The Continuing Task

Matthew 28:16-20

GOLDEN TEXT: “Ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”—Acts 1:8

WHEN Jesus was taken from His disciples and crucified they were thrown into consternation. Bewildered and confused, two of them were on the way to Emmaus when the resurrected Jesus joined them and asked the cause of their sadness. Not knowing the identity of the “stranger” they unburdened their hearts to Him; and then the Master explained that, according to the prophetic testimony, it was necessary that the Christ should suffer and die.

As this great truth was revealed to these disciples their hearts burned within them, for they saw that after all Jesus was in all verity the Messiah of promise. But the glory of the Messianic Kingdom was not then to be manifested, for the sufferings of Christ were not yet complete. The next great truth the disciples were to learn was that the Messianic sufferings were to be continued in them, and they, like the Master Himself, were to court suffering and persecution through faithfulness in proclaiming the Gospel message of the Kingdom.

Thus it was that when Jesus appeared to His disciples after His resurrection it was not to exalt them to a position of glory in the long-looked-for Kingdom, but to commission them to go out into the world as His ambassadors, and to bear witness concerning Him and His Kingdom throughout all nations. This indeed was a task; a task which the Master Himself had been so faithful in performing, and which now His disciples were to take up and carry forward to a completion.

When Jesus instructed the disciples to go and “teach all nations,” it was not with the thought that while still in the flesh the church could hope to actually convert all nations. This command must be understood in the light of a previous one in which Jesus circumscribed the field in which the disciples were to work, saying that they were not to go to the Gentiles, nor to enter into any city of the Samaritans, but to go merely to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

But now a new commission was given by the Master, superseding the previous one. According to this new commission of service they were no longer to limit their activity to the one little nation of Israel. Rather, while, as our Golden Text indicates, they were to begin at Jerusalem, yet from there they were to spread out, and bear witness to the truth wherever and to whomsoever opportunity afforded.

Nevertheless, they were not to go out unprepared. First they were to tarry until they were endowed with the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit came, and all truly consecrated and spirit-begotten believers since have come under that original baptism of the Spirit, and have thereby received the power and authority to represent the Kingdom interests in the earth.

Even Jesus was not qualified to speak for God until He received the Holy Spirit, which He did at Jordan when He was baptized. A little later, when the Master entered into the synagogue at Nazareth, He read from Isaiah 61 concerning the Spirit being upon Him, and explained that this prophecy was being fulfilled through Him.

It is a high honor to be associated with the Master in this Spirit-authorized ministry of the truth. In I Corinthians 12 the apostle emphasizes the close relationship that exists in this partnership arrangement of Jesus and His church by explaining that it is like the members of the human body. Jesus is the Head, he explained, and the true church constitutes the body of the Christ. He says that we are “all baptized by one Spirit into the one body,” and that because of this we are “members in particular of the body of Christ.”

Inasmuch as they were to continue the task started by the Master, they were to look to the same source of information that guided Him in order to learn the details of the message they were to bear to all nations. One of the passages outlining some of these details is that of Isaiah 61:1-3, which, as already noted, was quoted by Jesus.

In this prophecy of what the Holy Spirit authorizes Christians to preach we find, among other things, that they are to be messengers of comfort to all the mourning ones they can reach. They are to bind up the broken hearted. Also, their message is to be one of liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. As we are not able to literally open prison doors at the present time, this, evidently, is intended to convey the thought that our message is to contain the great hope of the resurrection, when the captives of sin, held in the great prison house of death, are to be liberated.

Another part of the message is proclaiming “the acceptable year of the Lord.” Throughout the age, this probably has been the principal part of the message. The acceptable year of the Lord is this entire Gospel age. “Now is the acceptable time,” Paul tells us. (II Cor. 6:2) That is, this is the age when the “better sacrifices,” typed by the sacrifices in the tabernacle services, are “holy, acceptable unto God.”—Rom. 12:1

This offering of sacrifice, and building up of the body members of the church is the chief object of present service in the Lord’s vineyard. It is thus that disciples are made out of all nations. Not all in the nations become disciples, but some from among all nations do. Thus the future blessers of the world of mankind will be representative of all classes and races. Then will conic the conversion of the whole world, for then the “Spirit and the bride [will] say, Come. … And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”—Rev. 22:17

QUESTIONS:

Who alone are commissioned to serve God and Jesus as ministers, or ambassadors?

When did Jesus receive the commission of the Holy Spirit?

At what time did the Holy Spirit come upon the church?

Is the church expected to convert the world in this age?

What did Paul mean in II Corinthians 6:2 when he said that “now is the acceptable time”?

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