By Mitch Chase

At the end of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus gave His followers the famous Great Commission: "make disciples of all nations" (Matt 28:19-20). Believers must embrace these words as binding on the church today. The church of Jesus Christ must see that His commission is a command; the alternative is disobedience.

But the imperative, "make disciples of all nations," may seem overwhelming to even the most well-intended and zealous believers. So we need to acknowledge the firm foundation that undergirds Jesus' comprehensive command.  If believers separate the Great Commission from the reality that grounds it, they will inevitably become more frustrated than faithful, and more discouraged than determined, in spreading the gospel throughout the world.

We must look carefully at how Matthew 28:19-20 connects to the previous verse. The conjunction "Therefore" precedes the command, "make disciples of all nations," and appears at the beginning of English translations, in order to link Christ's command with what He previously said: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" (Matt. 28:18).  The Holy Spirit puts wind in the sails of the church with such statements.  The sovereignty of Christ empowers and motivates His church to action. The following three reflections attempt to emphasize how understanding the sovereignty of Christ is essential to the church's global missions efforts.

1. First, the reality of Christ's sovereignty is the foundation of the Great Commission. Jesus didn't simply command His disciples to make disciples of the nations; He first conveyed to them that He held sovereign sway over everything. The church must go into the nations because Jesus is sovereign. The church isn't spreading the message of a weak ruler or a timid master. The message of the church is about the Lord of the universe, the one for whom and through whom all things exist (Col 1:16).  This reality makes the Great Commission a hopeful endeavor, and the greatest of all causes, since Jesus is already Lord of the earth.  When believers spread the gospel of Jesus, they are not encouraging people to "make" Jesus the Lord of their lives. The Bible's announcement is that God the Father has already made Jesus both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36; Phil 2:9-11). Part of the church's commission, therefore, is to herald the truth that Christ is Lord of all.



2. Second, the scope of the church's mission is proportional to the scope of Christ's sovereignty. In other words, since Jesus is sovereign over heaven and earth, the church must take the gospel of Jesus to all nations. The words "in heaven and on earth" from Matthew 28:18 are a merism, a literary device that employs two extremes in order to include everything between them. Jesus is sovereign over all nations, which is why the church must go to them. If Jesus didn't have authority over all nations, why should the nations repent and confess His lordship? If Jesus didn't have authority over all nations, how could He threaten judgment for those who oppose His rule?  People who make legitimate commands can do so because of their authority to make them. The commands to believe and repent derive from the authority of Jesus over all things. The church must tell the nations that they should obey Jesus ("teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you," Matt. 28:20). Since Jesus' authority is global, the church's mission is also global.



3. Third, the Father gave this cosmic authority to Jesus. In Matthew 28:18b, Jesus doesn't specify who gave Him this comprehensive authority. He only says that His authority over all things "has been given to me," leaving the giver unnamed. But once we consider the options, it's not difficult to discern the identity of the giver. Mankind certainly doesn't possess any cosmic sovereignty which at some point was transferred to Jesus. If Satan possessed cosmic authority over all things, he would never have given such dominion to Jesus. John's Gospel is helpful in showing us that the Father gives things to the Son. For example, the Father has entrusted all judgment to the Son (John 5:22, 27), He has given the Son the authority to raise the dead (John 5:21, 25-26, 28-29), the Father gave the Son what to teach during His earthly ministry (John 12:49), and He gave the Son authority over all people (John 17:2). Therefore, we have biblical precedent to identify the giver of Matthew 28:18b as the Father (especially since the wording is similar to John 17:2). The Father gave Jesus authority over all things, and that authority belongs securely to Him. What the Father gives the Son cannot be undone by the powers of this world (cf. John 10:29).

The psalmist is right: "The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it" (Ps 24:1). Therefore, pray that the sovereignty of Jesus will embolden you for global missions. Pray that His cosmic authority will awaken in you the zeal warranted by such a commission. Pray that all the churches of Jesus Christ will delight in the authority of the Savior, which will then lead them to herald the news of the earth's risen Lord to every tribe and tongue. In Revelation 5, John reports the worshipers singing these words to Jesus: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation" (Rev 5:9). And in Revelation 11:15, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign for ever and ever." Glory be to Jesus Christ, the Lord of heaven and earth.

Mitch Chase has pastored the First Baptist Church of Santo, Texas, for four years.  He is now a student in the PhD program at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.  He has been married to Stacie for five years, and they have one son, Jensen.