Well, we always take a moment and think about why we're gathered here, which is, of course, to take in the Word of God. And the Scriptures are paramount in the Scriptures. It teaches us that the Scriptures of God breathe, they're profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, and the reason is so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. So we really need all the Scripture, and of course Paul set out to teach the totality of Scripture, the whole counsel of God as he calls it. And so we seek to do that here, while a lot of churches just sort of play footsie. But we think it's important that all believers know the Word of God, because that's how we know God. But we can get out of fellowship with God, and we need to walk in intimacy or closeness with Him to be effective in this world for Him. And so John says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So let's take a moment now and remember what we're here for and have an opportunity to confess if necessary. Dear Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you that we're able to study the Gospel of Matthew and to look at his particular themes and argument that he's making in his contribution to the totality of the canon of Scripture. And we thank you so much for this edition, since it makes the kingdom one of the most paramount issues, certainly when the grand theme of the Bible is to culminate in a kingdom ruled by a genuine human being, the God-man Jesus Christ, who is the last Adam. And certainly this is an age of preparation for that kingdom. And we are sons of the kingdom and heirs of the kingdom to come, and we'll rule and reign with Him. And help us, our lives, to get in preparation for that by learning to live more effectively by the Spirit, solving our problems not by fleshly means, but by utilizing the faithless drill. And help us, as we come to the conclusion of the book, understand the marching orders individual disciples in the church age and to go forth from this place hereafter and fulfill it to the greatest capacity we can according to what you've gifted us with. Thank you for those who are unable to be with us. We pray for them. Those who've lost loved ones, we lift them up to you and pray for their well-being and comfort at this time and for the healing of those who are sick. And we just thank you that we have this opportunity in this life, this time that you've woven our lives together. to encourage one another, exhort one another, give and share all the things that you have provided for us with one another. And we ask that tonight is a blessing, and we ask this in Christ's name. Amen. Okay, so this will be the last technical lesson on the Book of Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew. And then next week I'll cover issues regarding the nature of the kingdom, what the kingdom will be like since Matthew is so much about the kingdom. So just in general, so we can remember before we close out tonight and next week, that the overall general structure of the Gospel of Matthew is it can be divided into three parts. There's the offer of the kingdom to Israel in Matthew 1-12, There's the rejection of the kingdom by Israel in Matthew 12 itself. And then there's the postponement of the kingdom in Matthew 13 through 28, during which the church is announced as something to soon be established on the basis of the death and resurrection of Christ, and so that we're in an age of preparation. And those who are in the church are therefore sons of the kingdom, And we're heirs of the kingdom, but the kingdom is yet to come. And so that's basically, in a nutshell, what the Gospel of Matthew is about. And tonight we're going to come to the Great Commission. Now before we do, there was one question that came up, and this relates to Matthew 27, 52. So if you turn to Matthew 27 and verse 51, just after Christ yielded up his spirit. The question relates to the identification of these saints who come out of the tombs there in Jerusalem. And so what we want to do is just read verse 51 and 53 through 53 and then go back again and talk about briefly about these saints. So in verse 51, and behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many. Okay, so these are evidences that the death of Christ was propitiatory of the holiness of God in heaven. And the one that's in particularly of interest here, of course, is in verse 52, the tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who'd fallen asleep were raised. Now I say that the question is, and if you have a Ryrie study, Bob, you'll see down there at the bottom, it'll say, These people may have been restored to earthly bodies to die again, which is a resuscitation like Lazarus. He says, or resurrected with glorified bodies. Now, the problem people have is they say, well, you can't be resurrected. These people can't have been resurrected. But the same word that is used of Christ's resurrection in verse 53 is the same word that's used of the saints being raised in verse 52. Now one of these words is the noun in verse 53, the other is the verb in verse 52, but the same root word for resurrection. So it's very difficult to argue that they're not resurrected in the same way that Christ is resurrected. And the other thing we like to point out is that the text is very careful to say this. that they came out of the tombs after his resurrection. In other words, it is informing us that this resurrection did not happen before his resurrection because the first one who could ever be resurrected is the Messiah. Nobody could be ever raised before him. But there were people who were resuscitated before he was resurrected. We can think of Lazarus, we can think of the widow's son in the Old Testament, and so forth and so on. Other people have been resuscitated. So that note would not be necessary if they were just resuscitated. Another thing that's happening, and why this is so significant, and these are saints that died under the Old Testament economy, so they would just be considered like Old Testament saints. They'd apparently died recently, and they went around to people that they apparently knew. But the significance of this, of course, is it attested to the fact that Messiah had already been raised. You see, because if Messiah is the first to ever be resurrected, and there are other resurrected people running around, that means that the Messiah has already come, right? That means, just like the Jewish people are waiting on Messiah today, they must be wrong, because people have already been resurrected and gone around and shared this with other people. The one other thing that we want to, or two other things that we want to point out about this is that in Matthew chapter 12 at the rejection, Jesus said there would be no sign given the nation Israel except one more sign. And what is that sign? the sign of Jonah the prophet, and the sign of Jonah the prophet's resurrection. So Lazarus is the first sign of resurrection, and he is resuscitated. The second giving of that sign is Jesus' own resurrection, and this is the third, these resurrected saints. So that sign was given on three different occasions, and they all attest to the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. Now the only other thing we would like to point out about these saints that were raised And of course, it's people debate whether they're really raised or not, but I think they were. Another thing that is happening here is something in line with Old Testament, what is called first fruits. So during the Old Testament, you would pray to God that you would get the winter rains because that would mean a spring harvest. When the spring harvest began to come in, the very first part of it was called the first fruits, and they would take some of this harvest, some of this grain, and they would go down to the temple, and they would provide it to the priests, and the priests would wave it before the Lord, and they would give thanks to the Lord for the first fruits of the harvest. Because by giving him thanks, they were saying, we know that you're going to provide more, you're going to provide a full harvest. What this is, These resurrection of these saints is a first fruit of the saints of the Old Testament Israel that will be raised at the second coming. So the resurrection here is a guarantee, so to speak, that there's more Jewish saints to be raised at the second coming. So it would serve that function in Jewish in Jewish thought life. Okay, so that's my way I understand Matthew 27, 52. And I hope that helps clarify who they are. And the fact that they weren't resurrected before Christ, they were resurrected after him, so it shouldn't be a problem. Okay, last time we looked at his resurrection in Matthew 28, 1-15. So really that resurrection of those saints happened after this section we looked at last time. Sorry I couldn't be here last week. It's just that I'm moving into the other office and I had like 5,000 books. I had to put each one up by hand in a specific location and that took more than two days since I'm still going on doing that, so I didn't have time. Okay, so Matthew 28, 1 to 15, and the account is pretty brief. but he does insert two apologetic elements into his argument. One is that there were so many witnesses to the empty tomb that there could be no other explanation than he was resurrected from the dead. And the other is that the religious leadership were given this explanation by the Roman soldiers, but they tried to cover it up by paying them a large sum of money. So Matthew hoped that the Jewish people who were reading his gospel and were not yet convinced of his Messiahship, Jesus' Messiahship, would investigate these things and become convinced that he's really the Messiah. So the narrative begins in verse one with the timing. It says it was after the Sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week. So in other words, it was Sunday before dawn. Not everyone, but I hold to a Friday crucifixion and a Sunday resurrection. Some people disagree because they say, well, that's not three full days. The Bible says he'd be in the grave three days and three nights, and other passages say that after three days he will rise. However, these expressions have been shown to be Jewish idioms, and things that are predicted elsewhere to occur after three days actually occur on the third day, not the fourth day. And furthermore, we know that in Jewish thinking, any part of a day is considered a full day. And we know factually that Jesus is not raised on the fourth day, but he's raised on the third day. So if you put all these things together, a Friday crucifixion followed by a Sunday resurrection is the best understanding. So in 28.1, it tells us that sometime during the night, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the tomb. It was very early, almost daylight. In verse two, we get more background for the things that are already happened before they arrived. And it says, behold, a severe earthquake had occurred. Earthquake is a sign of divine intervention. This one is. The explanation tells us that it says, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. That stone was rolled away so that others could go in and see that he was not in that place. And the angel then remained sitting on the stone in order to explain to visitors why he wasn't there. And the reason is because he's risen. And also to remind those who visited that he had told them ahead of time that he would be raised. And also to tell them that they should go to the Galilee because that's where he would meet them. So the resurrection had already taken place sometime during the night. The stone was removed by the angel, not so Jesus could get out, but visitors could get in. And in verse three, we have a description of the appearance of the angel. And he was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. So he had a gleaming brilliance, and this indicates that he came directly from the presence of God. In verse four, then, we see the Roman soldier's response. And it says, the guards shook for fear of him, but they became like dead men. What that means is they were terrified, and they fainted. That shouldn't be the typical response of a soldier. So what they must have encountered was not a normal threat. By verse 5, the soldiers had already come to from fainting, they fled the scene, and they reported this to the religious leaders. And it's about that time, it was almost dawn, here come the women, they arrive at the tomb. And the angel said to the women, do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. In other words, the women were about to faint, right? But the angel calmed their fears, telling them, don't be afraid. verse 6 the angel tells him plainly he's not here for he has risen just as he said so come see the place where he was lying and go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead and behold he's going ahead of you into the Galilee and there you will see him behold I've told you in other words I've already fulfilled my commission now this was my commission But it's quite obvious that the women did not understand or accept what he said. Maybe they were still reeling from the side of this being. But they didn't understand or they didn't give this report because when they went and gave the report, they said, well, somebody took the body and moved it somewhere else. Well, yeah, in a way, but not the way they meant. In verse 8, the women left the tomb quickly. They had mixed emotions, fear and great joy. And they ran to report it to the disciples. They didn't report what the angel said, but the disciples didn't believe what they said anyway. And here we're told in verse nine that Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took a hold of his feet and worshiped him. Now Matthew doesn't give us all the details, right? You have to get all four Gospels together to see the full harmony. We did that last time. Today we're just going to review just Matthew. And we said this is not Jesus' first appearance. That was to Mary Magdalene alone. And that was when she didn't recognize him. She thought he was the gardener, right? That's the first appearance. But this is another appearance after that, and Mary Magdalene actually is not here, okay? This one's definitely different because these women immediately recognize Him, and they take hold of Him, and what do they do? They worship Him. That's important to observe because these are monotheistic Jewish women, and they probably went around, you know, saying the great Shema in Deuteronomy 6-4 three times a day, right? The Lord our God is one. But apparently they didn't think it wrong to worship Jesus as God. So what this means is they must have understood that there's a sense in which God is one, but this sense allows for a diversity of persons within his oneness. And it's also important to observe that Jesus didn't prohibit them from worshiping him. And yet, you know, of course, if Jesus was not God, then they were worshiping an idol and he should have stopped them from doing that. Every time you see someone like an angel, for example, being worshipped in the Bible, the angel always says, stop doing that. But Jesus didn't say that. And the reason is, is because he's very God of very God. So then in verse 10, Jesus said to them, don't be afraid, go and take word to my brethren to leave for Galilee and there they will see me. So this is the third or fourth time he said he's going to meet him in the Galilee. And the meeting place in the Galilee is important because that was really the heart of where Jesus's ministry took place. The reason Jesus's ministry ended up there is because his message was met with more acceptance in the Galilee. So now his ministry is gonna return to the Galilee before he ascends. And this will be where he gives the great commission to his disciples to go to all the nations of the world. And then in verse 11, While they were on the way, some of the Roman guard, no, not all of the Roman guard, just some of them, came into the city of Jerusalem, and what they did was they reported to the chief priests all that had happened. In other words, they told them about the earthquake, they told them about the strange visitor in gleaming white, how the stone was rolled away, the tomb was empty with the linen cloths just lying outside. They told them the whole story, just as it happened. We have no reason to think that the Roman guards would lie about any of it, but that they would tell the exact truth. But observe in verse 12 what the religious leaders did with the truth. And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers and said, you are to say his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep. And if this should come to the governor's ears, Pilate, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble. So they created a lie, a deception, and they made a corrupt deal with the Roman guards. And in verse 15 it says the Roman guards accepted the money and they circulated this deception widely among the Jewish people. And yet the irony of the situation is that this isn't a very good lie because let's say all the Roman guards were asleep. How do they know it was his disciples that took the body away and not somebody else? And so let's say that one of them woke up so that they could identify that it was his disciples who were stealing the body. Well, why didn't they sound the alarm and arrest them? And if it really was his disciples who stole the body, and they really did escape with the body, then why did they not press charges later, since it was illegal to rob a tomb? So all these things just show how bad the lie really is, but the amount of money was so great that the Roman guards could not resist the temptation, and they took the risk, and they circulated the lie. And it's been down to our own day as well, not just Matthew's day. Now tonight we come to the Great Commission, and this is recorded in all four Gospels, but there's so much that I don't have time to go through it all. It's also recorded in the book of Acts, but we're just going to look at Matthew. This is probably where it's most famous for anyway, right? In Matthew 28, 16, the New American Standard says, but the 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee. It's not really a contrastive de, translated but, but it should be so. So the 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee. In other words, what the text is saying is this. It's so in the sense of in accordance with previous words that have been spoken. See, Jesus predicted in 26.32 that he would go to the Galilee. And the angel's message in 28.7 was that they should go to the Galilee. And Jesus commanded them to meet him multiple times, as for example, in 28.10. And so in accordance with this prediction, the 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee. And then note is made now, of course, that there's only 11 disciples, right? Because Judas had turned aside, he hung himself, and falling headlong and bursting, he was later buried in the potter's field, which was renamed, after his act of taking blood money, Hakaldoma, which means field of blood. So now there's no longer 12, there's only 11. That'll mean in the book of Acts, he'll have to choose one more. Now, as mentioned earlier, the Galilee is where most of Jesus's ministry took place. Now, the reason is described in detail early in the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus came out to John to be baptized at the Jordan River. And this was in Judea. And John's ministry was mainly in Judea. If you're not familiar with the geography, so Judea had remained since the division of the kingdom. It was the southern portion of the kingdom where the tribe of Judah and Benjamin were, whereas the northern area was really the Galilee, at the earlier times known as Israel, and that's where most of the other 10 tribes had their tribal allotments. So John mainly ministered in Judea, and Jesus went there to be baptized by John. But according to Matthew 4.12, the religious leadership did not like John, they didn't like his message, so they arrested him, right? And when this happened, Jesus knew that they would arrest him too, and so he withdrew into the safer region of the Galilee. And when he went into the Galilee, he set up his ministry base at a place called Capernaum, which is Peter's town. It's on the Northern shores of the Sea of Galilee. And the reason he set up his base there is because all the trade routes passed through that town. So this made a very ideal location for the news of Jesus's ministry to reach into all the surrounding territories, including Gentile territories, which were nearby. And many were coming, Matthew tells us, from all four points of the compass to have their sick healed, the blind given sight, the lame given legs, and so forth and so on. And it was only toward the end of his ministry that he spends his time down in Jerusalem in Judea. And now that he's been crucified and resurrected in Judea, he's now gonna return to the Galilee and meet his disciples there. Besides, they were all from there. Now, more specifically, we're told that they went to the mountain which Jesus had designated. Now, we don't know what mountain it was that Jesus designated. We're not told. Some have proposed it was this mountain that I'm showing you here, which is called Mount Arbel. This area here. It is a fairly interesting land feature. It's on the west side of the Sea of Galilee. And the path to Nazareth actually passes in between these mountains here. So Jesus would have taken that path often. So, maybe they met here, maybe they didn't, I don't know. But in any case, the strange thing is that it sounds like this had been arranged ahead of time. And yet they did not believe ahead of time. In other words, they didn't believe in the death, he would die and rise again, right? So it must have been after he was raised, and they were told to go to the Galilee, that they remembered that, well, he did designate this mountain. And so they proceeded to that mountain. And in verse 17, they arrived, and he was already there. It says, when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some were doubtful. Now, this is another case. We have monotheistic Jews. They're worshipping Jesus as God, and they had no trouble doing that, even though they all believe that God is one, right? So they must have had a concept of oneness of God that involved a plurality of persons within that God. It's strange because this is not really a foreign concept to any human on the earth, that you can have diversity within a oneness. Go buy a cluster of bananas. It's one cluster, but it's still a diversity of bananas. This is not that hard, but all of a sudden when people come to the Bible and they get all religious, they can't think anymore. They don't have any common sense. So, they worship Jesus as God, And note again that Jesus did not prohibit them from worshiping him. He did not say like an angel might say, do not do that. But then it says, some were doubtful. Some were doubtful. Now this Greek word, doubtful, is distazo. And this word can mean like to doubt or to waver. It can also mean to hesitate. Those are a little bit different. Those are the two basic meanings of the word. To doubt or waver, on another hand, it could be to hesitate. And people have disagreed about what exactly this means, because it confused them. Now, here's the first view. I'll show you three views, and then which one I think is best. The first view is that the Eleven were not doubting His resurrection, but they were doubting their future. In other words, they were apprehensive about what was to come next. This was the view of Dr. Pentecost, White Pentecost at Dallas Seminary. And what it presupposes is that the only ones who were at this meeting were the 11 and Jesus, okay? He says, this doubt did not concern the person of Christ. It did not relate to the fact of the resurrection that these men had so long disbelieved, but now had come to believe. The doubt did relate to what was ahead for the disciples. Christ had said that he had chosen them to go and bear fruit, John 15, 16. In his prayer in their hearing, the true Lord's prayer, right, John 17, he had said that he was sending them into the world for the same purpose that the Father had sent him into the world, John 17, 18, namely to make the Father known. He had forewarned them of the dangers they faced and of the reception they would receive. More recently, he had told them not to begin their ministry until the Holy Spirit had been given to them. In order to dispel this doubt, Christ gave a commission to the 11. His stated reason for being able to commission them to go as his witnesses to represent him was because of the authority that the Father had conferred on him. So in this view, what Dr. Pentecost is saying is basically the 11 were very apprehensive about their future ministry, and Jesus is assuring them that he's going to send the Holy Spirit who will fit them or outfit them for their future ministry. Now that's a very interesting idea. A lot of it is of course true, but it doesn't seem to fit this verse. Verse 17 seems to just be simply saying that some worshiped him readily and others hesitated. The second view is that the 11 who worshiped him are the same 11 who also doubted. This requires some playing around with the Greek text. A little bit. This view, again, presupposes, just like Dr. Pentecost's view, that the only people that were at the meeting were the 11 and Jesus. Now, it would be, in order for this to be the proper view, you have to translate the article as a preposition, the one I've underlined here. In other words, when they saw him, they worshiped him, but they were doubtful. So they is always the same group, always the 11. And what it would be saying then is that even though the eleven worshipped him, they were doubtful at the same time. They were mixed in their emotions. But while the article can serve as a preposition at times in the Greek text, Matthew never uses it that way at all. So this is a very doubtful view. It should be translated the way it is in the New American Standard. Some doubted, not they were doubtful. Now, the third view is the only view that thinks that it's quite possible that it's not just the 11 in Jesus, but there's a larger crowd as well. And this is the only view that seems to ultimately make sense. The 11 worshipped him, but there were some among the larger group that hesitated. Dr. Constable expressed that view this way. Evidently, those who doubted were not the 11, but other followers of Jesus. The word doubted, Greek, hēdistēsan, means hesitated. In this view, then, what appearance of Christ is in view? You know that Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, 6, mentions several of the appearances. One of which is when he appeared to more than 500 at the same time. This view thinks that this is probably that time. If that's the case, then the 11 worshipped him, but others hesitated to worship him in that crowd. So they hesitated, and the reason they hesitated was this was the first time they had seen him, and this is their reaction. They'd never seen him as a resurrection body. The 11 had already seen him, right? So they didn't hesitate. But the others had not seen him. They're seeing him for the first time and so they did hesitate. And I don't think that's much of a surprise because when Thomas saw him for the first time, what did he do? He hesitated. But then he worshiped him saying, my Lord and my God. Another instance where Jesus is worshiped as God. You can't get enough of these, my goodness. But apparently lots of cults don't believe that. Now that's the conclusion of the final narrative that began in 26.1, the final narrative. And if there is a discourse that follows this narrative, as Matthew normally has one, we've seen he'll have a narrative followed by a discourse. If there is a discourse, then it's these last three verses. If that's the case, the narrative then, the final narrative is 26.1 to 28.17. 26.1 to 28.17, and the discourse is 28.18 to 20. So it wouldn't be a very long discourse, but it would be a very meaningful discourse, and there's hardly any Christian in the world that probably doesn't know these verses, and certainly not any missions organization that doesn't use this almost as their theme verse. But what they mean is maybe not often known. Take, for example, this wrongheaded approach. Here's Dr. Toussaint, who mentions this approach to the Great Commission. He says, some believe that the Great Commission of Matthew applies to the Jews only. This will be so foreign, you may not even catch it the first time. It's associated with the prophecy of Matthew 24, 14, which teaches that during the tribulation, the gospel of the kingdom will be preached to the whole world. It says, and the disciples are made to represent the Jewish remnant of the tribulation period. While it is true that Matthew 24, 14 does refer to the Tribulation period, there's no need to limit the commission of Matthew 28, 19, 20 to that future time. In other words, they take this to be applicable to the time of the Tribulation and not applicable directly to Jesus' disciples here. They would say that, well, the disciples just are representative of a group like the 144,000. But it doesn't refer to them. And see, that seems like just such a long stretch to me. It makes a lot more sense to say that Jesus is commissioning his disciples for their ministry in the upcoming church age. It doesn't seem that hard. In verse 18, then we find some important words about this commissioning. Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Now, this is something that was not true before the resurrection. Before the resurrection, he had authority on the earth. He cast out demons, he healed people, and so forth and so on. That was an authority that he had and he exercised on earth. And it was a great authority. It was something the world had never seen. But now in his resurrection body, he has even greater authority. Authority not only on earth, but in heaven and on earth. The Baptist Greek scholar A.T. Robertson, a little over 100 years ago, said, He spoke as one already in heaven with a worldwide outlook and with the resources of heaven at his command. His authority or power in his earthly life had been great. He gives some examples. Now it is boundless and includes earth and heaven. Now, what I would say is that from this position, he is a king in waiting. He has not taken the throne. It's like David. when he was anointed king, but Saul was still on the throne. He was a king-in-waiting. So, he is in the position of authority, or has a position of authority in heaven, and he is ready to come to earth, to bring the kingdom of heaven to the earth, and to rule and to reign it. But in the meantime, right now, he's very busy in heaven, because he has a continuing ministry from heaven through his disciples on earth, so that there will be built a body of people who will inherit that kingdom and rule with him. That's us. That's us. And this is really neat, right? Now, having this kind of authority, he is going to exercise this authority from heaven on the day of Pentecost by doing what? By sending who? by sending the Holy Spirit. Now, of course, it is both the Father and the Son who send the Spirit. This is called in church history the filioque clause, which is Latin just for and the Son. Because the Greek Orthodox Church rejected the filioque clause. They said it's not the Father and the Son who sent the Spirit, it's the Father only. But the Western Church, the Roman Church and the Western Church, always held to the filioque that is no it's not the father alone it's father and son and uh john 14 26 jesus stated it this way says but the helper the holy spirit whom the father will send in my name he will teach you all things and bring you uh bring to your remembrance all that i said to you so here you can see that the father sins but he does so in the name of the son so there's some kind of association uh of the son to the sending of the spirit And then in John 15, 26, he said this, when the helper comes whom I will send to you from the father, that is the spirit of truth who proceeds from the father, he will testify about me and you will testify also because you have been with me from the beginning. So here it's very clear the son sends the spirit from the father from whom he proceeds. So we hold to both the father and the son being involved in the sending. But the prerequisite for the son to be involved in the sending of the spirit is he had to be resurrected. He had to get this authority and that authority came after his resurrection. And so Jesus is very careful to state there in verse 18 that this authority was given to him. He received it from somebody else. Well, who is the one who gave him this authority? OK, the father, right? And so On the upcoming day of Pentecost, the father and the son are gonna send the spirit and this is going to equip the disciples so they can remember the things that Jesus taught them and they can carry out this commission to lay the foundation of the church and then build the church upon that foundation. So all these things are getting ready for the church age. And so here he commissions them and the most important part of this whole commission, I think to grasp. is the concept that Jesus's ministry is not about to end. That is the key. His ministry is not about to end, but it's going to continue from heaven. And it's going to continue by means of the spirit whom he sends to indwell his disciples and enable them to carry on his ministry on earth. So Jesus's ministry, we would say, has never stopped since it began with his baptism by John. Up to this very moment, he still has a ministry. The only difference is this. While he was on earth, he was ministering directly. Now that he's in heaven, he's ministering indirectly by means of the spirit through believers on earth. Now, this whole concept that I'm stating here, which is maybe the most important idea for the whole concept of the Church Age, is what really paints the picture of what's going on with our spiritual life, or what's supposed to be going on. We can walk one of two ways, right? You can walk by the Spirit, or you can walk by the flesh. When we walk by the Spirit, what is being produced is the ministry of Christ to the world through us. This is why you'll have a statement like Paul in Galatians 2.20, where he'll say, it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. What does that mean? That means that as Paul lives by faith, Because that's what he says there. The life I live in the flesh, I live by faith. When we live by faith, the life that is produced through us is Christ's life. So that it ministers to the world. It's a continuation of his ministry. And that is the big point of the commission. You know, and lo, I am with you to the end of the age. See? See, it's a continuation of his ministry. All right, let's look at the commission and notice, first of all, the universal emphasis in verses 18, 19, and 20. That word all is used four times, pos in the Greek, all. All authority, verse 18, has been given to me. Verse 19, make disciples of all the nations. Verse 20, teaching them all that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you, technically it says, all the days. It doesn't say always, it says all the days. Okay, all authority, all nations, all I commanded you, all the days I'll be with you. That's the first thing to observe. It's a universal emphasis. It's much larger, much, much, much larger scope than what we've seen before in Matthew. That's the second point, right? The second point. This commission is very different than the one in Matthew 10, 5 through 7, right? That's where Jesus told the disciples. He told the 12, do not go in the way of the Gentiles and do not enter any city of the Samaritans, but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. That was a very narrow commission, right? To the house of Israel only. And the message they were to take to that nation was repent Israel for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The nation of Israel, of course, has to repent. That's a condition for the kingdom to come. Two saints said it this way, this command is in sharp contrast to what the Lord had previously ordered in practice. He's talking about the Great Commission. Matthew, the one. Great contrast with that in Matthew 10, 5-6, and the one in 15-24, the Syrophoenician woman. This can only be explained on the basis of the kingdom offered to Israel. Because of their spiritual condition in the first century, the people of Israel had rejected their king and the kingdom was taken from them. So now at the end of Matthew, we have a new commission being given that's much broader in scope. I mean, everything is opened up. All the nations, all authority, all, you know, teach them all in a committee, so forth and so on. What this means is that there is a dispensational distinction between Israel and the church, and between the concept of the kingdom and the concept of the body of Christ. These are not the same concepts. They don't overlap. So, you've got the dispensation. This gives us justification for reading the Bible dispensationally. You see this is a very different commission. Verse 19, he says, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And the Greek structure is very interesting. This is one imperative, or command, which is make disciples, and three participles, which is going, baptizing, and teaching. If you do an inductive Bible study or something, you know, one's imperative, that's to make disciples, three participles, going, baptizing, teaching. And what the meaning is, is that the three participles are basically telling us how to fulfill the command to make disciples. How do we make disciples? Going, baptizing, teaching, okay? Now, the first one, going, is the most difficult for grammarians. It's an aorist participle. And some have translated this, having gone. And what that means is it's what they call circumstantial, circumstances in life, meaning wherever you happen to be, just sort of your circumstances in life, you know, make disciples. Just sort of like whoever you run into, whoever God puts in your path, you know, that's the idea in lay language, right? Just make disciples, whoever God puts in your way. But that removes what really is in this in this participle, which is an imperatival force It's there is a force of command in this participle Constable said the participle going is not just circumstantial but it has some imperatival force in other words Jesus commanded his disciple to reach out to unreached people To make disciples not just to make disciples among those who with whom they happened to come in contact So it really is translated well in the New American Standard, right? Go. The aorist tense sometimes has what we call a sense of urgency to it. And of course, there's an urgency to making disciples, or there should be. Time really is of the essence because people only have one life to live. And I mean, once you die, you can die at any moment. Once you die, you face the judgment. So the word translated go, which is proserkamai, it means to move towards. It's actually talking about like a physical movement towards people in this context, with the intent that you're moving toward these people to make disciples, to make them a disciple. And this command is not just for the apostles. It's for all believers throughout the church age. And the reason is because Jesus said, Lo, I'm with you till the end of the age. Well, that's long beyond the apostles' lifetime. So we all need to make, of course, a concerted effort to make disciples of people, move toward people with that intent. Now, the liberals are always going to say, well, you don't go into other cultures, you're messing it up, and all of that. We know all that. But really what they're doing is just leaving them in their sins. So who are we going to listen to, God or liberals? Okay, now the phrase, make disciples, that's a go. The phrase, make disciples, is the imperative. And it's definitely a command. It doesn't mean make believers. If Jesus wanted to say that, he would have said that. It includes that. In other words, disciple is a concept that's greater than believer alone. And it presupposes, of course, that people go out and evangelize and people believe the gospel. But it goes further than just the gospel. The word disciple Methetio is this verb, and the noun is methetai. And it means someone who's a pupil, someone who's a learner, someone who's a student. And Jesus is saying, we should make people into students of him. We should make people into students of him. Constable said this, making disciples involves bringing people into relationship with Jesus as pupils to teacher. It involves getting them to take his yoke of instruction upon themselves as authoritative. You know, his word is absolute. 1129, Matthew 1129. Accepting his words as true and submitting to his will as what is right. A good disciple is one who listens, understands, and obeys Jesus's instructions. Disciples of Jesus must duplicate themselves and others. That's the disciple making process. So, making a disciple would really involve, first of all, of course, working with a person to bring them to salvation, and then it would go into the process of them becoming a student of the Word of God. And the goal of that is that they would learn the teachings of Christ, and then also, not just to learn them, but to obey them, And then in the end, that they would also make more disciples like themselves. So they would transmit it. That's the process of making disciples. Now the scope, now we're to the scope. The scope where we are to go is stated to be all nations. In other words, it's not just in Israel, only mission as it was early in the book of Matthew, when he said, go not to the Gentiles or any city of the Samaritans, only the lost. It's beyond that now. It's universal in scope. And the nations here, ethne, is going to refer not just to Gentile nations, but all nations, including Israel. And in fact, that's the way it begins in the book of Acts, right? because it begins in Jerusalem and Judea, which is all, we say, Jewish, and then it moves out to Samaria, and then it goes to Gentiles, and ever since to the remotest parts of the earth. That's the whole outline of the book of Acts, right? So, the reason is because the church is going to incorporate Jew and Gentile into it, all nations. So, the first thing, then, He is saying the commission is to go toward people of all nations, to make them into disciples. The second participle, baptizing them now, we come to that. And this is a present participle. The other was an heiress. This is a present participle. It doesn't have an imperative force, but it is part of, as we'll see, what makes one a disciple. Not a believer, a disciple. Now this word baptism, from baptizo, baptize, there's three different root words, but they all come from the same basic root, or three words but one root. It refers to a process of dipping something so as to change the essential identity of it. I usually use the example that's simple to see, because Lydia was a dyer of purple claws, and that's what she did, right? So she would take cloth, and she would dip it into this purple dye so that it changed the essential identity of that cloth so it's no longer, say, a white cloth. It's a purple cloth. I mean, it's totally different, see? And the word really means nothing more than that. It's this change in identity that takes place. Now, the kind of baptism that's in view here is, of course, a wet baptism. The reason we know it's a wet baptism is because it's performed by men, right? And you also have dry baptisms in the Bible, and all the dry baptisms are really performed by God. So there are some differences between wet and dry baptism. We won't go into all of them, but simply put, dry baptisms are performed by God, and they are real, meaning they accomplish something spiritually. Wet baptisms are performed by men, and they're ritual only. So they don't accomplish anything spiritual. Now, don't take that like some people do and say, that means they're not important. That's what most people do at this point. Baptism is not important because it's a ritual. It doesn't accomplish anything spiritually. That's not what the text says. They do, they're still important. Now we'd say in the New Testament, there's three wet baptisms. Okay, who are they? What are they? What are the three places that men are baptizing others? John, John's baptism. Who else? Jesus' baptism. And this one, let's call it believer's baptism. Okay, here they are. So the first is John's baptism. John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. Those who were baptized by John, were separating themselves from Pharisaism and they were identifying with John's message that the kingdom was in fact near. They were also pledging to put their faith in the Messiah when he was pointed out. So the baptism here, is this the baptism of John in the Great Commission? Is it the same as the baptism of John? No. We're not getting baptized when we get baptized for the same reason that people John was baptizing were getting baptized. We're getting baptized for a different reason. The second is the baptism of Jesus, which is the most difficult of the baptisms. Jesus was baptized by John, right? But his baptism, of course, was not a baptism of repentance, was it? He didn't have anything to repent of. He wasn't a Pharisee. Instead, it was to fulfill all righteousness, we're told. So it's for righteousness sake. And it identified him with John's message that indeed the kingdom was near. So is the baptism that we Practice in the church age. Is it the same as Jesus's baptism? No, we're not getting baptized because Jesus got baptized. We're not getting baptized to be like Jesus. We're getting baptized for different reasons Now the third baptism is believers baptism and This baptism is where we are a picture of our identification with Christ so When a believer undergoes baptism, what they're doing is they're proclaiming that they're separated from Adam, who they were born in, and now they're identified with Christ, who they're reborn in, right? The reality, not the ritual, but the reality of this change in identification happens at the moment of faith in Christ when the Spirit baptizes that individual. That's a dry baptism. The Spirit baptism is a dry one. It really does something. And the water baptism's just a ritual picture of what the spirit baptism does. So what the spirit does when we believe in Christ is he crucified our old man in Adam, and that old man was buried in a tomb, and then we were raised to live a new man, live a new life in Christ. So, the core concept of baptism is dipping that changes the essential identity of something, And our water baptism is a ritual that proclaims the reality of the spirit baptism that happens at the moment of faith. So the first thing that the baptism that is discussed here in Matthew 28, 19 will do is it proclaims that at the moment of faith in Christ, our identity was changed from being an Adam to being in Christ. And this is done by the spirit of God. He baptizes us into Christ. He buries us in his death, he buries us with Christ, and he raises us to live a new life. And then the second thing that baptism does, functioning here as a participle, is it proclaims that we are being introduced now into discipleship. Not into salvation, right? Into discipleship. Since a disciple is a student, The believer who's being baptized is now saying, I'm a student of Christ. I'm going to study the word, I'm going to know the word, learn the word, and I'm going to live the word. Now, so I like to think of the concept of this introduction into discipleship as an introduction into, say, a university or a school of some sort, where you're going to learn a certain curriculum. So before you can go to those classes and be considered a student, you have to register, right? In the same way, before you can be a disciple, you have to be baptized. That's basically what it's saying. So baptism here relates to discipleship, not salvation, but it is also a picture of what happened at salvation. It does both at the same time. Now, what's so interesting when you go to the Book of Acts is that every believer in the Book of Acts gets baptized. I think That is because they had a much better understanding already of what baptism was. They knew that baptism had to do with one's identity or association with a group. It didn't save you spiritually. That confusion of baptism with salvation came later in church history, mainly with Augustine. Saint Augustine was trying to solve the problem of infant salvation because he believed that an infant is born with original sin. So what he held to was that water baptism of an infant or infant baptism will remove original sin or what's called in Roman Catholicism concupiscence. and will free the will of man to cooperate with God in the process of salvation as it is administered through the sacraments." That is an idea that is foreign to the scriptures, okay? But he was trying to explain how infants could be saved. He implored parents to have their infants baptized. to keep them from going to hell. And that's how it got lodged in the Christian church, or Christendom, maybe. So I don't think when a person becomes a believer today, that you just need to march out and baptize them, because there's so much confusion. I don't know where they're coming. And I've heard lots of stuff when I do have people who want to get baptized. It needs to be explained, and I certainly don't think infants need to get baptized. I think that the infant salvation problem is solved another way, and that's through the unlimited provision of Christ's atonement, that He died for each and every human being. And because that infant cannot meet the requirement of faith, then, by the grace of God, He rescues all infants. Okay, now another thing I want to point out about water baptism is that there is one verse that will give you trouble if you haven't sorted it out. And it's the Church of Christ people who will hammer you with this one, and that's Acts 2.38. This is their, you know, theme verse. This verse does teach that there is a kind of salvation for the Jewish people that is based on water baptism. Okay. This is why you really have to know the Bible. Okay. The kind of salvation though it's talking about is physical salvation from the destruction of Jerusalem in 8070. That's the salvation it's talking about. Remember, if you have followed the Bible up to this point, and you understand what's happening, the nation Israel committed the unpardonable sin, not an individual. That is not a sin that could be committed by an individual. The unpardonable sin is a national generational sin committed by one nation on earth, Israel. And it was the vile rejection of Jesus as the Messiah saying that the miracles that he had done were done by Satan who indwelled Jesus personally and not by the Holy Spirit. That is what is called the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit or the unpardonable sin. And because of that, that generation of Israel was going to judgment a judgment which fell upon them in AD 70 with the destruction of their city and their temple, the heart of all Jewish life, and caused them to go into dispersion." The way to be saved from that, Peter is saying in Acts 2.38, is to be baptized, water baptized, okay? So, hold it, let's... Acts 2.38, and I'll read a little bit from 40. Repent, note plural, It's a plural, it's addressed to the nation, not individuals. And each of you be baptized, that's singular, in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, that's plural, a national forgiveness. you as a nation plural will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and Then he goes on in verse 40 and he says he kept saying be saved from this perverse generation See be saved away from this perverse generation of who of Israel Why do you need to be saved away from that perverse generation? so you are not caught up in the destruction of 8070 and and destroyed, which over a million Jews lost their life, by the way. Over a million in 1870. I mean, can you think of the world's population? It was much less back then. A million people killed in a conflict is massive. That's more than the Civil War. And it's just Jews. So this was a massive destruction. So when you look at this, if you look at the grammar, you see there in verse 38, the call to repent, that's a national call. They're to repent of their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, to have a change of mind about that. And that's the condition for the kingdom to come, right? All Israel must repent for Jesus to return and bring the kingdom. And then the call to be baptized there, you see it's individual, it's singular. Let each of you be baptized." Individually, see, Jews who believed, of course, were to be baptized in order to separate themselves from that generation of Israel that was going to go to destruction. And then again, the forgiveness of sins here in verse 38 is a national forgiveness that will result that the whole nation repents. God will forgive the whole nation. And then God will give the whole nation the Holy Spirit. This verse may be confusing to people or the Church of Christ or something, but there's only one sense in which you have to be baptized to be saved, and that was for the people who were Jewish in the first century living before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. They needed to be saved physically from that defeat. And the way they would do that was to sever their identification with the Jewish Pharisaism and identify with Jesus as the Messiah. That would do it. In fact, three church historians report that while over a million Jews were killed in that destruction, not one believer was. Not one Messianic Jew was. And Luke 24 tells us why. Or is it Luke 21? Excuse me. Luke 21. Because when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, it says, get the hell out of Dodge. That's the literal translation. And they saw that, and they did. And there's a lot of details about what happened to the Roman army and their backing up to Caesarea to get more logistics and so forth, allowing them time to escape. But they crossed the Jordan and went up to Pella, one of the cities of Decapolis. It's an amazing story. So, there's no such thing as water baptism to save people spiritually, okay? Paul said this very clearly in 1 Corinthians 1.17, didn't he? Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel." Well, if he was sent to preach the gospel, and baptism is a part of the gospel, then he should have baptized everybody, right? But that's not why he was sent. So, it's not a part of the gospel. And he didn't baptize many people. And the reason he didn't, he says, is because he didn't want people saying, you know, I'm a Paul. He didn't want people to make an idol out of him. And that, of course, would be a very real danger for an apostle. Okay, so to recap what is being said there in Matthew 28, 20 baptizing, that means men water baptized believers so that they make a public proclamation of the dry spirit baptism that took place at the moment of faith and also to be inducted or registered into a new school of training in the curriculum of Christ, okay? But this is not salvation. Now, notice it says in verse 19, baptizing them in what? In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Now, the Greek Orthodox Church and I myself would say, will say this as I baptize somebody, but this is not a baptismal formula, of course. You don't have to say this now. But if you study the baptisms, everybody who's baptized in the book of Acts, They never say this. Do you know that? And they never say this once. In Acts 2.38, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. In Acts 8.16, they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Acts 10.48, he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Acts 19.5, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And of course, Romans 6.3, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? It doesn't say we're baptized into the Father. It doesn't say we're baptized into the Spirit. It says we're baptized into Christ. So evidently, Jesus did not mean this to be a baptismal formula, though it's usually just stated this way. So what did he mean? Where it says in, that preposition, which is ace, it means into, that is, signifying coming into a relationship with God as a disciple. He meant to connect those who wanted to be disciples with the triune God of the Bible in a master-student relationship. So it's therefore fully legitimate if you go and baptize people or whatever, you baptize them in the name of Jesus alone. Because he is the way that one comes into a relationship with the Triune God in the sense of a master-disciple relationship. It's not a salvation relationship. It's a master-student relationship. It's within the context of somebody who's already saved. Now also note the name is singular. We wouldn't want to miss this, right? And then three persons plural are mentioned. The name of, not names, name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So one name for three persons. Again, what does this all point to? Okay, the Trinity, that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all in the same plane. I mean, they're all equally God. They all have one name. Okay, so it's the Trinity. Okay, so far then you make disciples doing two things, moving out toward people of all nations and then introducing them by water baptism that brings them into a master-student connection with God. We move on to verse 20 where we find the third element, it's the last. Going is first, baptizing is second, teaching is third. Teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. But the question is, well, what is all that I command you? What's he talking about? Is he talking about everything in the Gospel of Matthew? Is he talking about everything he ever taught? If we go that way, guess what? We're going to find contradiction really quick. Because Matthew 10, Jesus said, do not go to the Gentiles, do not go to the Samaritans, go only to the house of Israel. And now he's saying, go to all nations. Well, you can't get those two things together. You just can't do it. So obviously that's not what he means, okay? Now, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, that word commanded is entelo. And entelo means like instruction, okay, instruction. It's not referring to like commandments per se. It's more like instruction, a body or curriculum of knowledge. Teach them to observe certain instruction or body of knowledge, okay. What we are to teach disciples to observe are chiefly the things that are found in Matthew 13 through 28. Matthew 13 through 28. The things that are before that are written to the nation Israel when they're under the dispensation of the Mosaic law, right? What comes after that in Matthew 13 and following are the preparatory truths for the church age. He's preparing them for the church age. So there are truths in there that we want to definitely teach, okay? So, again, there's merit in seeing that the proper way to read Scripture is dispensationally. This is why people think, well, the Bible's got contradictions. It says to do this over here, and then over here it says to do this, like the commissions. Well, you're not reading the Bible as the Bible's to be read. You're reading a comic book like it's a constitution or something. That's ridiculous, of course. Things are to be read a certain way. Okay, so take something like the Sermon on the Mount. That is Jesus's interpretation of the Mosaic law. Question, are we under the Mosaic law? No. So is the Sermon on the Mount directly, first of all, is it directly applicable to us? No, not at all. It's not even primarily applicable to us. It has secondary application to us In other words, we can find the principles, the principles of not hating people in our hearts. That's a principle that comes out of there. And that's fine for us, but we're not under the Mosaic law. So what did John say? He said, law came through Moses, grace and truth through Jesus Christ. I mean, that is dispensationalism 101. It doesn't mean that there are no standards for us in the church age. What it means is that the means of meeting those standards are grace. Grace. We have something available to us that the Old Testament saint did not have available to us. It's a new way to live. Now, the final note then in verse 20 is really meant to comfort them. To assure them, you know, I'm not going to leave you an orphan. You've heard that. And lo, I'm with you always, or better, I'm with you all the days, even to the end of the age, Whether he means the end of the church age or the second coming, I could go into that a little bit, but I don't think it really matters. He's going to be with us in that sense all the way through. Us to the rapture and those who are left behind and come believers afterwards until the second coming. It doesn't really matter. So in summary, the big point there, of course, though, is that he's going to continue to minister through those who are his on earth. In summary then, in verse 16, in accordance with the previous words of meeting in the Galilee, the 11 disciples went to the Galilee, to some particular mountain which Jesus had designated, most likely along with many other brethren, perhaps up to the 500, who had not yet seen him, but wanted to. In verse 17, when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some who had not yet seen him hesitated. In verse 18, Jesus spoke to them all saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. That's a very high and exalted view of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the king in waiting. In verse 19, he gives his commission for the coming church age. And at the heart of it is the command to make disciples of all the nations. This means to bring students into a relationship with the Triune God, or bring believers into a relationship with the Triune God as a master-student relationship. This is done by us going toward people intentionally, baptizing believers and teaching them to observe the body of instruction he has delivered to us. And though they shouldn't be worried, because He's with us all the days, every day, each day, even to the end of the age. Okay, a few things we can learn. First of all, the Great Commission is the marching order for disciples in the church age. We are to become disciples so that we can duplicate ourselves into others and make more disciples. So I would encourage you to do this in any way that you're gifted and in any venue that you can. And to not do that is, of course, not to invest your life the way God wants you to. The second thing is that the strategy is now to go out. This began at Jerusalem and went to Samaria and then to the Gentiles, but it continues to go out today to the uttermost ends of the earth, to all sorts of peoples of all different cultures and languages. Jesus died for them all. And third, being a disciple is more than being a believer or even more than being a learner. It's also being an observer or a doer. So we're not being very good disciples if we, you know, don't know the body of instruction he wants us to know. And we're not being very good disciples if we know it, but we don't do it. And fourth, baptism is important, not as a means of salvation, but a means of two things, proclaiming our salvation and being introduced to discipleship. All right, so let's go and let's do it, right? As always. All right, let's close with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to look at this commission, the marching orders for the church age, for each of us, and help us to be more effective and more intentional in all of our ways, in all of our thoughts, in all of our relationships. Help us to learn to love you with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. And we thank you that you're building the church, that you'll never leave us, you'll never forsake us, that you're always with us. And we give you all the praise and glory in Christ's name. Amen.