Matt 28:16–20 — The Great Commission

We have come now to the end of the Gospel of Matthew. We have the wonderful privilege of concluding our a study of the gospel of Matthew with this wonderful, glorious passage. It is a favorite passage that we all have heard so many times, probably all practically have not memorized. We just know this wonderful commission that the Lord gave to his disciples before he ascended into heaven, calling them to preach the gospel and to make disciples of all the nations. Let us go through this passage. I have five points.

The setting of the Great Commission in verses 16 and 17. The authority of the Great Commission in verse 18. The heart of the Great Commission in verse 19a. That is, the heart of it is to go and make disciples. Then the means of the Great Commission in verse 19b, the means are baptizing and teaching. And then finally, the fifth point is the power of the Great Commission, which is the promise of Christ in verse 20, that he will be with us always. Let us begin with the setting of the Great Commission.

The Setting of the Great Commission

Verse 16, now the 11 disciples, 11 because Judas, of course, is out of the picture. He has already taken his own life, and so now we are down to 12. The 12 are down to 11. So the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.

It is interesting that we are back in Galilee. This is where the gospel started. Back in Matthew chapter four, Jesus began his ministry in Galilee. And Galilee is the place where Jesus began preaching and teaching and healing and casting out demons. And he gathered his disciples there. He went by the Sea of Galilee and he saw James and John and Peter and Andrew by the sea casting their nets.

And Jesus called them and said, come, follow me. and I will make you fishers of men.” Is not that interesting that even there at the very beginning, all the way back in Matthew 4, we already have a hint of the Great Commission. He says, follow me and… you too will be fishers of men. You too will be going out into the world and making disciples and proclaiming the gospel.

I am sure that when the disciples first heard that, they had no idea what Jesus was talking about. And it would take time for them to get to know Jesus, find out who he is, find out about his messianic authority, to hear his teaching and to see him go to the cross and then be raised from the dead And now here we come full circle back to Galilee. The 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. Part of the reason why it is important to mention Galilee here is not only that theme of, even back then, the disciples themselves, when they were initially called by the Sea of Galilee, that they were called to eventually go and make disciples of others in the future, but also the fact that Galilee already has within it this feeling, this sense that the gospel that Jesus is preaching, although at the moment it seems like it is focused upon Israel, is going to eventually go to the Gentiles.

And the reason for that is that Galilee itself was a heavily Gentile populated area. Yes, there were many Jews that lived there. Many of the towns there were Jewish. But there were also Gentile towns in Galilee, unlike in Judea in the south, the area around Jerusalem, which was much more clearly Jewish, whereas in Galilee, it is a mixed area.

We have both Jews and Gentiles living side by side. Even the Jews that lived there were viewed by the southerners, by the Jewish leadership down in Judea, as being not fully Jewish? They are not really the most pious. They are not really keeping all the laws the way we think that they should.

Even the Jews that lived in Galilee were somewhat proto-Gentiles. They had a Gentile flavor to them. Many of the ones that Jesus ministered to in Galilee were unclean people like lepers or like that woman who had a flow of blood which made her unclean and unable to enter into the temple. From the point of view of the Jerusalem authorities, they were as good as Gentiles.

And so it is, there in Galilee that Jesus is already beginning to form his group of disciples. He is creating the new Israel. That is why he calls 12 disciples related to the 12 tribes of Israel. He is gathering this new Israel among the people that live in Galilee in order to already give us a little foretaste, a little hint of what is to come.

And so that is why when, if you go back to Matthew chapter four, that is why when Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee, Matthew, the narrator, says that the reason he started there was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah, that the land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light. So the setting of the Great Commission is that we are going back to Galilee where it all started, and we are going back there because now Jesus is sending the apostles out to preach the gospel to the nations, to the Gentiles. It also is interesting that when they go back to Galilee, they do not just go back anywhere. They do not go to Capernaum. They do not go to the beach on Galilee, the Sea of Galilee.

They go to a mountain. Now, we do not know exactly which mountain it is. The text does not tell us which mountain it is, but that does not matter. The symbolism of a mountain is what is important. What is a mountain? Well, a mountain is a place where there is a temple at the top, just like Mount Zion has the temple.

So also, this mountain is showing us that this is the fulfillment of what Jesus had been saying all throughout the gospel, that he is going to build a new temple. He said, I will build my church. He said, destroy this temple, the one that is made with hands, and in three days, I will raise it up, and I will make a new temple not made with hands. And so the symbolism of going not only to Galilee of the Gentiles, but going specifically to a mountain is showing us here that Jesus is now beginning to fulfill his promise to build his church, the spiritual temple that is being created through his death and resurrection.

And as many people, including the 12, but also many beyond them come to him in faith and believe in him. The text also says something interesting in verse 17. It says, when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. They worshipped him. They worshipped him because he has now been raised from the dead and he is this glorious, God-man who has been raised from the dead in glory and power. They worshiped him as the son of man. But it says that some doubted. Now, I do not think that that is the best translation of that word. I think a better translation would be that some hesitated. Why did they hesitate?

Well, it is because they are not sure how to respond to Jesus in his new glorified state. He is familiar because it is Jesus, the one they have been following for the past three years, but he is also strangely unfamiliar. He has been raised. He is in a glorified body that is full of power and light and something strange and unfamiliar. And so they are somewhat hesitating because they are not quite sure. They know that they need to worship him. They know he is the exalted son of man, but at the same time, treading on holy ground, they are somewhat, what is going on? Who is this person? How do we relate to him?

Once again, that shows us that something new has happened here. We are in a transition point in redemptive history. The old order is passing away. The new order is beginning. The old temple has been destroyed, at least in principle, when the curtain of the temple was torn in two. It is been set aside and now this new temple is beginning through Christ’s own resurrection and through the preaching of the gospel and the Great Commission.

They are hesitating because they are waiting to hear the words of Jesus. What do we do next? What is going on? What is happening now? And so Jesus puts their hesitation to rest and he says, do not be afraid, okay? Everything is good. This is how it is going to go now. And so we come then to verse 18, the authority of the great commission.

The Authority of the Great Commission

And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth, has been given to me.” When Jesus says those words, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, it is such a stark contrast from the last thing that we heard Jesus say.

Remember when Jesus was hanging on the cross, just in the previous chapter, he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But now Jesus, having accomplished his sufferings that he was called to do for his people, having laid down his life as a ransom for many, and now been raised from the dead, he is vindicated, and he is now receiving the reward for his obedience and suffering.

He is entering into that glorious kingdom that was prophesied in Daniel chapter 7, where the Son of Man came before the Ancient of Days, before God the Father, and received the kingdom. And now he is saying Daniel 7 is fulfilled. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Such authority, such calm certainty, all the agony and the suffering of the cross is now over. All the shame, being mocked and spit upon and rejected and crying out in agony to the Father, it is all over now. and he speaks with absolute certainty and assurance, and he is entering into his glorious kingdom as the reward for his sufferings.

And now Jesus, speaking of his authority, uses that as the basis for what he is now about to say. He is going to give this commission, he is going to entrust this responsibility to his apostles because he has this authority. In fact, we could say, if we go back a few chapters earlier to Matthew chapter 16, we could say that Jesus is now handing the keys of the kingdom to his apostles.

Remember back in Matthew 16, after Peter confessed that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus said, and you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And he says, I will give you the keys of the kingdom. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. So Jesus now, having received all authority, is going to entrust the keys of the kingdom to the apostles, giving them representative delegated authority that is derived from his authority.

The apostles are mere men, they are not Christ, they are not the son of God, but they are now representing the authority of the exalted son of man to the world. this raises an interesting point, and that is, as we will see in the next verse, that one of the things that Jesus entrusts to them is to baptize and to teach. And so ordinarily then, baptism and teaching should be performed by ordained ministers of the gospel. And traditionally in Reformed theology, we have used this passage as the proof text for that. Because we see how in verse 18, Jesus says, all authority has been given to me. Jesus has the authority, and then he entrusts the keys of the kingdom to his apostles. The command to baptize and to teach, then, is based upon the authority of Christ. And that authority, as the exalted Son of Man, is now being given to the apostles to continue his work on earth.

And you might say, well, all we can get from this is that only the apostles should baptize and teach. Well, if we keep reading, Jesus implies that there is going to be a longer period of time than just simply the immediate years and decades of the apostles’ lives because he concludes the Great Commission in verse 20 by saying, behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. And so unless we imagine that the apostles are going to be given supernatural lifespans, we have to think, well, who is going to continue the work of the apostles after they have been removed from the scene? Already Jesus is envisioning that there is going to be continued apostolic teaching and apostolic baptism and apostolic ministry going on after they have died. And of course that work is continued in the work of ministers of the gospel who continue the work of the Great Commission after the apostles, but it is based upon this command of Christ. based upon his authority as the king of the kingdom of God and the head of the church.

The apostle Paul talks about this in the pastoral epistles. He says, the things that you have heard from the apostles, you are to pass on to other godly men who are to continue the work to be preachers and teachers and to continue this great commission to the end of time. So we have the setting of the Great Commission, which is this mountain in Galilee. We have the authority of the Great Commission, which is Christ’s own authority as the exalted Son of Man. He is now giving the keys of the kingdom to the apostles.

The Heart of the Great Commission

And then understanding that little footnote, and that that work, that apostolic work, will continue even after the apostles. through the ministers of the gospel that come after them. Then we have verse 19a, point number three, the heart of the Great Commission. The heart of the Great Commission. What is the essence of this commission?

What is the fundamental thing that Jesus is calling his disciples to do? Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Go. He says go because they need to not just simply remain in the land of Israel, but they need to go to, as Jesus says in Acts 1 verse 8, from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth. They need to go and bring the gospel to the Gentiles as well. This command to go is then followed by the command to make disciples of all the nations. They are to go and make disciples, that is, they are to make learners and followers of Jesus. The word disciple means a learner, someone who is learning at the feet of Jesus, just like the apostles themselves did when they followed him.

And this command to go and make disciples is derived from and based upon the authority of verse 18. That is why the word therefore is added there in verse 19. Go therefore and make disciples because of, therefore is linking back to the authority that has been given to Christ in verse 18.

Again, showing this idea that the keys of the kingdom are being handed over to the apostles so that when they go and preach and teach and baptize, that they are doing so not on the basis of their own authority as mere men, but on the basis of the authority of Christ. They are representing Christ himself through their preaching and teaching.

I find it interesting that the fundamental command that is given here, the essence of the Great Commission, the heart of the Great Commission, is to make disciples. That is the primary imperative of this whole text. All the other things, baptizing and teaching, those are subordinate, those are actually participles in Greek, in order to flesh out how they are to make disciples. But the fundamental command is to make disciples.

A lot of times in the history of the church, especially in the history of American evangelicalism, the emphasis of evangelism is just on getting people to make a decision for Christ. Making sure that they pray the sinner’s prayer and receive Christ, and then they are good and everything is fine. If they want to become disciples as a secondary step later on, that is optional. If you want to become a disciple, that is great, but the key thing is to make a decision for Christ. but that is not what Jesus says here.

The Great Commission is not to get people to pray a prayer and then let them go on their merry way, but rather the key is to make disciples, to bring people into a relationship with Christ that is a lifelong process of being a lifelong learner and follower of Jesus, just like the disciples in the Gospel of Matthew.

When Jesus first called them and said, come, follow me, How much did they understand at that moment? Very little. But they followed Jesus, and they sat at his feet, and they heard him teach, and they became followers of him. They became lifelong learners of him. learning more and more about the implications of the gospel. They had so many things that they needed to learn?

For example, that one time when the mother of the sons of Zebedee, James and John, they were among the first disciples that were called back in Matthew 4. But the mother of James and John, at one point in Matthew 20, she came to Jesus and said, I would like a special request to have my two sons sit at your right hand and your left hand in your kingdom. And Jesus has to patiently instruct not only the mother and those two disciples, but the other disciples as well and say, this is not the way it works in the kingdom.

That is the way the Gentiles think. That is the way unbelievers think. They think about having authority and power and exercising that authority over other people and being able to boss them around. That is not the way it is in the kingdom. Whoever would be great among you must be the servant of all. just as the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

That is just one example of something that the disciples had to learn. And it was going against their expectations, the way that they thought things were going to be. And Jesus has to patiently, lovingly go over the ABCs of the kingdom and teach them what it means to be a disciple. And they were able to see his own example? That he did not come to have people serve him. He came to serve others. He came to humbly serve and lay down his life for others.

And so the disciples had to learn from that. Becoming a Christian is not just this momentary moment of receiving Christ. It is a lifelong process of being discipled into the kingdom and learning what the kingdom is all about, understanding the nature of the kingdom. Another big thing the disciples had to learn was that the nature of Christ’s kingdom is a spiritual kingdom.

It is not an earthly kingdom. It is not a political kingdom. It is not about raising an army and trying to get rid of the Roman occupation. It is not about glory and earthly power and prosperity. It is about suffering for Christ and taking up your cross and following Christ. It is a spiritual kingdom. Just think about all the teaching Jesus gave in the Sermon on the Mount, about loving your neighbor, loving your enemy, all of that. They had to learn those things.

Now there is one important point we need to bring out here in our text, and that is when it says make disciples of all nations, we have to understand that word, nations. The word nations there does not mean nation states as geopolitical entities. He is not saying go and make disciples of France and Canada and Mexico.

He is saying go and make disciples of all the Gentiles, of all the people from the various ethnic groups of the world. We could even translate it, make disciples of all Gentiles. It is the same word in Greek that is usually translated as Gentiles. Now the reason why we do not translate it that way is because we do not want to exclude the Jews. It is not as though the Jews are excluded and he is saying now only go and preach the gospel to non-Jewish people.

So we translate it as nations to recognize that what Jesus is calling the apostles to do is to make disciples from all of the various ethnic groups of the world. We can tell this that it is referring to making disciples of individual people from the different groups of the world because of the very next phrase where it says baptizing them. It says, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them. And in Greek, the word them is masculine, whereas the word nations is neuter.

And so it is clear that Jesus is saying to make disciples of all nations by baptizing those individual people who are from the nations, not baptizing the nations as geopolitical entities. Which would not make any sense anyway. How do you baptize a nation? That is not a possibility. But you can baptize the people that come from all of these different nations, both Jewish and Gentile.

So that is the third point. The heart of the Great Commission is to go and make disciples of all nations.

The Means of the Great Commission

Then we have the means of the Great Commission in verse 19b. The means are twofold, baptizing them and teaching them. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Some of our translations say baptizing them “into” the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

In fact, the ESV has a footnote that says it could be translated that way. But that is incorrect. What does that mean, to be baptized “into” the name? It does not make any sense. It should be translated as baptized “in” the name. Baptizing in the name of the triune God means being baptized with reference to, as opposed to baptism in some other name or some other ideology. You could be baptized in the Jewish religion at this time as a form of being converted to Judaism. The Jews practiced proselyte baptism at this time. You could be baptized in the name of John the Baptist and his ministry. What Jesus is saying here now is, I am instituting something new, which is baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The name singular, is not that interesting? The name singular, not the names, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but the name of the one God who is a triune God. One God in three persons. This is a key passage for proving the doctrine of the Trinity. That there is one divine essence, and within that one divine essence, there are three persons. and the three persons of the Godhead fully share in that one undivided divine essence. It is not as though God and the Son and the Spirit are three parts of God. The Father is one third of the Trinity and the Son is the second third of the Trinity. No, that is not how it works. There is one God with one divine essence that is completely indivisible, utterly simple and undivided.

And within that one divine essence, there are three divine persons that equally share in the divine essence and fully share in the divine essence. So Jesus says, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Baptism is a sign of salvation and salvation comes from the triune God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are inseparably acting and working together in the work of salvation.

Sometimes in theology we speak in maybe a little bit misleading terms. Humanly we will say sometimes, just to somewhat grasp things in our human way, we will say that the Father is the one who creates and elects and that the Son is the one who redeems us from our sins and the Spirit is the one who applies redemption to us and sanctifies us. And that is not completely wrong, but it is wrong if we imply that only the Father creates and elects and the Son and the Spirit do not. And only the Son redeems and the Father and the Spirit do not. And only the Spirit applies and sanctifies and the Father and the Son do not.

That is incorrect because all three persons are equally and inseparably involved in the work of salvation. And we see that right here, baptizing them in the name of the triune God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all involved in the work of salvation. The triune God is our Savior. Baptism is a sign of salvation, and it is not just a sign, it is a sign that seals. It is a sign that assures us of the reality of what the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are doing inseparably to work for our salvation.

This language here of the name being associated with this sacramental sign is significant because it reminds us of a passage in the Old Testament. Remember that passage in Numbers chapter six at the very end, the very last few verses of number six, where God gives to Moses the benediction that he wants Moses and Aaron to give to the people. And we often use that ourselves here in our own worship?

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. And as the priest lifts up his hands and blesses the people, it says in the text there in Numbers 6 verse 27, so they, that is the priest, shall put my name upon the people of Israel and I will bless them.

That is what baptism is according to Jesus. Baptism is the name of the triune God being placed upon us. showing that we are marked out. We are marked out from the world. We are set aside into a holy covenant relationship with the triune God, that we are the people of God, that the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are at work within us to save us, to redeem us, to sanctify us, and to bring us ultimately into the eternal kingdom that he has won for us. Baptism is a sign that seals.

Now, of course, it is not an automatic thing. It does not mean that every single person that has been literally baptized is guaranteed that they will be saved. There are many who are physically baptized or have been physically baptized who end up rejecting the gospel and turning away from Christ, and they will not be saved at the end.

But yet that is what it symbolizes. That is what the sign means. That is what it stands for. And when we as God’s people receive that sign in true faith, looking to the significance of what the sign points to, God uses that by the spirit to assure us that the thing signified is indeed real and true for us and that we are indeed his people.

That is the first means of fulfilling the Great Commission, is baptizing them in the name of the Triune God. The second means, the second how, so you have the essence of the Great Commission, or the heart of it, is to go and make disciples, and then you have the two hows, the two means.

The first is by baptizing, the second is by teaching, by teaching them all that I have commanded you. Remember all of those blocks of teaching in the Gospel of Matthew? You have the first block of teaching in Matthew five through seven, the Sermon on the Mount. You have the second block of teaching in Matthew chapter 10, when Jesus sends out the apostles for the mission to Israel.

And even there, even though it seems to be focused on the mission to Israel, he already speaks ahead to things to come. He talks about persecution. He talks about the Gospel going to the nations even afterward. These are already little hints Even before the Great Commission, there are little hints of the Great Commission to come, even before it.

The third block of teaching in the Gospel of Matthew is Matthew 13. The parables of the kingdom, where Jesus explains the nature of the kingdom. The sower went out to seed, that is the gospel. And the seed fell upon some soil that was not prepared, but then it fell upon the good soil, and it brought forth fruit.

The fourth block of teaching is Matthew 18, where Jesus speaks about discipleship in community. If your brother sins against you, this is how you are to relate to one another as fellow disciples in the kingdom. He talks about the necessity of forgiving one another, even as we have been forgiven.

And the final and fifth block of teaching is the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and 25, where Jesus speaks about how the gospel is going to be preached throughout the church age, but it is going to happen side by side with opposition and tribulation and difficulty. But through it all, Christ’s kingdom is going to be built. His church will be gathered until the end comes. And he will gather his elect from one end of heaven to the other.

All of those five big blocks of teaching of Jesus concerning so many things, concerning discipleship, concerning what it means to live as a follower of Christ, or even teaching about eschatology, understanding what the future holds, and how Christ is Lord of history, and how he is going to come back, and how we need to be ready for that, and how we need to be on our knees in prayer, expecting that, because no one knows the day or the hour.

All of that teaching, Jesus says here, this is what you apostles must do. To make disciples, you must baptize them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as a sign and seal of the great triune salvation that I am doing, but then also teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

Jesus taught in the Gospel of Matthew with such authority. He taught with authority and with power, not as the scribes and the Pharisees. He taught speaking them, speaking to them the truths of the kingdom of God, telling them the nature of the life that disciples are called to in him.

Now, you might be wondering, why is preaching the gospel not mentioned? You would think that that would be one of the key things in this passage. This is the Great Commission, so you would expect to say somewhere in here, you know, go therefore and preach the gospel and make disciples of all the nations or something like that. Where is the gospel mentioned here? Well, a couple things to keep in mind.

First of all, Jesus does speak about this idea of the Great Commission, including the preaching of the gospel, earlier in Matthew 24. In Matthew 24, in the Olivet Discourse, when he is talking about the nature of this whole period of time between the first and second coming of Christ and how there is going to be persecution and difficulty and wars and rumors of wars.

He says in Matthew 24 verse 14, this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations. That phrase, to all nations, or the phrase all nations, is the exact same phrase in Matthew 28, verse 19. Make disciples of all nations. Panta taethne, all the nations.

And so here he does specifically speak about preaching the gospel, preaching the gospel of the kingdom. So he does not need to repeat it here in the Great Commission because it is presupposed from Matthew 24. But there is another thing even in our text itself. We do not have to go to Matthew 24 to see that the preaching of the gospel is a key part of the Great Commission. There is something in our text itself that presupposes it.

And that is baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Because how can you baptize somebody in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit unless that person has some idea of what that means? How can we talk about baptism in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, unless we have talked about the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit?

And that is the gospel. The gospel is, here is the Father’s work, here is the Son’s work, here is the Spirit’s work, as salvation is being proclaimed through the gospel. The gospel itself is presupposed in the triune name. In fact, the word name, in biblical theology often refers to God’s revelation, God’s self-revelation. God’s name is that which God is communicating about himself. And He is communicating to us that He is a triune God.

And the way we understand what that means is that we hear the gospel telling us that the Father sent His Son into the world. And the Son came to accomplish the Father’s will, which was to go to the cross and to save us from our sins. And then Christ ascended into heaven and poured out the Holy Spirit upon His church to empower the church. So in the very process of speaking the truths of the gospel, we are going to be referring to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So the preaching of the gospel is presupposed in those terms that are found there in the heart of the Great Commission.

Another thing that we could also ask is not only why is preaching the gospel not directly mentioned, I think it is implied, we could also ask why this order? Why the order of baptizing first and then teaching? We might expect it to be the other way around, teaching and preaching first, and then baptizing. But why does Jesus say, go make disciples, and here is how you do it, by baptizing and by teaching? Why mention baptism first? I think the reason is because baptism is the beginning point of being a lifelong learner. And this then also opens up the possibility that we could bring in the idea of even our covenant children being included within this.

In 2 Timothy 3.15, the Apostle Paul speaks of Timothy in these terms. He says, how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings. Our children then begin the process of becoming disciples by baptism, and then they learn more and more about the truths of the gospel as they grow up. Our covenant children are lifelong learners. They are disciples as well.

And even Jesus himself prepares for this idea in Matthew 19, verse 13. When children were brought to Jesus, the parents were asking Jesus to lay his hands upon them and to pray. And this idea of laying of hands upon them, of course, reminds us again of that Aaronic benediction in Numbers 6, in which the priests would place God’s name upon the people. And so Jesus took the children and he laid his hands upon them, placing the name of God upon them and praying for them and saying to the disciples who were saying, no, do not bring the children, saying to the disciples, do not hinder the children from coming to me for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. So even within the Gospel of Matthew itself, we have some contextual clues that explain why baptism is first and teaching follows after.

The Power of the Great Commission

Then the fifth point, verse 20, the power of the Great Commission. What is the power of the Great Commission? This is an awesome task to do this mighty work of taking the authority of Christ into the world and baptizing and teaching and making disciples. It is something that we cannot do in our own strength, but Christ encourages his disciples with these words.

He says, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Christ is going to leave this earth and ascend into heaven immediately after giving this great commission to the disciples. That is not recorded in Matthew, but it is recorded in the Gospel of Luke at the very end. as well as Acts chapter one. And so it may seem as though he is leaving his disciples alone to do this work by their own power. And yet Jesus says, even though he is going to ascend into heaven, he will be present with them.

I will not leave you. I will be with you. And he will be with us by the spirit. by His Spirit. In the Gospel of John, in the Upper Room Discourse in John 13 through 16, Jesus speaks a lot about this. He says, I am going to go away, but it is for your benefit that I go away, because I will send you another helper, another comforter who will be with you. I will not leave you as orphans. I am not just going to abandon you.

I am going to be with you through the Spirit that I am going to send to you. The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ who represents the presence of Christ to us. What a wonderful thing that the Lord does here. He does not just simply give them these commands and tell them to do this work that seems so daunting and almost impossible from a human point of view. He says, do not worry, I will be with you.

I will be with you always, even to the end of the age, to strengthen you and to encourage you and to comfort you. In Greek, the word always is a little bit, I do not know, It has a different nuance to it in Greek. I love this translation. I am with you for all of the days to the end of the age.

Just think about all the many days that have transpired so far from the ascension of Christ until today. So many days. Just think of all the days in your own life that have transpired so far, or how many days are yet to come. Each and every one of those days, the Lord is with us. He promises he will not leave us or forsake us. He is with you every single day until the end of the age when he returns. What a wonderful comfort that is.

That last statement there, the very last verse of the Gospel of Matthew, It is an inclusio. An inclusio is like a sandwich or bookends because it reminds us of something at the very beginning of the Gospel of Matthew back in Matthew chapter one. In Matthew chapter one, when the narrator of the Gospel, Matthew, says that the virgin birth of Jesus took place to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah, Isaiah 7.14, that he will be called Emmanuel, which means God with us. And so here we have the conclusion of the Gospel of Matthew linking all the way back to Matthew chapter one and telling us that how is it that we have this God who is with us.

We have this God who is with us through the gift of the Holy Spirit sent from the risen and exalted Christ. And since that Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, it is Christ himself who is with us by the Spirit. And so once again, we have an amazing thing in our text that the Gospel of Matthew teaches the deity of Christ and the triune nature of God, implying even also the deity of the Holy Spirit as the representative of Christ on earth among us. The deity of Christ is so powerfully spoken of in this whole passage. It begins with the fact that they worshiped him in verse 17.

It continues with his own claim that all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. What creature could say that? If Jesus was a mere man, how could he say that all authority? In heaven and earth, that is both the visible and the invisible realms, that is the entire creation? Only God could say that.

Then again, the deity of Christ and the deity of the Spirit as well is implied in verse 19, where it speaks of baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Jesus did not command the disciples to baptize people in the name of God and then two other entities that are not God. That would not make any sense? Jesus is not just a mere creature, a mere man. You cannot baptize in the name of God and a mere man. And the Spirit is not just a mere force or a power, an impersonal force. The Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, fully God.

So you have the fact that they worshiped him. You have the fact that he claims all authority. You have the fact that baptism is in the name of the triune God. Then you have another indicator of the deity of Christ in verse 20a, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. You might say, where does that, how does that show us the deity of Christ? Well, it shows us the deity of Christ because that language of everything that I have commanded you is taken from the book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 12, verse 32. where God himself is giving the law to Israel through Moses and says, everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it. That is a divine way of speaking. Only God can say that everything I command you, you shall observe and do. This is the authority of Christ as God himself speaking to us the law of the new covenant.

And then finally we have again, as I mentioned before, the fact that he says, I am with you always, which links back to Matthew 1.23 and his name, Emmanuel, which means God with us. The deity of Christ is alluded to and taught five times in this one passage.

And that is our hope. That is what gives us the courage and the strength to go forth in doing the work that the Lord has given us to do, even though it is hard. And even though we have many days throughout all the days that are difficult and we struggle with besetting sin and suffering and opposition and difficulty, yet we have Christ’s own presence with us to encourage us and to help us to serve him and to fulfill this great commission. He is the one that is doing it, and he is using us as his instruments.

Praise God for his grace.