SCRIPTURE
Matthew 28:18-20
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
OBSERVATIONS
Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth.
Jesus commands us to go and make disciples.
Jesus promises to be with us.
When we study God’s Word, it should lead us to both rejoicing and repenting.
- What stands out to you from the text?
- What questions or comments do you have about it?
- In what ways did you find yourself encouraged and/or rejoicing when you heard the message?
- In what ways were you challenged to repent or change when you heard the message?
- How did the teacher connect this passage to Christ? What other connections do you see between this message and the redemptive work of Christ?
CONCLUSION
- What is one thing that you want to remember from this sermon?
- Why is that important to you?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” “Authority” means the right and power to do something. So Jesus means that he has absolute right and all power to do as he pleases in heaven and on earth. There is no authority in heaven which can call the will of Jesus into question, and there is no authority on earth that can call the will of Jesus into question. And no power on earth or in heaven can frustrate his will when he exerts all his power to achieve it. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
Without this declaration of Jesus’ authority, we could never venture confidently to make disciples. On what possible basis do we have any right to tell anybody they should change their whole way of thinking and acting and become a disciple of Jesus Christ? Only one thing could justify such outlandish proselytizing all over the world—that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and has been given an absolute authority over natural and supernatural forces so that every human and every angelic being will give an account to him. If Jesus has that kind of authority, then we Christians not only have the right but are bound by love to tell other people to change and become his disciples. Piper, J. (2007). Sermons from John Piper (1980–1989). Minneapolis, MN: Desiring God.“Go and make disciples.”
The most important word I think Jesus ever said about becoming a disciple was Luke 14:27, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” Bearing a cross does not mean primarily having hard times. It means going to Golgotha. It means dying with Christ—dying to the old attitudes of envy and strife and jealousy and anger and selfishness and pride; and turning to follow Jesus in newness of life. When we make disciples, we bid people to come and die to their old, destructive ways and to live for Jesus, who loved them and gave himself for them. Piper, J. (2007). Sermons from John Piper (1980–1989). Minneapolis, MN: Desiring God.
The new life of a disciple is a life of obedience to Jesus’ commandments, or it is not a new life at all. It is worthless to acknowledge the lordship of Christ in baptism and then ignore his commandments. So all disciple-makers must be teachers, and disciples must be continual learners. Piper, J. (2007). Sermons from John Piper (1980–1989). Minneapolis, MN: Desiring God.
“All” dominates vv. 18–20 and ties these verses together: all authority, all nations, all things (“everything,” NIV), all the days (“always,” NIV). Carson, D. A. (1984). Matthew. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke (Vol. 8, p. 594). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
In the Greek, “go”—like “baptizing” and “teaching”—is a participle. Only the verb “make disciples” (see below) is imperative. Carson, D. A. (1984). Matthew. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke (Vol. 8, p. 595). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
The main emphasis, then, is on the command to “make disciples,” which in Greek is one word, mathēteusate, normally an intransitive verb, here used transitively (a not uncommon Hellenization; cf. BDF, par. 148 [3]; Zerwick, par. 66; see on 13:52; 27:57). “To disciple a person to Christ is to bring him into the relation of pupil to teacher, ‘taking his yoke’ of authoritative instruction (11:29), accepting what he says as true because he says it, and submitting to his requirements as right because he makes them” (Broadus). Disciples are those who hear, understand, and obey Jesus’ teaching (12:46–50). The injunction is given at least to the Eleven, but to the Eleven in their own role as disciples (28:16). Therefore they are paradigms for all disciples. Plausibly the command is given to a larger gathering of disciples (see on vv. 10, 16–17). Either way it is binding on all Jesus’ disciples to make others what they themselves are—disciples of Jesus Christ. Carson, D. A. (1984). Matthew. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke (Vol. 8, pp. 595–596). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
The syntax of the Greek participles for “baptizing” and “teaching” forbids the conclusion that baptizing and teaching are to be construed solely as the means of making disciples (cf. also Allen, Klostermann, Lagrange, Schlatter), but their precise relationship to the main verb is not easy to delineate. Neither participle is bound to the other or to the main verb with the conjunction kai or a particle, and therefore “they must be viewed as dependent on one another or depending in differing ways on the chief verb” Carson, D. A. (1984). Matthew. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke (Vol. 8, p. 597). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
Similarly baptizing and teaching are not the means of making disciples, but they characterize it. Carson, D. A. (1984). Matthew. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke (Vol. 8, p. 597). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
The NT can scarcely conceive of a disciple who is not baptized or is not instructed. Indeed, the force of this command is to make Jesus’ disciples responsible for making disciples of others, a task characterized by baptism and instruction. Carson, D. A. (1984). Matthew. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke (Vol. 8, p. 597). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
The term “formula” is tripping us up. There is no evidence we have Jesus’ ipsissima verba here and still less that the church regarded Jesus’ command as a baptismal formula, a liturgical form the ignoring of which was a breach of canon law. The problem has too often been cast in anachronistic terms. E. Riggenbach (Der Trinitarische Taufbefehl Matt. 28:19 [Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1901]) points out that as late as the Didache, baptism in the name of Jesus and baptism in the name of the Trinity coexist side by side: the church was not bound by precise “formulas” and felt no embarrassment at a multiplicity of them, precisely because Jesus’ instruction, which may not have been in these precise words, was not regarded as a binding formula. Carson, D. A. (1984). Matthew. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke (Vol. 8, p. 598). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
Those who are discipled must not only be baptized but also taught. The content of this instruction (see on 3:1 for comments concerning kerygma [“preaching”] and didache [“teaching”]) is everything Jesus commanded the first disciples. Five things stand out.1. The focus is on Jesus’ commands, not OT law. Jesus’ words, like the words of Scripture, are more enduring than heaven and earth (24:35); and the peculiar expression “everything I have commanded you” is, as Trilling (p. 37) has pointed out, reminiscent of the authority of Yahweh (Exod 29:35; Deut 1:3, 41; 7:11; 12:11, 14). This confirms our exegesis of Mt 5:17–20. The revelation of Jesus Messiah at this late stage in salvation history brings the fulfillment of everything to which the OT Scriptures pointed and constitutes their valid continuity; but this means that the focus is necessarily on Jesus.2. Remarkably, Jesus does not foresee a time when any part of his teaching will be rightly judged needless, outmoded, superseded, or untrue: everything he has commanded must be passed on “to the very end of the age.”3. What the disciples teach is not mere dogma steeped in abstract theorizing but content to be obeyed.4. It then follows that by carefully passing on everything Jesus taught, the first disciples—themselves eyewitnesses—call into being new generations of “ear-witnesses” (O’Brien, pp. 264f.). These in turn pass on the truth they received. So a means is provided for successive generations to remain in contact with Jesus’ teachings (cf. 2 Tim 2:2).5. Christianity must spread by an internal necessity or it has already decayed; for one of Jesus’ commands is to teach all he commands. Failure to disciple, baptize and teach the peoples of the world is already itself one of the failures of our own discipleship.
Carson, D. A. (1984). Matthew. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke (Vol. 8, pp. 598–599). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.
Question: What changes do you need to make to better prioritize the mission of Jesus?
Because it’s so easy to be about what’s comfortable or easy.
- We’re frenetic – look at your calendar more
- We’re forgetful – look at condemnation more
- We’re fearful – look at Christ more