are commanded, and therefore they expect to be able, to bring
68 THE BIBLICAL BASIS
he is assured of his belonging to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
4. The external act of baptizing is a signum pro re. The disciples
are commanded, and therefore they expect to be able, to bring about the state of affairs to be certified. By the intermediary of the disciples the Gentiles shall be joined with those who belong to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, thereby becoming themselves disciples. Luke 24:47 explains the meaning of this incorporation. Repentance and the forgiveness of sin shall be preached to the Gentiles in Jesus' name. They become disciples as sinners who, set free by God and thankful to God, are wrenched from the separation from God.
The command to baptize is to be understood in the same light.
It is the transferral of the messianic power of Jesus, the priest of
all men, to Peter. "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven" (Mt. 16:19), a most genuine word of the risen Lord. Genuine and very significant, furthermore, is the invocation of the name of the triune God at the very moment when the universal existence of the apostolic Church at the end of time is revealed. This is the only place in the New Testament where this name is invoked with such simplicity (cf. 1 Cor. 12:4-6; 2 Cor. 13:13; 2 Thess. 2:13—-14; Eph. 4:4—6; 1 Pet. 1:2).
",.. teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." As baptism constitutes the existence and the nature of discipleship, teaching constitutes the ways and works of the disciples.
"Teaching," &8doxew, is the function of the prophet and teacher by preaching and instruction. Now Jesus appoints his disciples to this teaching office. To become a Christian means to become a Christ to others by participating in Christ's kingly, priestly, and prophetic ministry. The apostles accede to this ministry after passing through the crisis, i.e., through their failure during the Passion when their apostleship, humanly speaking, had become utterly discredited. They had failed in rypeiv, in observing what Jesus had commanded them. Yet without inquiring into the validity of their conversion (see, however, Lk. 22:32), Jesus freely entrusts them, the undeserving, with teaching the Gentiles this "observance," and with guiding them in the ways and works of disciples. (rnpetv means "to keep," "to preserve," to protect something entrusted to one's care.)
| ". .. all that I have commanded you." What did Jesus command
_ them to do? To follow him, in order "to be with him" (Mk. 3:14).
An Exegetical Study of Matthew 28:16-20 69
They are to live within the earthly confines of the kingdom of God and to submit to the order of life established there. All this not as
an end in itself, for the sake of their own personal morals and salvation or of the well-being of society, but that the order of service be preserved which he had given them, his heralds and apostles.
All "baptized" become eo ipso subservient to this order of service, the very foundation of the Christian community. They in turn
need to be called to acknowledge, to keep, and to confirm their belonging to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They need
to be nurtured in this service in order that their works may become
those of disciples and a Christian community may exist in the
world. It exists only where the things commanded by Jesus are
"observed." This nurturing of the Gentiles who, by baptism, be-
come servants of the triune God, is the task of the apostles. As
the witnesses to Jesus' life and resurrection, they are entrusted
with the task for all times and in all places. All others receive it
only from them, secondhand. The apostles, and they alone, are
called to teach in the Church. For there is no room in the Church
for any other object of zypeiv but the one commanded by Jesus
to the apostles. What they have been commanded, they must teach
without omission, the whole content of the order of service. This
is the New Testament affirmation of the self-sufficiency of the
Scriptures, the crossroad where we must part from the Roman
Catholic Church. Teaching in the Church can only be repetitive
of apostolic teaching.
There remains one more question with regard to verses 19—20a. What about the explicitly stated task (Mt. 10:8 f.) to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to make clean the lepers, to cast out evil spirits? We know from Acts and from several Letters that such special. "gifts," though not widespread, were not lacking in 'the later Church. Nevertheless, the part of Jesus' commandment dealing _ with doing signs has been fulfilled and become superfluous with the Resurrection of Jesus, the sign of signs. Signs may happen again. But they cannot be postulated as essential marks of the eschatological community. In its past, the forty days, as in its future, the Second Coming, this community is surrounded by the one ee of the Son of man." When in Mark 16:17 ff. the gift of ~ "accompanying" signs is declared to be an almost indispensable attribute of faith, it only shows the noncanonical character of that text. The task of the apostles, and therefore also of the apostolic —
70 THE BIBLICAL BASIS
Church, consists in baptizing and teaching in the light of this sign— in the light of Easter morning, in the light of "the hope laid up for you in heaven" (Col. 1:5).
Verse 20b
"And lo, I am with you..." The Church of the eschaton which broke into time and now is manifest and recognized is not left alone. Its founder possesses not in vain all authority in heaven and on earth (verse 18). "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Mt. 18:20). Jesus himself, with all his power and authority, stands behind the apostles when they carry out his command and commission. "He who hears you hears me" (Lk. 10:16). "So every one who acknowledges me before man, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven" (Mt. 10:32). Ergo nunquam plane exspirabit ecclesia christiana (Bengel). This is why the Christian Church can never speak or act on its own authority and for its own cause. The selfseeking and self-exalting idea of the Roman Catholic Church is thereby attacked at the very roots.
"I am with you" is, according to Genesis 28:15; Judges 6:12; Haggai 1:13, the affirrmation of the immediate presence of God. In making it, Jesus once more says who he is. "I am with you." This is not to say that he will always be with his people in the same way as he is now. These forty days are unique, only to be compared with the return in glory which, rightly understood, begins already with the forty days. However, the Church between Ascension and Second Coming is not without a master. And because the Church
is in the world, the world is not without a master either. The Church has no right to consider the world as "masterless," merely neutral
or even hostile, or else it has not grasped Jesus' "with you."
"J am with you": in remembrance of my past life, death and resurrection, I speak and act today. In the Holy Spirit I fill and Tule the present, any present, with my word. I will come with the
"y _ future, any future. I stand at the door and knock. With my past,
_ my present, and my future I shall be with you evermore.
This is the promise of the risen Lord, covering the time beyond Bp the forty days. It is the point of departure for the subsequent * events at the end of time. As the apostles receive and grasp this promise and stand on this firm ground, they are the rock on which —
os Jesus builds his church, stronger than the gates of Hades.
a? 7 . eo Ls ie Oe Fiow oe t< a)
An Exegetical Study of Matthew 28:16-20 71
"...to the close of the age." We must reckon with three different times or ages. From creation to the appearance of Christ: the time as it passes, and is actually past, with the appearance of Christ. From Christ's appearance to his return in glory: the eschaton as revealed in Christ's resurrection. From his return in glory into eternity: God's own eternal time in which the temporal is suspended. Accordingly, "to the close of the age," of this age, must signify until the time when the eschaton, ushered in with the appearance of Christ, will have run its course, when the universe will be subjected to God's reign, when the distinct reign of Christ will come to an end, and God will be everything to everyone
(1 Cor. 15:27 f.). Because of Jesus' presence, the sum and substance of our text, the Great Commission of the risen Lord to baptize and evangelize is valid throughout the days of this "last" age.
Pauline Motives for the Christian Mission
BY DONALD G. MILLER
Why missions? This question is on the lips of most secular people concerning the work of the Church to the ends of the earth. The "why?" of some is sympathetic: Why do these nice but naive people waste their lives in discomfort and loneliness, vainly toiling at futility? The "why?" of others is antagonistic: Why should efforts be made to change men's religion? After all, are not all religions essentially alike, all headed in the same direction? And are not religions culture-conditioned, each having developed in its own milieu as befitting the needs of its own adherents? And do not missions, in the light of present world tensions, interfere with good international relations? Isn't there enough, too, for each church to do in its own land without setting forth to evangelize other lands? And isn't there a profound Pharisaism, a distasteful spiritual pride, an unwholesome taint of religious superiority, lying behind the whole idea of missions? These and similar questions are fervently voiced by countless onlookers as the Church seeks to fulfill her mission in the world. But more—these same See are frequently raised by many within the Church.
These objections are not to be taken lightly. Especially where they inadvertently are criticisms of missionary method rather than of the mission itself, the Church should penitently stand under their judgment and seek to mend her ways. But in so far as they strike at the heart and seek to deal a deathblow to the Church's
mission, they summon to a reexamination of missionary motives.