is it runs counter Revelation 3:21 where Jesus is talking to the church there and says, "To him who overcomes I [Jesus] will grant to sit with me on my throne". Notice it's a future tense verb. It's talking about something in the future, that after the kingdom comes then I will be on my throne and "I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, even as I also overcame and sat down …" Jesus is presently seated in heaven. "… with my Father on His throne". He is seated at the right hand of the Father; He's not seated on His throne. He's not seated on the throne of David; He is not currently the King. That term kingship as applied to Jesus is the Davidic term and it relates to the Davidic kingship. The Davidic kingship means He is ruling from the throne of David and is established that kingdom.

That is not here today because when that kingdom occurs the New Covenant comes into effect for Israel. It is not in effect now; it is only made with the house of Israel in the house of Judah, and none of the blessings of the new covenant are present today. There are things that are similar but they're not the same. When you look forward to this you recognize that Jesus is seated with the Father on the Father's throne, and He will not get His own throne until He comes as the Son of Man when that dominion is given to Him at the end of the Tribulation period.

But the impact of singing choruses like this has convinced innumerable Christians today that we are now worshiping the King, and it's not the Father. We sing a hymn, "I worship the King", but if you carefully exegete the "Him" it's talking about the Father and His universal role as the creator and as the King in that sense. It's not talking about Jesus as the Davidic king.

Other things we know about Hayford is he not only held kingdom now theology, but he held to a form of amillennialism. It's sometimes difficult to pin that down, and this is important because what happens is that people start mixing or interpreting Scripture on the basis of their view of the future.

These terms, I just mentioned I want to review their definition.

Amillennialism: the 'a' at the beginning means no or un. It's like our prefix un and it means no millennium, no literal thousand-year rule or reign of Christ on the earth. Right now we are in the church age, but the church age is the same as the spiritual kingdom, and Christ is reigning from His throne in heaven. When this present age ends is when the Second Coming occurs, there is no future Rapture, there's no future Tribulation period, it's just going to end when Jesus comes back and then we go into eternity. So Jesus is currently ruling and reigning as the King in heaven. And I'm just going to be careful with this kingdom now terminology that is linked into a lot of contemporary songs.

Post-millennialism is the idea that the church age is eventually going to bring in the kingdom, there will be continual progress, and then Jesus comes at the end of that kingdom. That's blended with kingdom now because as you can get into this we are somewhere around the beginning of the kingdom here, and we are getting closer and closer.

If you believe in literal interpretation of Scripture then you have to end up being a pre-millennialist. There are about seven different times the phrase "one thousand" is that number is used in Revelation chapter 20. Satan is bound for a thousand years after the thousand years he is released. Christ will reign on the earth for thousand years. Those numbers must be taken literally because every to every other number in Revelation is taken literally.

In classic premillennialism you have Jesus return at the first coming at the end of the Tribulation and then He becomes the King, establishes the Davidic throne in Jerusalem, and that is His thousand year rule and reign with the literal geophysical kingdom on the earth. But there's a twist. In the late 50s there was the development of an idea that the kingdom is here; it's already but it's not yet. And they identified the blessings of the church age, like regeneration and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which are similar to but not the same as the blessings of the New Covenant. They said, see they are the same, the new covenant has been inaugurated, but it's not fully here yet. This became known as "already, not yet", and it's at the foundation of this horrible thing that came out of Dallas Seminary in the late 80s called progressive dispensationalism. It's not progressive; it's not dispensational, and it is this "already, not yet".

But the problem with it is, to get 'already, not yet' you have to interpret a lot of the passages in Acts the same way amillennialists do. That way you end up with the "kingdom now", and this becomes the problem now when Jesus makes this statement.

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth".

What authority is He talking about? If He is not talking about kingdom authority, if He is not talking about His authority as the Davidic ruler, what is He talking about? Now remember Matthew has shown us the Jesus came with John the Baptist and offered the kingdom, in Matthew chapter 4, 5,6, 7, 8, 9, all the way up until you get to chapter 12. Then He is accused of doing everything He does in the power of Satan and He announces a judgment on that generation for rejecting Him as Messiah. And so the kingdom offer is never given again. Never again does He say, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand", the kingdom offer is withdrawn because the kingdom is being postponed until He returns, until He gets that commission from the Ancient of Days, until He gets the scroll from God the Father (Revelation chapter 5). Until that takes place the kingdom isn't here at all. We are not in a mystery form of the kingdom, were not in any form of the kingdom; we are in the church age.

So what Jesus is going to say to these guys is, it's a new authority base. It's not the authority that you anticipated, which was the authority of being the Davidic King and the King of Israel. It is a distinct authority that is the authority over the church. This is going to be the beginning of the church age, and that's the authority that has been given to Me, and because that authority is been given to Me I can commission you to this task.

We have passages in Ephesians and Colossians that emphasize the headship of Christ. Headship is simply a metaphor for authority. Some people have come out in other areas of debates and say headship means like the source of something. But that's not what the word means and is never use that way in classic Greek literature, unless it's talking about the literal physical source of a river, but it's never applied to the source of authority in a metaphorical way.

Ephesians 1:22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church.

That's what it means when it says gave put all things under his feet. It's then explained in the next clause as making him head over all things to the church. He's the head of the church.

Ephesians 4:15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all {aspects} into Him who is the head, {even} Christ

Ephesians 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself {being} the Savior of the body.

… and its authority.

Colossians 1:18 He is also head of the body, the church …

Colossians 2:10 You are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power.

Colossians 2:19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.

Again and again and again what were seeing is Christ is given the authority. He is the head of the church. That's the authority that He is talking about when He gives this commission to the apostles. This is the focal point. So when He says all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, that is the basis. That explains and deals with the doubt. The doubt is, what are we going to do now? Who is in control? Where are we going? The first thing Jesus does is explain that: "All authority has been given to me. I'm going to be the head of the church".

Then He gives their mission. When He begins to give his mission He says, "While you are going." It starts off with the present participle, and it means while you are going. It is saying that as you go through your course of life as you go from place to place make disciples. That's the mission of the church and we have to understand what it means to be a disciple. A disciple is not synonymous with being a Christian. A disciple is a Christian who has decided to make it their agenda to grow and mature as a believer, to be a fully sold out student of the Lord Jesus Christ and to serve Him. In fact, this is so significant.

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