Luke 24:44-49

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” The he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to the, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” –

For several years now a debate has taken place as to the rightful recipients of the missionary mandate, the so-called “Great Commission.” Was the Great Commission intended primarily for pastors, or for all God’s people, the church? Many hold to the traditional understanding that all of God’s people were commissioned by our Lord in Matthew 28, Luke 24, and John 20 and, therefore, the ministry of preaching the Gospel is the right and duty of all Christians. Others argue that the Lord commissioned the eleven apostles who represent the “ordained” ministers of the Gospel; therefore, pastors rather than all Christians are commissioned to preach the Gospel. Either way, the argument tends to ignore the most important aspect of Jesus’s words: God’s missionary commission belongs first and foremost to him. In line with our Lord’s own testimony, the Scriptures call us to look to Jesus as God’s appointed Apostle (Missionary) and Great High Priest (Hebrews 3).

Peter tells us in his Pentecost sermon that the Father made Jesus “Lord and Christ,” extending His authority over all creation. Quoting King David, he proclaimed, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool’” (Acts 2). From this position of complete cosmic authority, our Lord Jesus continues to serve as the great Apostle, sent by His Father to complete His Father’s will that all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4, emphasis mine). Jesus did not abdicate His commission or hand it off to someone else to complete. Sitting at the “Right hand of Father,” Jesus rules over all things and continues to do so until His last enemy, death, is put under His feet and all heaven and earth, united in Him, are restored to His Father (1 Corinthians 15).

That’s why it is necessary to understand that Christ’s personal ministry includes not two aspects (His death and resurrection) but three (His death, resurrection, and the proclamation of repentance for the forgiveness of sins to all nations). The completion of each is guaranteed by the promise of Almighty God. Our Lord presented the sum of this promise to His disciples:

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance to the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

All three elements of Jesus’s mission form the “must be fulfilled” of God’s saving work and, therefore rightly belong to the essentials of the Gospel. Thus, Saint Paul confessed before King Agrippa: “To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:22-23).

Understanding the Gospel fully requires that we include with Jesus’s death and resurrection His ongoing ministry of proclaiming to the world what His death and resurrection procured.

One might ask, “Wasn’t Jesus’s work finished on the cross?” or, “Are we adding something more to His justifying work (the Gospel) when we state that the ‘preaching of the Gospel’ is an essential aspect of His ministry?”

Properly speaking, the Gospel is simply and specifically this: that through Christ’s death on the cross, “God reconciled the world to Himself, not counting [our] trespasses against [us]” (2 Corinthians 5). Consider Saint Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Christ’s crucifixion is the heart and center of the Gospel. Everything we believe and confess about the Gospel, including Christ’s resurrection and His preaching of forgiveness, flows out of this one fact: Christ died for all. That’s why ours is called the theology of the cross.

It would be misleading, however, to suggest that Jesus’s words from the cross signal that God has finished His work of saving all people. God raised His Son from the dead and declared Son right with Him. That holy absolution belongs not only to our Lord but to all who died in Him on the cross. Saint Paul writes, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all” (2 Corinthians 5:14). God’s declaration to His Son, then, belongs also to all people, everywhere. It’s essential to God that every sinner hears this Good News personally and in hearing it, believes and, in believing it, is saved. Indeed, Jesus’ work of salvation was finished on the cross. However, our Lord will not stop working until all hear Him speak these saving words to them: “It is finished! Your debt has been paid in full!”

Questions to Ponder with Yourself and Others

• Our Lord Jesus continues to this day (and until His second coming) His ministry of proclaiming God’s Good News of salvation to the world. While He’s the proclaimer, He uses our hearts, minds, and tongues in the process. What does it mean to you that the Lord has chosen you to be His personal voice to your friends, relatives, and neighbors?
  
• By His Words, “You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:48), Jesus invited all of His disciples to participate with Him in His Mission. They were to “witness” to others what Jesus did (His death and resurrection) and what he was presently and actively doing in the world (proclaiming His forgiveness to all). How is our “witness” to Jesus’s work the same as that of the earliest disciples? How is it different?
  
• The Lord told His disciples they needed to remain in Jerusalem until they received the “promise” of the Holy Spirit, Who would equip and empower them to be His witnesses in the world. Saint Peter, in His Pentecost sermon, taught that this same “promise” of the Spirit would be given to all who are baptized: “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39). What does that mean for your participation in the Mission of Christ?