The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): Matthew doesn't end his account of the life of Christ with the resurrection or the ascension, the two major events of Christianity on which our faith is established. Instead, the apostle ends his gospel with Christ's final words to his followers.

Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. Why did Matthew end his gospel with the Great Commission rather than the resurrection or ascension? Join Dr. Boice as he takes us through the command to go therefore and teach all nations about the good news of Jesus Christ.

Dr. James Boice: In nearly every case where the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to someone after the resurrection, he gave them instructions to take the message to someone else. For instance, when he appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden, Mary didn't recognize Jesus at first, but he spoke her name, she recognized his voice, she responded to him, and then he gave her this word of instruction. He said, "I'm going to my father and your father, to my God and your God. Now, go quickly and tell my disciples."

Or again, we think of his appearance to the women who had been there at the tomb earlier and who were now returning. At the tomb, they had seen the angels. The angels had given them a commission. They said, "He is risen. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And now, go quickly and tell his disciples that he's risen from the dead." And then as they went, the Lord himself appeared to them and he repeated the same commission.

When we begin to look at the various accounts of the resurrection appearances of Christ, we find that this is almost invariably the case. There are at least 10 accounts, plus another later to the Apostle Paul that took place afterwards, and in seven or eight of these 10 or 11 appearances, there is a commission. And then in five of them, there is this explicit commission, the Great Commission, to take the gospel of Christ crucified and risen to the world.

I've been impressed that this is the note on which Matthew ends his gospel. Matthew does not end his gospel with an account of the resurrection alone. Even more striking, he doesn't give an account of the ascension. But he ends with this Great Commission, and the verses in which he does it are verses 16 through 20 of the 28th chapter, the very last of the gospel.

"Then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and spoke unto them saying, 'All authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.'"

We read those verses and we ask, and perhaps I hope ask personally, why is it that this, the longest of the gospels, ends on this note and eliminates or overlooks some of the things that we might think are more important? The answer is surely that if we understand what the resurrection is all about, if we understand the meaning of the resurrection, then this is what's important. We have an obligation to take that message to a world that desperately needs to hear it.

Now as we look at these verses, we see that they have a very simple outline. First of all, there's an announcement of Christ's authority. We find it in verse 18: "All authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth." Second, we find a great commandment: "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." And then third, we have a great promise. And the promise is this: "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age."

I'm sure you recognize as we read those three things—the announcement, the commandment, and the promise—that each one is linked to the resurrection. Christ has authority because he is the victor over death and all other enemies. He gives the command, which is to teach the gospel centered in his death and resurrection. And then finally, he gives the promise of his presence with us unto the end of the age, and that too is based upon his resurrection because it is the living, resurrected Christ who makes this promise. I'd like to look at each one of them.

First of all, there's this announcement of Christ's authority. "All authority," he says, "is given unto me in heaven and in earth." We can't overestimate how important that authority is because it is that authority that makes the missionary enterprise of the church of Jesus Christ possible. Jesus spells it out in two different areas. He says first of all that all authority is given unto him in heaven, and then secondly that all authority is given unto him on earth.

What does it mean when he says, "All authority is given unto me in heaven"? Well, it could mean, if we interpret the phrase at its lowest possible value, that his authority is recognized in heaven. He's the second person of the Godhead, equal with the Father in majesty and might, and therefore as authoritative as Jehovah himself. All that is true.

And yet as I think about this phrase "in heaven," and as I begin to put it into the context of other verses which also refer to the powers in heaven—in Paul's writing and elsewhere—I sense that what the Lord is talking here is not so much simply an acknowledgment of that authority that is his, but a declaration that his authority is superior to and over all other authorities, whether spiritual, demonic, or otherwise.

We think, for example, of Paul's statement in the last chapter of the book of Ephesians where he's writing to Christians of their spiritual warfare and says to them, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but our wrestling is against principalities and powers, against spiritual wickedness in high places." What he refers to here is spiritual, demonic power that would resist the proclamation of the gospel. And then to put that in the context of the book, we think back to the first chapter where Paul declares that the Lord Jesus Christ was lifted up above all these principalities and powers in his resurrection and ascension.

So what the Lord is saying to us in this phrase, I believe, is that his resurrection, properly understood, put in its proper perspective, is that which demonstrates his authority over every power you can possibly imagine. And therefore, we don't fear the resistance of Satan or any other power either.

And then too, he says that he has authority not over everything in heaven, but he also has authority over everything on earth. And we break that down and we say, well, what does that mean? One thing it obviously means is that he has authority over us. Certainly, he must have authority over us if we're his people. If we come as Christians professing to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and to follow him as Lord, that is hypocrisy if it doesn't include his authority over us in every area of our lives. If he is the King of Kings, if he's the Lord of Hosts, his authority transcends all other authority.

Now, there are other legitimate authorities as well and we're instructed to recognize them. There is the authority of the state, there is the authority of parents, there's even an authority of friends and counselors within the church and so on. These are all legitimate, but over all of these authorities is the authority of Jesus Christ. And so it's on the basis of that authority over us as individuals within the church that he makes the Great Commission which follows.

And not only that. Not only is his authority over us as Christian people, his authority is over the world outside, over the nations to whom he sends us. You see, it's on the basis of his authority over us that we go because we must respond to his command, but it is on the basis of his authority over the unbelieving world that we go joyfully, expecting him to bring the results.

All things are within his hands, and so as we go, as we spread the good news of his death and resurrection, we know that he is the power and that in the power of his Holy Spirit, he will take that gospel and apply it to the hearts of men and women who desperately need to hear it. They can't hear it apart from his grace. They can't respond to it apart from his power. They won't respond to it apart from his will. But he speaks through these things and we are faithful to proclaim him, and he draws men and women to himself as he's promised on so many occasions. John Stott, speaking of this authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, has said, "Only because all authority on earth belongs to Christ dare we go to the nations. And only because all authority is his have we any hope of success."

Now secondly, the Lord gives a great command and his command is not, I'm sure you understand, merely that we go. He's assuming that we'll go. In the Greek, this is what we would call a participle. It's "going." If we don't go, he has ways of making sure that we do. The command is rather based upon the fact that we will go, that we're in the world, that we will make contact, that there are non-Christians that we will speak to.

The command itself is actually, first of all, that as we go we will make disciples of those from all nations, make them Christ's disciples. Secondly, that we'll baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And then thirdly, that we will teach all things whatsoever he's commanded.

One of the weaknesses of our evangelism is that we do not do that completely. we think we've done the job when we've made disciples, when we've brought people to the point of faith in Jesus as their Savior. And yet I suppose the greater weakness is that we do not go at all. And so we leave this work of communicating the best news the world has ever heard to a professional corps of evangelists when it was never meant to be that, but rather was meant to be the task of all Christian people in all ages.

You see, this command of the Lord Jesus Christ—go and teach and baptize and teach again—is something that cannot be overlooked by Christian people if Jesus really is the Lord. I once heard R.C. Sproul tell this story. He had been in a class with his teacher Dr. John Gerstner of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and they'd been talking about predestination. Dr. Gerstner had expounded this doctrine, and he stated that God through his eternal decrees elects those who will later come to him for salvation. Admittedly, this is a very difficult doctrine.

Sproul says the students were all seated around in a circle and he was down at one end and Dr. Gerstner, his teacher, began at the other end and he asked this question. He said, "Now, Mr. So-and-so," whoever it may have been, Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones, "tell us, if predestination is true, why should we evangelize?"

This student looked up at Dr. Gerstner and said, "It beats me." And then he moved to the second in line and this student said, "I've always wondered about that myself, Dr. Gerstner." And he moved to the third one and the third student said, "I haven't the faintest idea." And he was going that way all around the circle. Sproul said that as the question went round and round, he got more and more nervous.

Finally, the question got to him and Dr. Gerstner said, "Now, Mr. Sproul, none of the others seems to have any opinion on the matter or any insight. Suppose you tell us why if predestination is true, we should evangelize."

Sproul looked up and said with many, many apologies, "Now Dr. Gerstner, I know that you were probably looking for a very profound answer to what is obviously a very profound question and a difficult one, and this is an answer which at this particular stage of my education, I am not prepared to give. And I know that you're going to instruct us more on the intricacies of this question. But just as a basis for discussion, one small, insignificant point that we could begin with that we don't want to overlook or perhaps we shouldn't overlook... isn't it the case that Jesus has commanded us to evangelize?"

And Gerstner looked at him and laughed and said, "Yes, that's right, Mr. Sproul. And what could be more insignificant, what could be less worthy of our attention than that the Savior of your soul, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Lord of Glory has commanded you to do the work of evangelism?" Sproul said he got the point in a hurry, and I hope we get the point also.

You see, it's easy to look at the resurrection, look to the past and say, "Isn't that marvelous? Jesus rose 2,000 or so years ago." And then go out and have our Sunday dinner even on Easter Sunday and that's the end of it. But if Jesus rose and if he is the Lord that his resurrection declares him to be and if we believe that, then this is the Lord who tells you to go out to the world and tell others that he arose.

Furthermore, he doesn't make it vague. He tells you how to do it. He breaks it down into the parts I've mentioned. First of all, we're to teach all nations. Now the New English Bible says that we're to make all nations Christ's disciples, and that's right because it points to that moment of personal response to him who is the Savior. It's not our disciples that we're to make. We don't go to make people Presbyterians or Baptists or Methodists. We go to make them Christians as he himself, Christ, takes the message to their hearts. And so we do that by preaching the Christ of the scriptures—the divine Christ who died for our sins, who rose again, who's coming again one day in glory. That is the Jesus who saves. No other Jesus. And this is our task.

But then secondly, we are to baptize them in the name of the triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In other words, to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ in saving faith is to be united to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit as well, to be identified with each person of the Godhead as well.

Moreover, we can't miss this. Baptism is a public act. It's possible to become a Christian secretly. We're even told in the scriptures of some who became Christians secretly and didn't tell others for one reason or another. One wonders whether you can continue that indefinitely. At some point or another, the secrecy kills the testimony or the testimony kills the secrecy. It's one or the other. But there are times when we believe and can do that secretly.

But listen, you cannot be baptized secretly. Baptism is a public act. It takes place in the church and it is a declaration before others that you are now united to the Lord Jesus Christ in saving faith. And so we go with this message of evangelism, but we do not go with a personalized, individualized message that says you can be saved and go directly to heaven and have no relationship with other Christians. What we're instructed to do is not only bring others to the Savior, but to bring them into the church of Jesus Christ as well.

And then the third thing follows upon that. Having reached them with the gospel, having brought them into the church, we are to teach them. And Jesus spells this out. He says, "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Now that's full-orbed evangelism. You say, what are the 'all things'? Well, the things are the things that we find in the scriptures because Jesus is the one who before his incarnation in the spirit of prophecy gave the Old Testament writers the knowledge of what they should say. Then at the time of his incarnation, he told the New Testament disciples that he was going to send the Holy Spirit to do the same thing to them, to give them a new corpus of writing. So we turn both to the Old Testament and the New Testament and we find it to be a body of writing in which the things of the Lord Jesus Christ are recorded.

Proper evangelism, proper missionary work, proper Christian activity is to go out with the gospel, win men and women to Christ, bring them into the fellowship of the church where they are then taught those things that are found in the scripture. Christianity is a life and a full-orbed doctrine and an approach to life which we grow into increasingly as we share and study Christ's word.

Now finally, verse 20, the very last words of this gospel. There's a promise. And the promise is this: "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age." You think back to the first chapter of the gospel, verse 23. The child Jesus is named, and the name given to him is Emmanuel, which means "God with us." That's Jesus, God with us. And here in the last chapter, we have an even greater truth proclaimed.

Incarnation is a marvelous thing. God, who we know is spirit, took upon himself the form of man, so it can truly be said unlike any other God ever imagined by mortal minds, this God is with us. But great as that is, the promise we find in chapter 28 is even greater because that God incarnate died and rose again and lives and is now with us not just at one point in history or in one particular geographic location, but with us each one wherever we may go and as we go with this great message of the gospel.

You see, this means there is no separation from Jesus Christ for those who truly know him. Oh, we disobey him, we hold back, we're reluctant disciples sometimes, but nothing can sever that tie. Paul, who knew that so well, writes about it at the end of that great eighth chapter of Romans saying, "What shall separate us from the love of Christ?" And then he names all the things that might possibly be imagined to do that. Things on earth like persecutions and death and famine and hunger and all that sort of thing. And then spiritual things: principalities and powers, height, depth and so on. He spells it all out. And having gone through all of that, he says, and perhaps he was even thinking of these verses from Matthew, "No, I am persuaded that none of these things shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

That's the message we're given to proclaim if we really are Christian people. I want to say two things in closing. First of all, if you take this seriously and if you go with this message to those who do not know it, you will have problems. We're speaking about something historical. We are speaking about a fact which, if true, demands a life-changing response in the lives of the people to whom we go, and men and women do not want to change. Certainly, they do not want to submit to the authority of somebody else, even if that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see, it's not a question of merely talking about immortality. Nobody minds talking about immortality. There are popular books in the bookstores today on life after death or life after life. Suddenly, it would seem the scientific world, or at least this kind of pseudo-scientism that's popular in our day, this has discovered that perhaps there may be a certain kind of evidence for the fact that perhaps maybe, you know, maybe there is something there after you die. Nobody objects to that kind of argument. You write that kind of a book, people will buy your book and love it and talk about it at their cocktail parties.

But to go with the gospel, not of a theoretical possibility buttressed by supposed scientific facts, but a gospel which is a proclamation of a person who died and rose again and now on the basis of that exercises his authority over the individual, that is unpopular. And if it is not unpopular, it is not understood.

On the other hand, not only do we have the difficulty, we have the promise of Christ's authority and blessing as we go. As I look at these verses, I find a fourfold repetition of the word "all." It's very instructive. Verse 18: all authority. Verse 19: all nations. Verse 20: all things. And then the very last part of that verse: always, that is all the days. Jesus commands us to go, but as we go, he gives us this great promise that he will be with us all our days as we take this message to an unbelieving world.

And now our Father, we thank you for that great message of the gospel centered in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ and in his resurrection. We ask that you will use this study of the Great Commission to encourage your people in this age to that task of world evangelization and grant that we might be increasingly bold as we take that message of the crucified and risen Christ to those who need to hear it and grant that many might be drawn to him even in this hour as Savior and as Lord. We pray in the name of Christ our Savior. Amen.

Guest (Male): You're listening to the Bible Study Hour featuring the teaching of Dr. James Boice. Millions are still waiting to hear the message of salvation. God is not finished assembling that great multitude that will worship at his throne. Find out how we are to proclaim that message in this week's free CD offer entitled "Get the Message Out" by author and pastor Phil Ryken. This free CD is our gift to you. To receive it, simply call 1-800-488-1888. We'll be happy to send you a copy of "Get the Message Out." That number again is 1-800-488-1888.

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Mark Daniels: I'm Mark Daniels. Good to be with you today. Have you ever marveled at the conundrum that you can be two different people? Kind but cruel, confident but fearful, easygoing but angry? You're not alone. The Corinthian Christians had a model church, but one riddled with disgraceful habits and practices. Join Dr. James Boice as he examines Paul's challenges in dealing with the church that was the best of churches and the worst of churches. That's next time on The Bible Study Hour, preparing you to think and act biblically.