And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world (Matthew 28:18–20).
By these words the missionary office is bound upon the Church through all ages, till every part of the earth shall have been evangelized.
Once the tempter took Jesus to a high mountain, to show him the kingdoms of this world and their glory, in order to induce him to flee the cross in obtaining the Kingdom. Now Jesus himself shows his disciples the kingdoms of this world, after the cross had been borne, and points out the conquest his sacrifice and love shall achieve through the gospel.
He must have supreme and truly divine dominion, who commands eternal life to be promised in his name, the whole world to be reduced under his sway, and a doctrine to be promulgated which is to subdue every high thing and bring low the human race. And certainly the apostles would never have been persuaded to attempt so arduous a task, had they not known that their Protector and Avenger was sitting in the heaven, to whom supreme dominion had been given.
Teaching Them
We are not to invent anything new; nor to change anything to suit the current of the age; but to teach the baptized believers to observe “all things whatsoever” our Divine King has commanded.
CHARLES SPURGEON
Baptism is a mere ceremonial and initial act of obedience to Christ, which should be followed by a lifelong obedience to all his commandments. The person who is discipled and baptized is only started in a course of Christian living. Notice that it is not simply teaching them the commandments of Christ, but teaching them to observe his commandments. They who disciple and baptize men must teach them the duty of obeying Christ in all things; and the Christian instructor has still fallen short of his task unless those whom he is called to instruct have both learned what Christ’s commandments are, and have learned to observe them.
JOHN A. BROADUS
As they were to baptize men in the name of the sacred Three, no doubt they were first to make known the persons and offices of the holy Trinity. They were to declare “the Father, as our offended, but reconciled, God and Father; they were to make known “the Son,” as the sinner’s advocate and propitiation; they were to set forth “the Holy Ghost,” as the enlightener, comforter, and sanctifier of God’s elect.
CHARLES SIMEON
“Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of this things.”
LUKE 24:46–48
The glorious fact of the unbroken presence of Christ through all the ages is the true Apostolic succession, an irresistible evidence of Christianity, and an unfailing source of strength and encouragement. The promise has never been revoked, never forgotten, it is fulfilled day by day, hour by hour, amidst the alternations of joy and grief, of success and failure, and will be fulfilled to all true Christians as well as the Church at large, until the King shall appear in His visible Majesty to reign with his redeemed people in the new heavens and on the new earth for ever and ever.
PHILIP SCHAFF
Presence Of Christ
The Saviour might have said I will be, but he chooses to say I am. He is ever-present. There is never a time when He needs to come from afar. He is ever at hand, anticipating his servants’ presence, wherever that may be. In his Spirit, in his own co-ordinate Personality, in his living loving self, he is everywhere present, everywhere except within the consciousness of unbelieving men. He is round and round the consciousness of all men, pressing in upon them, and knocking at the door of the heart.… He will bless them to the full, perfecting his strength in their weakness, so that “through Christ who strengtheneth them, they can do all things” (Phil. 4:13). It is, as Chrysostom remarks, as if the Saviour had said to his disciples, “Tell me not of the difficulties you must encounter, for I am with you.”
JAMES MORISON
Only the living Christ himself was able to conquer the fear, perplexity, and doubt of his disciples and to prepare them to enter the world as preachers of the glad tidings. And in like manner today it is only the risen Saviour himself who can banish all fear from our hearts, and give us the inward rest and peace to enable us to act as living witnesses of our living Redeemer. And all the spiritual equipment that we need, he gives us through the Spirit, already given to his church in his fullness on that first Pentecost and to every believer in the moment of regeneration. And now there rests on every regenerate man and woman the responsibility of being so completely surrendered to him and so looking up to him in faith and obedience, that he will from moment to moment equip us with his divine strength for the task to which we have been called.
NORVAL GELDENHUYS
His unseen presence and power make the perpetual miracle of church history and Christian life. It is a strange thing that since he vanished from the view of the disciples he has never been seen again by mortal eyes, never again, save by one man—Paul. But there is a far stranger thing than that. It is an infinitely more wonderful thing that He has done all his most wonderful works among men since his visible presence was taken away, and without showing himself at all. Millions of men and women in every period of Christian history have been moved and inspired by the unseen Christ than the most devoted of his disciples were moved and inspired by the sight of his bodily form. He is to the moral world what the vital forces are in the natural world. No one can see those vital forces or explain how they work. We can only see the results. They clothe the landscape with verdure, they cover the hedges with blossoms, they change ugliness into beauty, and waste places into a garden of delight.
J. G. GREENHOUGH
