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The Heart of the Faith
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THE GREAT COMMISSION.
CONTENTS.
1 The Commission Given
2 It Shall Be Done
3 Christ’s Prayer at Gethsemane
4 The Generation that does it
5 The Great Tribulation
6 The Great Commission and Drudgery
7 The Great Commission and Heaven
8 The Great Commission and Pentecost
9 What is the Gospel?
10 The Great Commission and Christian Unity
11 The Great Starting Point.
12 Good News and Good Manners.
13 The Church Calendar.
O Coming King, in us revealed below, but yet to come again in open view, Your family likeness in Your people show to those who through our lips shall hear of You.
O Harvest Lord, Your new creation, we pray to this end and seek from You this grace. May this the favoured generation be, that world-wide hears Your Word, then sees Your face.
Metcalfe Collier.
1. THE COMMISSION GIVEN.
After Jesus had risen from the dead He spent forty days with His disciples teaching and preparing them for what they had to do after He left them.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts each tell us something of what He taught.
Matthew 28:18-20
All authority is given to me in Heaven and on Earth; go therefore and make disciples (learners, apprentices or trainees) from all nations, baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teach them to do all that I have told you, and I am with you to the end of the age.
Mark 16:15
Go into all the world and tell the Good News to all creation.
Luke 24:46-47
He told them, It is written that Christ must suffer, and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness will be declared in His Name to all nations.
John 20:21
As the Father sent me, so I send you.
Acts 1:8
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the Earth.
Christians sometimes call these commands, THE GREAT COMMISSION.
Way back in Abraham’s time God’s promise was blessing for “all nations.” The theme occurs again and again through the Old Testament and in Christ’s teaching. At His birth the angels brought the shepherds, “good news for all people” and old Simeon prophesied that Jesus would be “a light to the nations.” Blessing the whole world is one of the Bible’s great topics.
The Great Commission set the disciples a task which would involve exploring all the inhabited earth, learning every language and crossing every cultural barrier.
After 197 decades, millions of martyrdoms and a billion dedicated lives, the task is still unfinished.
2. IT SHALL BE DONE.
“This good news of the kingdom of God will be declared as evidence to every ethnic group throughout the inhabited world. Then the end will come.” - Christ’s prophecy on the Mount of Olives, Matthew 24:14.
Of all Bible prophesies, none is more certain and secure than the completion of the task. The Great Commission will be carried out. Every nation and tribe and people and language will hear the Gospel and there will be disciples from every one of them.
“All Nations,” is one of God’s favourite phrases. He used it in His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that in their descendants all nations will be blessed (Genesis 12:2 22:18 26:4 28:14). In Isaiah 49:6 God promises “Salvation to the ends of the earth,” and Daniel foretells a kingdom which God will set up and will grow to fill the whole earth (Daniel 2:34 & 44).
Before He gave the commission, Christ had mentioned the preaching of “this gospel” throughout the world, (Matthew 26:13 & Mark 14:9) and in the parables of growth (Matthew 13 and Mark 4) He illustrates the continuing growth and spread of His teaching until a final completion is reached.
In the parable of the wheat and the weeds, He declares that both His own people and the “Sons of the Evil One” will multiply and grow “Until the harvest” which is then declared to be “the end (or completion) of the age.”
This age of The Great Commission in which we live, carries the double promise - His presence always, and a coming climax when the task is done.
3. THE GREAT COMMISSION AND CHRIST’S PRAYER AT GETHSEMANE.
“O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me - - - if this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, Thy will be done.” Matthew 26:39-42
Not even the most earnest prayer of God’s own Son, accompanied by sweat like drops of blood, could make The Cross unnecessary. He had to go through with it for the salvation of the world.
The Father’s perfect will for His perfect Son, the one in whom He was delighted, was that The Son should suffer to bring hope to the world.
The Father’s perfect will for us, His far-from-perfect disciples who would have no hope of Heaven if Christ had not born our sins, is that we should fulfil The Great Commission to bring hope to the world.
This cup will not pass from us.
There is no way the Church can ever expect to be released from the hardship, opposition, suffering, danger and sheer hard work involved in taking the Gospel to every nation and winning disciples among every people. There are no short cuts. We may not demand that God do it for us by providing us with revivals, nor should we comfort ourselves with illusions of easy successes when martyrs have died to bring the news to us. Christ told us to “go and tell.” We must do the going step by step and the telling person by person. His promise is not to release us from the task but to be with us in it to the end.
The Great Commission is to the Church what Gethsemane was to its Lord.
4. THE GENERATION THAT DOES IT.
Wars tend to begin with grandeur and end in exhaustion. On the first day of war, healthy young men, full of enthusiasm, volunteer. Bands play, drums roll, soldiers march.
But victory comes to a country when it is worn out, struggling, hungry, battered; its young men dead or disabled, its homes turned into heaps of rubble.
Do we imagine that the supreme honour of being the generation that finishes The Great Commission will fall to a comfortable prosperous church? Forget it!
The task will be completed by a church worn out and exhausted by blood, toil, tears and sweat; worn down by persecution; a church in mourning for its young enthusiasts, martyred.
5. THE GREAT COMMISSION AND THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
“I beheld, and lo, a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues, stood before the throne.
- - - These are they which came out of the great tribulation.”
This passage in Revelation 7:9-17 is the only occasion in which the Bible uses the term “The Great Tribulation.” (Of course there are other references to tribulation and persecution but in no other scripture does it call it “The Great Tribulation.”)
What it says about it is that there will be in Heaven a countless multitude of people picked out for special honour because they have suffered in this tribulation. This multitude will come from every nation and people and language - a term which links the tribulation with The Great Commission.
Both The Commission and The Tribulation involve every nation and people and language. There is nothing to suggest that The Great Tribulation is limited to one occasion or period and it is certainly not limited in extent. If it were taken to mean one specific time of trouble the implication would be that those persecuted at other times would not share the same honour - which is absurd.
The Great Tribulation, then, is the total sum of the antagonism, opposition and persecution encountered on the way as the Gospel is proclaimed in every nation. It began with the stoning of Stephen, or even earlier with the flogging of Peter and John. It will last as long as The Great Commission lasts, that is until the end of the age.
This is the age of The Great Commission, resisted by The Great Tribulation in every nation and tribe and people and language as the Gospel moves forward and disciples are made.
6. THE GREAT COMMISSION AND DRUDGERY.
There is a spiritual principle of sheer hard work. God places a high value on it and achieves His purposes through it.
There is a further principle of working together in teams. A team is a group, small enough to form a unit, working together at a common task.
The twelve apostles were a team. Every church they planted had teams of leaders and teams of helpers of various kinds. Teamwork is at the heart of the fulfilment of The Great Commission.
Not everyone is called by God to do the more interesting direct tasks. Some are called to spend most of their lives in the supporting work, drudgery which is necessary to the task.
Many disciples of Christ will earn our Lord’s “Well done good and faithful servant,” by years of hard work, not as preachers or teachers or church-planters but as the helpers who make their task possible.
7. THE GREAT COMMISSION AND HEAVEN.
Our citizenship is in Heaven. (Philippians 3:20)
Lay up treasure in Heaven. (Matthew 6:20)
God’s strategy is to place samples of the life of Heaven in the most unlikely places on Earth, where the environment is hostile to all that is heavenly. Sight of the samples produces hunger for Heaven because it is the destiny for which all people are made.
As citizens of Heaven we are its colonists, its ambassadors, its recruiting officers. Heaven alone can have our loyalty as homeland, the mother-country for which we live and may die.
No other influence can so affect daily life. With our feet upon Earthly soil we breathe Heaven’s air. Neither upbringing, heredity, nor environment has such power to shape a personality.
Heaven is the model for improving Earth. The best service we can give to our countries is to make them more like our heavenly homeland. “On Earth as it is in Heaven” is the manifesto for our politics, ecology, social involvement, pursuit of beauty and family life.
The Bible is full of Heaven from start to finish; so full that the only way to study what it says about the subject is to read the whole Bible through, absorbing Heaven from every part.
It was the central theme of the lives of the Patriarchs who “confessed that they were pilgrims and strangers on the earth” who declared that they “seek a better country,” (Hebrews 11:13-16).
Abraham lived for Heaven. Job, struggling with false accusation and apparent hopelessness, came to realise that the answer was in Heaven. The writer of Ecclesiastes wrestles with every human philosophy “under the sun” and finds that “God has put Eternity in our hearts.” Answers from under the sun do not satisfy. Heaven is depicted in the imagery of Moses’ Tabernacle and Aaron’s priesthood, in the visions of prophets and the poetry of David.
Heaven fills the Old Testament, but in the New comes the startling message that Heaven is colonising Earth. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand; it is within you; not merely “Our Father in Heaven” but “On Earth as in Heaven.”
8. THE GREAT COMMISSION AND PENTECOST.
In the Old Testament we read of people who were given tasks to do. We are then told that “The Holy Spirit came on them.” Without God’s presence in their lives to empower them, they could not have carried out the tasks given them.
So it is hardly surprisingly that The Great Commission was followed up by the giving of The Holy Spirit to the church at Pentecost.
The Holy Spirit is given to us so that we can fulfil the task, not so that we can simply revel in or boast of our superior spirituality. If we have discovered the joy and freshness of a full experience of The Holy Spirit in our lives (by whatever name we call it) the purpose for which God gave it to us is that we may share in The Great Commission.
The Holy Spirit gives power to tell the message and creates the character which demonstrates it.
9. WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?
The simplest summary of the Gospel is in The Great Commission itself - Luke 24:46-47 - He told them,
“It is written that Christ must suffer, and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness will be declared in His Name to all nations.”
This is the message Christ commissioned His disciples to carry to “every creature,” and which He promised would be proclaimed in all nations. Other teaching, however important, is not included.
There are three reasons why it is important to have so brief and simple a statement of the message.
The first is that it sets out what must be explained at the beginning when people respond to Christ. With a whole Bible full of teaching to follow, it is vital that this first lesson be mastered.
The second is that it enables the message to be given to people who are unable to receive more, either because of their own limitations or because the means of communication to them has not yet been fully mastered. The Christian teacher needs to learn a whole language and culture and way of thinking before he or she can pass on the full Christian message to a new people group. The first essential of the Gospel, however, can be told much earlier on in the learning process.
The third has to do with Christian unity and follows next.
10. THE GREAT COMMISSION AND CHRISTIAN UNITY.
It is The Great Commission which is the basis of Christian Unity.
It requires for its fulfilment, a high degree of practical working partnership between a wide variety of very different Christians.
How much must they agree on in order to work together?
Here is a message to tell. Obviously those who work together to tell it must agree on it. To work together in partnership, fulfilling The Great Commission, churches and their members need to share a commitment to the message that:
Christ suffered for our sins.
He rose from the dead.
Repentance and forgiveness of sins can be preached in His Name to all nations.
And that is all!
CHURCHES DO NOT NEED TO BE AGREED ON ANYTHING ELSE.
Different churches may have widely differing traditions, different organisation, and different teaching on all manner of subjects. There is a right time and place to discuss such differences - to argue as friends argue (not as opponents) - yes, try to convince each other. Why not?
But the only agreement necessary to carry out The Great Commission is agreement on what it is.
There is no need for churches to merge, to change their own character and identity or to compromise their own teachings; only to work together at the shared task of telling people Christ died for their sins, rose again and made it possible to repent and be forgiven in His Name.
Unity matters most at local level - where the task is actually being carried out. Neighbouring churches, working in the same community, must work in partnership or their disunity will dishonour their Lord and hinder their work. Theoretical unity between denominations is of less significance. It is local unity that people see and that affects the effectiveness of the task.
11. THE GREAT STARTING POINT
The starting point for The Great Commission and the starting point for the Christian life are the same.
Evangelism means telling people the Good News, the Gospel. Part of the Gospel is that “Repentance and forgiveness will be declared in His Name to all nations.” The fact that it is for all nations is part of the Gospel. The implication of the message is that, having received it, we exist to tell it. The acceptance of salvation includes the acceptance of the Commission.
So the preaching of the Gospel is incomplete unless it directs new Christians to their new purpose in life.
This is not to say that new Christians should immediately be thrust into the stresses and strains of outreach before they are ready. They should, however, know from the beginning what God is preparing them for.
12. GOOD NEWS AND GOOD MANNERS.
St Paul preached in Ephesus for two years. So effective was his message that fifty thousand silver coins’ worth of occult books were burned by their owners in the world’s most expensive bonfire. The worship of Artemis was so undermined that the silversmiths who made a profit out of her images, rioted. (Acts 19).
Yet the Town Clerk in his speech could honestly say, “These men are not blasphemers of your goddess.”
We undermine evil by preaching truth, not by attacking evil. Jesus said “Resist not evil but overcome evil with good.” He also said He had not come to condemn the world but to save it.
Truth itself is effective. Opposing falsehood is self destructive. Proclaim truth positively and with good manners at all times. The Commission is to tell the Good News, not to put pressure on people to receive it. Courtesy wins a hearing.
15. THE GREAT COMMISSION AND THE CHURCH CALENDAR.
Strangely no day is set aside in the Church Calendar to commemorate the giving of The Great Commission. Some churches hold annual events at dates of their own choosing; New Year perhaps. Yet the world holds a major secular celebration at the beginning of May, and the Commission was given over the period from Easter to Ascension Day. The world’s Mayday falls in this period. The church could well use it.
Whatever the date, let there be regular rededication to the task Christ gave us.
At such a rededication, the following prayer may be used
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION.
Our Father in Heaven.
Purify our lives we pray, so that we may be true samples of the life of Heaven on Earth.
May our hearts be filled with burning love for Our Lord Jesus Christ who loved us enough to be crucified for us.
We dedicate ourselves to live and die for the task He set us, the fulfilment of The Great Commission.
May we and all Your Church world-wide grow in unity, maturity and purity, constantly putting the fulfilment of The Great Commission before all other priorities.
May we be filled with The Holy Spirit and His power because we cannot fulfil The Great Commission in our own strength.
Lord use us to finish the task.
We ask it in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.