The Great Commission is a term or concept that is being used a lot these days. However, the very heart of the Great Commission has to do with true conversion. The Great Commission is not a mandate to go out and tell as many people as you can a watered down version of something about Jesus Christ in order to get them to say a prayer or to join a religious group. The Great Commission has to do with true conversion and discipleship. In other words, for the past several months this newsletter has focused on what Scripture has to say about conversion and then about conversions that Scripture gives an account of. But it also had a lot to do with the heart of the Great Commission. The Great Commission does not command us to go out and make converts of ourselves with our own peculiarities and in our own methods and ways; it is to make disciples of Jesus Christ.
18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).
As we look at the text that gives us the words of the Great Commission, the first thing that we should note is that it does not even mention evangelism. If nothing else, that should get our attention and perhaps trouble us. When we read the Great Commission we have learned to read it in a certain way. If we have been taught that this commands evangelism, then we read it with that in mind and think that this verse commands us to go and evangelize every person in the world. If we think of evangelism as simply telling people some canned message about Jesus and lead them in a prayer, then we think we have to get all the people in the world to hear our canned message so that they will say a prayer. We usually come to this text with many presuppositions that determine how we view the text rather than letting the text itself determine how we should view these things.
Jesus came to the disciples and told them that “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” This is a massive theological statement. He just made the claim that He had been given all power and all authority over the entire planet. In Mark 3:14-15 we note that when he appointed the twelve to go out and preach and He gave them the authority to cast out demons.” Before that Jesus Himself cast out demons which is evidence He had authority to do so. Now He gave the disciples the authority to do so. In Matthew 28 all authority had been given to Him and He told people what they were to do in light of that authority. In Mark 3 the disciples were given authority to cast out demons so now they could cast out demons. In Matthew 28 it is on the basis of the authority of Jesus in the whole earth that His disciples were to go out and do what He commanded and gave them authority to do.
What we must see is that the authority of the disciples of Christ begins and ends with the words and commands of Christ. When we do more or less than what He has commanded, we are taking the authority to do so from a place other than Christ. Some call that idolatry. Jesus never commands anyone to do anything in this text except to make disciples. It is in light of who He is and the authority over all the earth that had been given Him that He tells the disciples to go and make disciples of all the nations. That is the Great Commission. The rest of what is in the text has to do with describing what is to be done in making disciples and what disciples are to do. Acts 11:26 is very instructive in this context: “and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” The very term “Christian” is for disciples. It is the disciples that were first called “Christians.” Only true disciples are Christians and only Christians are true disciples. A non-disciple is a non-Christian.
The word “disciple” is last used in Scripture in Acts 21:16. No other term seems to have replaced it, but instead of being individual followers of Christ it seems as if believers were part of churches. Nevertheless, the concept of disciple is found throughout the pages of the New Testament. Paul uses the word “saint” many times in a way that could only mean people who were disciples. We have the term “believer” used as well. In the New Testament we have the word “saint” (singular) only used once while the words “saints” (plural) is used 67 times. The word “disciple” (singular) is used thirty times while the plural “disciples” is used 241 times. A disciple or a saint is a follower of Christ who follows Christ with others in a New Testament Church. Jesus Christ stated that disciples are to make disciples. That teaches us that saints are to be working in churches to see others grow as saints in Christ.
The preaching of the Gospel is necessary for someone to be born again into the family of God and be a saint. All true believers are saints and all true Christians are saints. A saint is one that God has called out from the world and declared to be holy on the basis of the work of Christ. The preaching of the Gospel must look toward that goal. The preaching of the Gospel is for the purpose that God sets it out to be. The Gospel is the means by which God saves sinners from the world and makes them saints or disciples. The Great Commission includes the preaching of the Gospel, but it is preaching the Gospel in such a way as to make saints rather than false converts. A true convert is one that is a true saint and that person becomes a disciple (learner and follower) of Christ. A person that makes some sort of commitment and prays a prayer and yet does not truly follow Christ is not a converted person.
The Great Commission must not be used to excuse forms of evangelism that have nothing to do with discipleship or of people being true followers of Christ. True enough it does not make for numbers that are as impressive, but it does make for following Christ in the way His authority has set out. It does mean that in striving to do things this way that we are following Christ and not ourselves. True obedience to the Great Commission is to seek to make true disciples of Christ. We are not practicing biblical evangelism if we are not looking to make true disciples in our evangelism. A true disciple is baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is more than just the repeating of words and the application of water, this is a confession that the person is taking the name of God and is giving up his or her own rights to self. It is an act of obedience but it must also be an act of the heart in bowing to the Lord and denying self its rights and taking Christ as Owner, Master, and Lord. Anyone who will not do that is not a disciple of Christ and is not a converted person.
The Great Commission includes teaching disciples to do all that the Lord commanded the disciples to do. It is not a command to have a nice Bible study with people and call it good, but it is a command to teach disciples to do and not just to know. Until disciples have learned to do what the Lord has commanded they have not been taught as Christ commanded. A converted person is a person that has been rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of the Beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). This is a description of true conversion and it is also a description of what it means to be a true disciple. A converted person (disciple, saint) is one that is no longer in the bondage of sin and of the devil. But a converted person is now under the reign and rule (what a kingdom is) of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul’s admonition or question to the Corinthians in his first letter (6:19) must be taken seriously by people today: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” A person that has been converted is a person that no longer belongs to himself but is now a slave of Jesus Christ. We are either slaves to sin and the devil or we are slaves to righteousness and of Christ. A disciple or saint belongs to Christ. True conversion is also a change of ownership.
The Great Commission is given by the authority of Christ and we have no right to change it or anything about it. If we are true disciples of Christ we must desire to follow His command as He commanded. After all, His promise to be with us seems to be tied with obedience to making true disciples as the Great Commission declares. But if the Great Commission is really focused on making disciples that should change the modern focus on evangelism, missions, and of the way we view Church. True conversion is at the heart of this. Let us stop pretending that the Great Commission is being kept in our day unless we are striving to make biblical disciples. Let us stop pretending that we want to keep the Great Commission unless we desire to see people converted according to Scripture and be real disciples. Let us stop pretending that the Great Commission is kept by missionaries unless they are making true disciples as the Great Commission says. Let us stop pretending that our evangelism is keeping the Great Commission unless it is obedience to the actual words of Jesus. The Gospel cannot be separated from discipleship.
The study of true conversion is not just some intellectual thing that people may or may not engage in depending on how they are inclined. If we are to practice true evangelism, we better know what the Bible teaches about true conversion. If we are going to strive after the fulfillment of the Great Commission, we must know what the Bible teaches about being a true disciple. So often today what people mean by the Great Commission is to go out and tell people something about Jesus and then get them to pray a prayer and then to dunk them in water. Apart from true conversion, there is no obedience to the Great Commission because no true disciples would be made and true baptisms would not be occurring. Apart from true conversion we are getting people to make external acts and then getting them wet. Apart from true conversion, we are deceiving people and blinding them all the way to hell. What Jesus actually said and meant in the Great Commission is of vital importance. We ignore them at the peril of many.
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