Jesus In The Book Of John

Jeremy Kidd

Dr. Smyth

Curriculum and Instruction

25 April 2015

COMMENTARY: MATTHEW 28:16-20

There is and always has been one, true King. Jesus Christ existed as God and Creator long before He came to earth as flesh and blood or was named Jesus by his earthly parents. He was always King, and in Creation He established His great Kingdom of Light. The book of John tells us about the eternal existence of the King and of His Light.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness

did not comprehend it. (John 1:1-5 NASB)
In Creation God made things as they ought to be. The creation of humankind was the culmination of this great creation. Genesis tells the story of how this great Kingdom of Light was ruled by man and woman, until the day that woman was deceived into eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. Man followed suit, and thus brought darkness and evil into the world. The Kingdom of Darkness had been established, and Satan became the Prince of this world. By the grace of the God the King, Satan’s reign was to be temporary, and humankind would not suffer in captivity to sin forever. God had a plan, and that plan began with the nation of Israel, the sole stronghold in the world of God’s Kingdom. Despite Israel’s many failures, God blessed the nation and kept it until the day that it brought forth a baby named Jesus. The King Himself descended in human flesh to rescue all creation from the Kingdom of Darkness. His plan was to expand His Kingdom beyond the nation of Israel, and this would be accomplished through death on a cross to pay the price for sin, and resurrection from the dead in total victory over sin. God would raise up disciples under His own, personal tutelage to whom He would gift the ability and power to spread this discipleship to others of every nation, tribe, and tongue. The disciples were distinctly human and sinful. Their belief was plagued by equal measures of doubt. Their understanding was hindered by clouded minds of darkness. God never gave up on them, however, and He still has not left His Kingdom. Today we fight for the Kingdom of Light against the powers of Darkness that hold so many captive in this world of sin. We fight this fight with the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, God’s very presence in the lives of the redeemed. What follows is the explanation of King Jesus’s Great Commission to all His disciples. It is the mission of all who follow the LORD God to bring this commission to fruition by God’s power entrusted to them. It all begins… with doubt.
Could all eleven of the disciples have doubted, or only some of them? In the Greek, there is some evidence to support both cases. Many commentators have translated this passage with “some doubted” instead of “they doubted” or “all doubted.” This is mostly due to discomfort with every single disciple being doubtful. Nonetheless, the stronger evidence supports a translation/interpretation that all eleven disciples doubted, and there is no evidence whatever in Matthew’s text to suggest that others besides the eleven were on the mountain at all, let alone that these others were the doubters rather than the eleven (Boring 884).
The question has to be raised: is the kind of doubt the disciples were evidently experiencing incompatible with the worship that the text asserts they were giving to the risen Jesus? “Some would avoid the problem by understanding [the Greek word] as a pluperfect, i.e., they ‘had doubted’ but no longer did… This view is disallowed, however, by the clearly aorist verb of the first clause” (885). Some have argued that the Greek word, προσεκύνησαν, should be taken less literally, and that perhaps the disciples were not truly “worshiping” but taking a posture from which to beg Jesus to have mercy on them (885).
Another, perhaps far better, way of dealing with the difficulty is to explore what the disciples’s feelings of doubt were directed at. Perhaps they are afraid and doubting whether Jesus will pardon them for their disloyalty in the recent past during His time of trial. Some have still suggested that the object of the doubt was Jesus’s identity (is He really risen?) while still others suggest that the disciples were uncertain whether or not they ought to be worshiping Jesus. In either case, the question of why the disciples worshiped Jesus is they held these doubts is unanswered. As to the latter, the worship of Jesus is obviously not a questionable thing for the author, Matthew. Furthermore, Matthew, being a disciple himself, would not make it a questionable issue for the disciples at the end of his narrative. One commentator, W.D. Morris’ goes so far as to actually amend the text to οἱ δὲ ἐδίστασαν, meaning, ‘but they stood apart,’ suggesting that the disciples did not approach the resurrected Jesus all to try and make sense of this confusing tension between believing worship and doubt (885).
It is very important when considering the meaning of Jesus’s disciples doubting that a person understand what doubting does not mean. The word used here in the Greek for “they doubted” is distinct from the words Matthew could have used for “disbelieved” or “were perplexed.” The word that is used for doubt here occurs in the NT only twice, once here and again in 14:31. In the latter passage, Peter walks on the water until fear takes over when he sees the wind. Jesus addresses Peter by calling him, “O little faith,” and questions him with, “Why did you doubt?” The doubt here does not imply that Peter began to question Jesus’s identity as God. Peter probably wasn’t even thinking about such deep questions at that time. Peter was struggling with uncertainty and hesitation about Jesus’s ability to keep him afloat with such violent conditions on the water. There are also documented places in which Plato and Aristotle use this Greek word to mean “hesitation” or “uncertainty” or the like. “In Peter’s case the doubt indicates a divided mind brought about by a lack of an adequate measure of faith, not a lack of faith altogether” (885). This incident of doubt seems to be somewhat different than the kind of doubt experienced by the disciples regarding the risen Jesus in Luke 24:38, although it is not different in every respect. Luke does, only a few lines later, refer to the simultaneous “disbelieving” and “joy” felt amongst all, not just some, of the disciples in Luke 24:41 (885).
While the disciples doubting Jesus’s identity seems unlikely from the passage, it makes complete sense to think of the eleven disciples as being in a state of indecision or hesitation. First of all, it is consistent with Matthew’s theology of discipleship. “Matthew’s own theological understanding of the meaning of discipleship… is always a matter of ‘little faith,’ faith that by its nature is not the same as cocksureness, but incorporates doubts within itself in the act of worship” (Boring 502). Secondly, in the recent past so much had taken place. History was completely changed, the authority of death and the grave was challenged, and the man the disciples had followed with total loyalty was arrested, killed, and raised to life in glory all in the span of three days. They did not doubt who they were seeing. It was clearly Jesus, their Lord and King, and this is why they worshiped. If their belief was indeed too small—as Peter’s was when he ceased to walk on the water—then it was because they were in an uncertain state with regard to the meaning of everything that had taken place and what might happen next. This state of mind also follows with the response of Jesus, whose words were ones of reassurance.
The disciples needed their King to claim His authority over all things and promise to always be with them. “It seems clear that Matthew wanted members of his community to apply the truth to themselves… ‘Matthew understands that the fluctuations between worship and indecision is every disciple’s struggle. What is needed is confidence that Jesus is Lord of all and present with them at all times’” (Metzger 885). Jesus does not send His disciples out to make disciples alone, nor does He do so without empowering them. As King, Jesus is in control of all things, and He commands His disciples to go out and grow the Kingdom with the knowledge that He will always be with them. The message is one of comfort, encouragement and strength. It is a promise from the King who never lies that no disciple, whether one of the eleven or any other, will ever be alone in their mission.
When Jesus claims all authority in 28:18, it is not the first time. Jesus had already asserted His authority from the Father in 9:6 when He claimed the authority to forgive sins. He also claimed in 11:27 that “all things have been given to me by my Father.” The claim becomes all the more potent and manifold when the resurrected Jesus says it, however. As Ephesians 1:20-23, “which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (NASB).
Jesus’s resurrection from the dead is a perfect vindication of everything He did and said in His ministry. Jesus is preparing to be exalted and enthroned at the right hand of the Father. He is truly taking His place as victorious King over all things and His words have more weight and power than ever before. As Samuel predicted in 2 Samuel 7:13, “He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (NASB). Of Jesus’s exaltation to the throne, Philippians 2:9-11 says, “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (NASB). Philippians makes it clear that Jesus’s exaltation was given by the Father in order that He might be glorified in all the world. No longer would God be the God of the Israelites alone, but now He would be the God of all things and people on the earth and in heaven and even under the earth.
God’s plan for Jesus to come and be instilled with all authority was not new to salvation history. Jesus’s reign as King of Kings is not an original idea that the New Testament added to the Old Testament. Rather, Jesus’s story is told throughout the Old Testament in passages like Daniel 7:13-14. Daniel writes,
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./‘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. (Daniel 7:13-14 NASB)
The Daniel passage does more than simply foretell Jesus’s authority, it also foretells the bringing of the Kingdom to all nations. The passage speaks of “nations and men of every language” serving the Lord. This message of total authority extends even to hell, for in the book of Revelation, John says, “ When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades” (Revelation 1:17-19 NASB). So we see that Jesus’s authority is attested to throughout the Bible’s narrative and is the cornerstone upon which the command to go and make disciples is built. Furthermore, Jesus’ constant presence in the lives and ministries of his disciples is the empowering structure by which courage for the mission can be gleaned. This is why the first lesson is on Jesus having all authority as King, and the last lesson is on the King’s promise to always remain faithfully by the side of His servants in their journey to fulfill the mission of growing the Kingdom.
Having been assured of the power to accomplish the task Jesus is about to assign them, the disciples (and all future disciples) are given the commission. The commission comes in two parts and is the mission of all Christ’s followers. The connective, “therefore” at the beginning of the commission makes it clear that the command is connected directly to Jesus’s authority and purpose. Jesus’s authority and presence are the empowering factors in the mission to all nations, and without His resurrection and establishment of authority, there is no purpose or power in the goal of discipling the Gentiles (or the Jews for that matter) (886). The command is an imperative verb which is translated “make disciples.” The object of this command is “all the nations,” which implies strongly that the disciples are to go into all the world. The love of God is not only for the Jews, but through Christ it has been made available to the Gentiles as well. This message is the burden of Jesus’s followers to pass on to the unbelieving masses. The universal authority that Jesus claims to possess is the foundation for the universal mission of the church in evangelizing and “discipling” (886).
The verb for “make disciples” is characteristic of Matthew. In fact, this verb is only found in one other place in the entire New Testament (Acts 14:21). First and foremost, the word “disciple” actually means “pupil” and/or “learner.” The emphasis, then, of the Great Commission is not on proclamation of the Gospel—although that is part of it—but rather on the long and difficult task of training and schooling the evangelized into the experience of becoming a disciple who knows the will of God and can actively disciple others (887). The mission is a reproductive one, and it is reminiscent of God’s original command in Genesis to all Creation. God said, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:27-28 NASB). God created mankind and told them to multiply. They were to reproduce over and over and fill the whole earth and claim authority over it. In Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples to do the same, but this time it is not physical reproduction, but spiritual reproduction. The disciples are to be fruitful and multiply by making more disciples who can in turn make even more disciples. The Gospel is to be spread to all the nations so that it covers the whole earth and the authority of the one, true King can reign over all the earth and over all peoples of the earth. Being a disciple “… in Matthew means above all to follow after righteousness as articulated in the teaching of Jesus” (887).
The opportunity for followership of Jesus and salvation is to be brought outside the folds of Israel now. Eugene Boring says it this way: “Acts 1-15 narrates the gradual process in which the community of Jesus’ disciples after Easter came to realize under the guidance of the Spirit that the risen Lord wills that the church be a universal, inclusive community of all nations” (Boring 503). The commission is directly given as for “all the nations.” This development is new, but not without foreshadowing. Throughout the Gospel of Matthew the extension beyond Israel of Jesus’s ministry is latent. The allusion to Abraham in 1:1, followed by the story of the Magi (not Jews) in 2:1-12, and the centurion (a Roman) in 8:5-13, culminating in the Canaanite woman’s daughter in 15:21-28.
The commission does not stop at discipleship, but requires baptism. The disciples are told to “baptize” the new disciples. Before this point baptism is referred to only twice in Matthew’s gospel, first in chapter 3 and then once more in 21:25, making this command a bit of a surprise for the reader (Metzger 887). It is not without purpose that Jesus says this; however, and in this part of the passage, two important things should be noted. First of all, the proclamation that baptism is to be done “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” is a direct and powerful affirmation of the Trinitarian nature of God. The passage says to baptize in the name, singular, not names, plural. Since God is three persons, yet one God, and since the word “trinity” never appears in the Scripture, it is important to note passages like this that directly affirm the concept of the Triune God. Furthermore, this baptism is “into” the “name.” This reflects a Hebrew/Aramaic expression which means “fundamentally determined by.” “In contrast to John’s baptism, this baptism brings a person into an existence that is fundamentally determined by, i.e., ruled by, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (888).
The radically outreach-based notion that Jesus communicates here is the basis for the second lesson in this series. That is, the second lesson is on how Jesus, the King, calls His followers to go and grow the Kingdom through evangelism. Discipleship under Christ Jesus for all nations is a clear harkening back to the promise God made to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 that all nations would be blessed through him in the end (Boring 504). Disciples cannot be made without belief, and belief cannot be had without proclamation of the Gospel. In order to baptize new people into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Gospel must first be spread. Paul explains this concept well in the book of Romans when he says, “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things’” (Romans 10:14-15 NASB)! For the first time in salvation history, Jesus opened this spreading of the Gospel up to all people and nations, not only Israel.
The third lesson is on the discipleship and teaching aspect of the Great Commission which has been discussed in some detail above. What has not been noted is that Jesus’s authority to teach has been shared in some respects with the disciples in the past, but until the Great Commission it is not expressly given. Jesus finally gives over to His disciples the authorization to teach. “After baptizing disciples, the continuing Christian community is to instruct them in all that Jesus has taught” (Boring 504). This mission ought not to be taken lightly for it was Jesus’s mission before it was the church’s. In James, the writer (presumably James the brother of Jesus) says, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment” (James 3:1). Also, the mission of teaching has been and always will be primarily God’s job not any person’s. As an example of this, Acts begins with Jesus making another important command not recorded in Matthew:
To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. (Acts 1:3-5)
In other words, the disciples were commanded to teach, but they were never to do it alone. Part of the importance of lesson four, the constant presence of Jesus, is that God is with His disciples as we teach. Even the original eleven were not to go about spreading the Gospel without first being baptized in the Holy Spirit and receiving His power on them for ministry. The Holy Spirit is the teacher that ultimately leads people to understand the authority of Jesus and bow to Him as King, and it is also the Holy Spirit who subsequently teaches the new disciples to accept Jesus as their Lord and follow His teachings. All disciples of Christ are vessels for teaching. They are not themselves the teachers. This is why Jesus said, “But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers” (Matthew 23:8 NASB).
So the story has not yet concluded.

To this day the disciples of Jesus Christ are fighting the good fight against the forces of evil in the heavenly realms. We are eternally locked in combat, and our enemy is the darkness that tries to hide the knowledge of the truth from all people of all nations. God dearly loves the people of the world, made in His image. Jesus came to forfeit all His Kingly rights, and ultimately His very life, that the sins of all might be forgiven and entrance into the new Kingdom of Light might be freely given. No one can enter without hearing the message. The Great Commission highlights the four key aspects of this mission, the four lessons of this Curriculum Resource. First, Jesus Christ is King over all and has all authority. This means that disciples of Christ need fear nothing, but rather should boldly proclaim the Gospel of Christ knowing that the King Himself has sent them. This leads into the second lesson: the King has sent His servants into the world to grow the Kingdom. Evangelism is important. The mission is to go and make disciples of all nations. This means regardless of race, class, nationality, beliefs, or personal biases, all people must hear the good news of the Kingdom of Light preached so that new disciples can be made and baptized into the name of the Holy One. Thirdly, the King requires discipleship and teaching. Just as Jesus taught His disciples before sending them out, with the power of the Spirit, to teach others, so too must disciples make more disciples, not only converts. The goal is not simply to win people to the Kingdom of Light, but to train them in all righteousness so that they too may participate in the mission of the Great Commission. This teaching is done by the Holy Spirit through the disciples of Christ. Lastly, Jesus has not forsaken His servants. The King is eternally with every one of His servants in their quest. Not only does a disciple of Christ need not fear, but disciples of Christ should feel

empowered to bring the message of God boldly, knowing that it is the Spirit that teaches, and they need only be an open vessel for the movement of the God and King of the Universe. So be it!

Bibliography
Boring, Eugene. The New Interpreter's Bible General Articles on the New Testament, the Gospel of
Matthew, the Gospel of Mark. Vol. VIII. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995.
"Blue Letter Bible :: Gospel of Matthew Chapter 1 - King James Version." Blue Letter Bible.
Accessed April 28, 2015. http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Mat&c=28&t=NASB#s=t_concf_957017.
Metzger, Bruce M. Word Biblical Commentary. Vol. 33b. Dallas: Word Books, 1995.