The Great Commission: Disciples, Matthew 28:18-20

We are continuing our study today on these last few verses in Matthew, commonly referred to as the great commission. This isn't the only place that Jesus articulated the future mission and ministry for the disciples. He actually does it at the end of the time in the upper room after the Lord's Table in what is referred to as the upper room discourse from John 14 through 16, and even including the high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. That's before He goes to the cross. After He goes to the cross, the first time he met with the disciples He said that He was sending them. In Matthew and Mark and Luke there are also developments of His statement of their mission, as well as in the opening chapter of Acts. So all of these together are part of and express different facets of the mission of the apostles in the church age, and we must understand that the great commission itself must be interpreted within the framework of this new thing that begins with the church age. It is foundational to understanding the great the great commission.

Today will look a little bit more at the mandate here to make disciples and understanding what that means, and then the concept of baptism.

Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 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 lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

As we look at the great commission, we see this statement we evaluated last week: "All authority has been given to me on heaven and on earth". Then He says, "Go therefore"—literally, while you are going, as you are proceeding in life—"make disciples of all nations …" And then the first way in which this is done, an instrumental participle, "by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, by teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you". And then the concluding statement: "I am with you always, even to the end of the age".

Now we looked at the context last time. This takes place in Galilee. The disciples finally believed Jesus; they went up to Galilee. They first encountered Him there on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (seven of them did), but this is subsequent to that when He is meeting with the 11 now in Galilee, and when they saw Him they worshiped Him and some doubted.

Everybody, almost to a man, still thinks the doubting here may have something to do with doubting the resurrection. I contend that we have to understand this contextually. We understand contextually because the statement about doubting is sandwiched between the term worshiping Him in verse 17 and His statement subsequent to their worshiping Him, "all authority is given to me". Here it's about authority, EXOUSIA, and it means the right or authority. In what area has this authority been given to Jesus? This is fundamental to understand. And worship itself, the word PROSKUNEO, which means to bow down, coming from the root idea of throwing a kiss toward someone in authority, is an act of a homage, an act of submission, an act of obedience, and so you have an authority-nuanced word "worship" in between doubted, and then Jesus says, "all authority".

We must understand doubt, within this context, that they are not sure what's next. They know that He's resurrected, but what is next on the agenda? We know that they are slow to pick up on the teaching and Jesus that teaches them. Even as He is about to ascend they're still saying, "Is it now that you're going to restore the kingdom?" It takes them a while to put the pieces together, and I don't think they do until the Holy Spirit comes on the day of Pentecost. The doubting here, I think, relates to where are we going? Everybody's against us, are we still marked criminals? Will the Pharisees kill us? How can we go forward from here? What do we do? That's the context here.

And so Jesus tells them that this authority has been given to Him. And again, as I read and read more this week, I saw that many dispensationalists all connected this to Daniel chapter seven. But why Daniel 7:14 is so important is this handing of the kingdom to the one who comes before the throne before the Ancient of Days the Son of Man, occurs at the end of the Tribulation. I didn't read anybody yet who identifies that specifically. And that is so important because the authority here is not kingdom authority, because Jesus isn't a King. He's ascended into heaven; He sits at the right hand of the Father (Revelation 3:21); He is not the king yet. Like David in the wilderness He has been anointed, but is not in throne. He is on that holding ground. He's like the crown prince waiting for the opportunity to be given the kingdom and to take the kingdom. That doesn't occur until the Son of Man goes to the Ancient of Days and receives the kingdom. That is described by the seventh seal document in Revelation chapter 5 when that is given to the Lamb before the throne. That is when He has the kingdom credentials. That's when He is given the right to take back the earth from the prince of the power the air.

What we have here is really the authority that is stated in Ephesians, that God gave Him to be head over all things to the church, that He is the head of the church, Ephesians 1:22; 4:15; 5:23. Christ is the head of the church. The authority understood here must be understood in terms of the mission that God has given the apostles. There is something new. They are not part of the Old Testament framework; they are part of something totally new. They're going to be the apostles; they will be a foundation for the church. Ephesians chapter 2:20, the prophets and apostles, and that's talking about New Testament prophets, New Testament apostles being the foundation of the church. They are not a continuation of the Old Testament plan for Israel. And so there's a new mission now.

If you go back and read in the Old Testament, Israel was supposed to be a model nation and whenever the nations would come to Israel they would look at Israel. When the caravans would come through they would go back to their homes and talk about this incredible nation that was been blessed by God. The witness of Israel in the Old Testament was that people would come to them and then they would go home talking about how God had blessed this one people.

In the church age we are sent out. We are to go throughout the world and take the gospel to everyone. That's the significance of Jesus' statement in John 20: that "I send you". He does send us. That's not the point of the "go" here because it's not a command. The "go" is while you're going. He is referencing "I've already commanded sent you". Now they are told, "I'm sending you, now while you're going this is what you do. In John 20 He said He was sending them but He didn't tell them what they were going to do, until John 21 when He has the conversation with Peter about feeding the sheep. So the authority here is from Christ. He is establishing that.

The four key terms that must be understood here are "go"; "make disciples", the command that controls everything in these two verses; and the two words "baptizing" and "teaching." The "ing" ending in English tells you that it's a participle; it's not a finite verb. And when you look at the Greek grammar it's really important because you have to identify the kind of an adverbial participle it is, and if they are explaining how the command is to be fulfilled—how you are to do it. How do we make disciples? You do it by baptizing and you do it by teaching.

The first word that use is also participle and it's at the beginning of the sentence, the word POREUOMAI, which means to go, to proceed, to go on a journey, to walk; all of these are part of it. But as a participle and also relates to the main verb, so it is describing the context of making disciples. That's when you are going, when you are proceeding in life, while you are going. It will pick up something of an imperatival sense from the context, but the dominant idea is more of the temporal sense.

Then we get to the main command, which is the verb MATHETEUO, an aorist active imperative.

Grammar just blows people away, but it's important. Why didn't Jesus use a present imperative? Present imperatives would emphasize something that is a continual modus operandi, your standard operating procedure. But it's an aorist. That doesn't mean the idea that this shouldn't be a standard operating procedure is negated. What the aorist imperative does is bring out the priority of this. This is really important; this is a priority; this is the priority; this is your main mission. This is why as you go about your life this is to dominate how you serve Me, and it relates to everyone. The problem that we have today is that the idea of the becoming a disciple, or the catchphrase that has been an important for probably the last 50 years or so, probably 75 years, is the idea of discipleship. This grew out of some writings that occurred back in the 19th century, one of which was by AD Bruce who wrote a book called The training of the Twelve. While he comes out of the 19th century, what happens is there's this study that this is how Jesus did it; He didn't do it by building a church; He did it by picking a small group and working with that small group.

Out of that came many different organizations, usually targeting young people in large campus ministries. The Navigators was one, Campus Crusade for Christ was another, Campus Life was another, Young Life was another. All of these tended to focus on this small group dynamic, that this is how Jesus did it. He picked a small group and worked through that small group.

The question that should be asked is, is that what Paul did? Is that what Peter did? Is that what John did? We don't know what the other disciples did because they didn't leave anything in any writings in the epistles, but is that what they did? I'm not saying that there is something wrong with that. We all as pastors and Bible teachers have a smaller circle of people that we will mentor more, and we can't deny the fact that there is something that is more efficient in working with a smaller group of people. But is this a hard and fast methodology that has been handed down in the church? Does the New Testament by the mention of discipleship mean what Campus Crusade means, what Navigators means? Today this thing has segued and transitioned into something called spiritual formation groups. That's another horrible buzzword and you find them in every seminary now. The root of spiritual formation groups is really in a lot of Roman Catholic mysticism and they will often emphasize the importance of reading the medieval mystics. What are Protestants doing reading and going to medieval Catholic mystics to find biblical truth? And yet this is become very popular in the last 30 years, and it's a danger because the focus goes internal instead of onto the Word of God. Mysticism is very much antithetical to a biblical view of spirituality.

We have to recognize that a lot of things that we may think about in terms of discipleship are contemporary expressions of this, but that's not part of the core meaning, or even the secondary meaning of this particular word.

The verb is MATHETEUO and it's not used a lot outside of the Gospels. I am going to break down here not only the verb MATHETEUO, but also the noun MATHETES, which is the word for a disciple. The noun is used other than a reference to just the twelve. It's used one time in Matthew and one time in Luke. This is this is a reference to general disciples.

There is a big discussion today that has been going on for quite a while is, is a term disciple equivalent to a believer? In other words, is every believer a disciple? And if you are a disciple does that mean you're a believer? The Bible recognizes there are many believers in Jesus Christ who are justified, saved, and will spend eternity in heaven, but they aren't disciples. They never become disciples. They are just glad to be born again, but they do not take up the challenge to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. When they die they are no more mature, they know no more about the Bible than they did the day after they were saved. They're just not that interested in growing; they are distracted by the cares of the world.

What we find in the Scripture is that the term MATHETES for disciple describes not only the twelve. That's the dominant use in the Gospels and in Acts but it's never used in the epistles. That's interesting because what you will get if you listen to a lot of contemporary Bible teachers is that Matthew 28 19, 20 is your catch-all phrase, your key defining purpose for the church. It's to make disciples. Paul never uses the noun or the verb; Peter never uses the noun or the verb; John never uses the noun of the verb. So what's going on? Jesus seems to make a big deal about it but only Matthew makes a big deal about in terms of the verb. He's the only one who uses the verb, and in relation what Christ teaches. I think that's an important observation that is ignored by most people. So it's not that technical of a term, that's all I'm saying.

What we learn from it is that as the noun it refers to those who are students, those who are followers or pupils or learners; they are followers of the teacher. That's how it's basically used when we look at it as used in the ancient world.

It's used to describe believers other than the twelve. For example, you have the two on the road to Emmaus in Luke. They're not part of the twelve, but they are disciples. Matthew talks about believers other than the twelve by referring to them as disciples one time, and Luke one time—the two on the road to Emmaus. That's it. They are used to refer to the students, the followers of John the Baptist four times in Matthew, two times in Mark, two times in Luke, two times in John. Jesus teaches about a disciple, a disciple something-or-other, and talks about some characteristic of a disciple as a follower of his teacher. He does that three times in Matthew, one time in Luke, not all in Mark, and three times in John. These are just general principles about a disciple.

We have the students of the Pharisees mentioned by Matthew one time. Joseph of Arimathea is identified as a disciple in Matthew one time, in John two times. The verb is used three times in Matthew alone. Mark never uses the verb, Luke doesn't use the verb, and John doesn't use the verb. It refers to the twelve in Matthew 66 times, Mark 44 times, Luke in 33 times, and John 71 times. In Acts it's different. One time it refers to the twelve; all of the other uses in Acts are references to just general believers. There you might get the idea that it is a term that is synonymous with being a believer, but you won't get that from the Gospels. What we see is that people who were in the early church weren't the kind that just said, okay, I believe in Jesus, I'm glad I'm saved; that's it. They seem to be oriented to being students of the Word.

When it comes to a disciple we have a problem today: those who understand disciple to be a synonym for a believer. You run into this most specifically from the Lordship salvation crowd. It dominates today, and one of the most vocal spokesmen for this is John MacArthur. John MacArthur has had a tremendous ministry. I believe many people are saying they used to listen to MacArthur all the time on the radio back in the 70s and early 80s, and that's about the time that his Lordship salvation began to be so visible.

For those who don't know, Lordship salvation is in part the idea that salvation is not just belief in Christ, you have to accept Jesus full authority at that time. In other words, His Lordship or you aren't saved. Another aspect is they think that there's a difference between true belief and false belief; that you can have a true belief in Jesus as your Savior, believe He died on the cross for your sins, and if it's true, it will necessarily be evidenced by good fruit—which makes everybody fruit inspectors. They will also teach that there are those who can believe Jesus died for their sins, but it's a false faith. You know that? They will say it's a false faith, because if it's not evidenced by good works then you didn't really believe. Everybody falls prey to that at some point or another. You look at somebody, talk about some world hero, talk about some mass murderer, and you hear that they had made conversion at some point, had a clear understanding belief in the gospel—like Karl Marx. When he was a teenager about 15—his father who was Jewish converted to Christianity—Karl Marx wrote when in high school a paper on justification that nailed it. He really clearly understood it.

But some one says: Yeah, but if you look at the rest of his life he didn't have real faith. Now you believe that, you don't believe in grace. The key is that there is a difference between justification and sanctification. Justification is, "I believe Jesus died for my sins and I'm saved"; sanctification is what I do after that. And after that a lot of people are just like the parable of the tares. They are just choked out and they never grow.

This is what MacArthur says. That's a brief overview of Lordship, and this is comes to focus in his definition and understanding of a disciple. He says a disciple refers to believing and learning. That's the idea, believing and learning. Where does he get the idea of believing in that? We have to ask that question. He has imported that to the definition and you won't find a Greek dictionary, you won't find anything in a word study of that word that even comes close to indicating that belief is part of learning. He imports that.

He says it refers to believing in learning. "Jesus is not referring simply to believers, or simply to learners or He would have used other words. MATHETEUO carries a beautiful combination of meanings". Let me stop there. He did use other words. He used other words, in Mark and Luke and John, Paul used other words in his epistles, and Peter in his epistles, and John in his epistles.

MacArthur has made a fundamental logical flaw here by making this word the end-all, be-all, catch-all of defining what a Christian is. "METHETEUO", tool he goes on to say, carries a beautiful combination of meanings. In this context it relates to those who place their trust in Jesus Christ and follow Him in lives of continual learning and obedience". That is what a disciple is, but he's going say that's true of every believer. That's where he has a fallacy.

He goes on to say, "If you abide in my word, Jesus said, then you are truly disciples of mine", and he completely blows that because abiding is fellowship, abiding isn't being saved. Not all believers abide in Christ. Whenever we sin and we walk in darkness we are not abiding in Christ. That's the 1 John is all about. But of course he has no clue what 1 John is talking about. He goes on to say, "A person who is not Christ's true disciple does not belong to Him and is not saved". So if somebody believes Jesus died for their sins when they were eight years old in Sunday school, and then when they get off to college and they reject Christianity and reject the truth, according to MacArthur they weren't really saved. And so the question is, how do you know if you're really saved? The Bible says you know you are saved because you believe in Jesus as your Savior. That's what John says 95 times. He uses the unqualified term "believe". He doesn't say sincerely believe, truly believe, genuinely believe; he says believe and you have eternal life.

When MacArthur came out with his first book, The Gospel According to Jesus—all dealing real with his theology of Lordship—there was a bookstore in Irving Texas called "The Living Vine", and I lived in Irving at the time, and another pastor friend of mine named Tommy Ice came up from Austin. It was the Christian booksellers convention in Dallas and the owner of this bookstore invited a bunch pastors to come in for MacArthur to talk to us. Tommy and I sat just, you know, just under the sneeze glass there at MacArthur's feet, and when he finished giving his articulation of the gospel I raised my hand and I said: Dr. MacArthur, how certain are you that you're going to go to heaven when you die, because you're relatively young now, you're in your late 40s, early 50s, and what happens if you turn against Christ as you get older?" He said: "Well that's possible, so I guess I have a 95% assurance of salvation".

That's what Lordship salvation gets you. You just don't really know. The reason MacArthur got that way (and I had the same experience) is he had a close friend. He had been involved in ministry with him in high school and in college doing beach evangelism, working Campus Crusade, and all of this, and then this buddy goes off to college somewhere back east and comes back as an atheist, rejecting the Bible, and rejects everything about Christianity. MacArthur just can't deal with it, so he said that the only solution he could come to was that he never was really saved.

I had the same thing happened to me. One of my close friends that I grew up with and heard preach great sermons on salvation—I've no doubt that he was saved—now is a New Age psychiatrist, and has been for the last 45 years. But he is saved, because I understand grace. MacArthur doesn't. MacArthur says if you're not a disciple for the rest of your life then you weren't really saved.

But the Arndt and Gingrich Greek lexicon says that MATHETES means to be a pupil, a learner; one who engages in learning through instruction from another. You can be a disciple and not a believer. That was Judas Iscariot. You can be a believer and not a disciple, and that relates to a lot of the people who left Jesus as He came closer and closer to the cross. The New International Dictionary New of Testament Theology says that a man is called MATHETES when he binds himself to someone else in order to acquire his practical and theoretical knowledge. He becomes a student. He may be an apprentice in a trade, a student of medicine, or member of a philosophical school. One can only be a MATHETES in the company of a DIDASKALOS, a teacher, a master, or teacher to whom the MATHETES since the days of the Sophist generally had to pay a fee. An obvious exception to this is when MATHETES refers to spiritual dependence on a thinker long since dead.

This word group, MATHETES, MATHETEUO, is used in the Septuagint to translate Hebrew words for learning. Deuteronomy 4:10, talking about what Israel learned when they stood before the Lord at Horeb, reads: "… when the Lord said to me (Moses said), 'Gather the people to me and I will let them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me …'" "Learn" is MATHETEUO in the Septuagint. What are they learning? They are learning God's words. That's the focal point.

Deuteronomy 17:19, "It shall be with him and he shall read it …" This is talking at the king who writes his own personal copy of the Torah to be with him. "… he shall read in the days and all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statues. MATHETES is about learning. It's about being a student of the Word and learning God's Word.

Deuteronomy 31:12, "Gather people together men and women and little ones in the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn to fear the Lord …" What are they hearing? They are hearing the Word of God. That is how you made learners. You taught them the Word of God. This idea is still very much a part of Jewish culture in the second temple period when Jesus is teaching. Pharisees had their disciples. John the Baptist had his disciples. They were learning from them; they were students. Jesus had His. Most were believers; as we know with Judas, someone not.

Psalm 119:71 also uses MATHETEUO in the Greek: "It is good for me that I've been afflicted that I may learn your statutes"—great passage when you're going through suffering; this is teaching time for the Lord. It's paralleled in the pastorals in second Timothy 3:12, "Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution". Those who desire to live godly are those who are becoming disciples. They are learners, they are growing spiritually; that's what a disciple is.

We have understood what disciple is. A disciple is someone who's a learner; he is taught. In acts 2:42 and other passages in Acts tell us how the apostles understood this. At the end of Peter's sermon on the that first day of Pentecost when the church was born the description of those early believers is, they were devoting themselves to the apostles teaching they were learning. That's the function of becoming a disciple. You devote yourselves to the teaching of the Word. It's not a Sunday-only thing; it is a seven-day-a-week operation. And we understand this is what the disciples were doing because the Sanhedrin prohibited them from teaching the people. They didn't listen to them and they are accused again of teaching the people. That's what they did. The word 'preaching' that is used here in these verses EUAGGELIZO, which means to give the gospel, to evangelize. It's not this artificial breakdown we have in churches today where you have preaching, which is what you do on Sunday morning, and that is a motivational exhortational message and teaching is restricted to Sunday school or to some other environment.

If you look at the early church in Acts and in the pastorals, the primary thing that they did was to teach, to instruct people in the Scriptures. That's how you feed the sheep, that's how you equip the saints, that's the mission of the church, and it's not in a small group; it is whoever. It may be 10 people, 12 people, 1000 people, or 10,000 people. It is instructing them in the Word of God.

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