What is the Great Commission? What do those words mean? What do they mean to you? What do those words mean to the body of Christ? Where did the term come from? What does it typically mean to the masses in the modern churches today? Is the Great Commission to be commanded? Is it to be mandated? Is it to be revered and used as much as we do as a collective body?
The Great Commission is generally believed to be, according to many “one of the most significant passages in the Holy Bible. First, it's the last recorded personal instruction given by Jesus to His disciples. Second, it's a special calling from Jesus Christ to all His followers to take specific action while on this earth.” This position is highly and widely regarded among the local churches. “A special calling from Jesus?”
The “Great Commission”, though not a specific Bible phrase, is a phrase that Christians have long used to describe certain things found in select portions of the word of God. The word “commission” shows up once in Acts 26:12 and it was a commission of death and imprisonment. That is interesting to say the least.
That commission was Paul’s “commission” to waste the church, quite literally. His commission produced waste. The only connotation in the word of God regarding the word “commission” involves death, lawlessness, unrighteousness, terror, fear, and panic, to imprison and deliver unto death those who believe in the “new way”. Paul’s commission was to waste the body. The chief priests had authority and a commission, too. They gave it to Paul to carry out, and he received it.
In the case the of the synoptic gospels, these passages are where many men see their special, selective calling, mandate, charge or order for their ministries and they call the passages “the Great Commission”. Many men believe this message to be directly relevant and absolutely connected to our preaching, outreach, worship, and how we conduct our service styles today in Christianity.
Today in the modern age of churches and Temples, most Baptist Churches proclaims something along the same lines as Hudson Taylor to varying degrees like, “The command to give the gospel to the world is clear and unmistakable and this commission was given to the churches. (Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, John 20:21)”
Church history tells us it was a man named Baron Justinian Von Welz, a Lutheran, who coined the phrase “the Great Commission” as early as the late 1600s. However, Hudson Taylor is the most notably recognized man to use the term. He is also known for making popular its usage. Hudson Taylor was a notable Protestant missionary who lived in the late 1800s and was one of the greatest pioneers for missions. Without a doubt his labor and good works were responsible for the conversion of many souls to the Lord! I am not examining these men and their labor.
Hudson Taylor once said this: “The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed."
This thesis, or essay, or whatever you’d like to call it, is no black mark on these men or their commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ! You can study their lives and see them for who they were. The discussion here is primarily about what the men who came after them have done by using these passages and a loose phrasing in an attempt to carry on church traditions and indoctrinations towards acceptance of certain philosophies and mandates derived from those passages.
The more I read and grew in life and in the Lord, I just began to fail to see the great commission for what thousands say it was and is. For years I began to wonder why other, more predominant themes and patterns of the NT were excluded from teaching and preaching in place for great commission style messages on a continual basis?
I hope and pray that I can bring into light certain traditions of men that have “crept in unawares”. From my perspective, these traditions have gradually interjected “private” meanings and interpretations into those passages dealing with the final words and commands of our Lord given to his disciples.
Having said that, I believe in every word that our Lord Jesus Christ said concerning what many call, “The Great Commission.” I believe Jesus Christ absolutely gave what some call, a “commission” to “the disciples of the Lord” to preach “a” gospel to every creature. But what did they preach when they obeyed the commission?
I highly regard the wholesome words of our Lord. I believe every word in the same AV 1611 text. I worship the Lord Jesus Christ and no other. I know whom I believed, and whom I worship! The things that I am about to deal with are not questioning the Lord, his Holy book.
I believe that God “hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation not a commission. There is distinctively more declarations, charges, advice, commands, and even traditions we were told emphatically and clearly to keep well beyond the commission and none of these things have anything to do with that said commission. I see teaching and preaching and many patterns in the Pauline Epistles that could be better applied to the New Testament Christian then any commissions found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s Gospels.
I see more that we are to be as ambassadors of Christ first and foremost before we are to be any fishers of men! I believe the love of Christ constraineth us, we have a charge, we have a ministry of reconciliation, we have a word of reconciliation, we should be unashamed, we should be ready to answer. We should pray for “a door of utterance”. I believe we are disciples of Jesus Christ such as they in the gospels but we are not HIS disciples with the authority, power, and promise of being endued with power from on high in the carrying out of any mandates?
So does the Commission given to the Lord’s disciples carry the same charge to the body of Christ? Many thousands of saved, Bible believing preachers, pastors, and missionaries would roar in unison an emphatic “yes!” to this question. It is prevalent among the accepted traditional observations in our Independent, Fundamental churches today.
The Websters 1828 Dictionary says of the word “commission”; the act of committing, doing, performing, or perpetrating; as the commission of a crime. 2. The act of committing or sending to; the act of entrusting, as a charge or duty. Hence, 3. The thing committed, entrusted or delivered; letters patent, or any writing from proper authority, given to a person as his warrant for exercising certain powers, or the performance of any duty, whether civil, ecclesiastical, or military. Hence, 4. Charge; order; mandate; authority given.
Doing, performing, perpetuating, committing, sending, entrusting, charging, a duty, authority, a warrant for exercising certain powers, performance of any duty, mandates, etc. - the words listed here in the definition of “commission” are used repeatedly where men are found using the gospels to convey the urgency and necessity of surrendering to the Spirit’s call to “go ye into all the world”, or something along those lines.
What most Christians know the Great Commission to be is as follows and is found in the following passages:
Matthew 28:18-20
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Mark 16:15-20 -
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; (Acts 2)
18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
19 So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.
20 And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.
Luke 24:47-49
And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
48 And ye are witnesses of these things.
49 And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
And recently, some preachers even go to John 20 which states:
John 20:20-23
And when he had so said, he shewed unto them [his] hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.
21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace [be] unto you: as [my] Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
22 And when he had said this, he breathed on [them], and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:
23 Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; [and] whose soever [sins] ye retain, they are retained.
It does not take much effort to do some fact-checking and reading into Baptist Successionism and Fundamentalism to figure out where it hit the fan. In short, Evangelical Fundamentalism, more specifically the early 1800s through the 1900s, took its phrasing, and perfected its terminology and uses among the many wide and varied congregations! It is now a freight train of loose doctrine that perpetuates and supplies many other traditional observances.
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