Blessings of The Body

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Matthew 28:19-20

April and I were blessed to get to join Fort Collins Bible Church for a service this morning and spend some time studying the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20) together. This genuine, sweet group of brothers and sisters in the Lord were so gentle and unassuming. We were blessed by their sincerity and deep love for one another as well as their great love for us (whom none but the pastor-teacher and his wonderful bride had ever met). It wasn't a good match to what church is "supposed to be" by our modern american standards. People seemed humble and kind, it was like being at home. I knew this feeling because I feel it each Sunday at our home church (Holly Hills Bible Church). The same gracious love was there. The same warm feeling and kind handshakes. The same moments of compassion and care.

In teaching on the great commission I knew that these were some well known verses, and that they were commonly used (and abused) but popular Christendom at large. My essential goal was to bring into sharp contrast the way our modern culture reads these precious verses as opposed to the way the verses were heard by their original readers and still remain with us in the Greek New Testament.

The modern version (as I seem to see it in popular Christian culture) is to put all of the emphasis on the "GO" as if this were the command. It appeals to the worker bee in us, do do do it yourself. It reminds me of a t-shirt I once saw that read "Jesus is coming...LOOK BUSY!" Then, in our culture, I believe we have changed the word "disciple" to "convert." Converts are easy, they may take as little as a few moments. Disciples take years to make. We seem to find the bigger numbers of "converts" more attractive. Baptism is a magical ceremony that people will live and die for rather than a simple expression of the amazing truth of what God has graciously done in saving us...identifying us with His Son. I could go on, but it wouldn't edify.

Looking at the original language and culture I see these verses crying out to the intimate and full beauty that is to be found in the body of Christ. The word "go" here is actually a participle. This means that it is given the "-ing" ending and is not the main command of the sentence. The idea may be better put "as you are going..." because the going is assumed, what we do as we go is what is special.

Discipleship was a life on life, day by day, process of sharing good times and bad, hard times and easy, teaching, thoughts and service. The kind of discipleship Jesus practices was radical even in the day because he served those whom were His disciples (a practice that would have shocked people constantly!). The intimacy Jesus has given us is a deep and rich intimacy of love, devotion and service, not just sharing an hour or two a week, but being involved in each others lives day by day. It is messy, it is painful and it is beautiful. It doesn't look great on a pamphlet and it won't sell a million copies, but it is what Christ had in mind.

Baptism was a practice of identification. We are Baptized into the SINGULAR NAME of the triune God. We are being invited into the perfect community of the Godhead. We are welcomed into the real circle of unending, and perfect love. This is not a formula that we must follow when we baptize or else, it is a promise that each of the three persons of our triune God is invested and involved in our salvation. We have an intimate relationship with the God of the Universe be cause He has called us into this intimacy. That is our identification. Cool stuff!

Teaching is to be the method in which truth is communicated. Teaching is the process by which we in the Church get to behold the Lord together. The teaching isn't the cold, western classroom version that we may think of in modern times (most teaching wasn't done that way) the "teaching" here is connected to the main verb and command: discipleship! So the discipleship process includes teaching to observe.

Why observe and not obey? I have an idea about this. Obey is a law thing. You can only obey a rule or law you know and once you have obeyed it you are in the clear. Observance is a far deeper, more full life expression of something. Obedience stops when the laws stop, observance is carried out into every aspect of a person's life. The life of Christ in us is to be a full life expression. We aren't just to follow a few hollow rules and be smug, we are rest in Christ and let His life and love flow out of us at every moment.

"Commanded" is another hard one to bring into English. This sounds like the simple past tense, but that won't cut it. Actually, it is the tense of no time. Jesus had yet more commandments to give. The whole New Testament was yet to be written and Christ had more to say. So the Apostles would have understood that there could be more that Christ was going to teach them (and there turned out to be a great deal more - vis. Acts through Revelation).

"Lo" is an attention getter here, I would say, "Listen up" may be a nice modern idiom. In the Greek here we get a reiterative 1st person pronoun. In other words, Jesus is saying "I, MYSELF, ME PERSONALLY, will be with you." It is a promise of His continued ministry by indwelling every single believer. How often? Always! Never is Christ not with you. Christ never misses a beat on our lives. He sees every moment, and is right here with us. Intimate, complete, fully knowing and fully loving us. And this will last all the way back to His return, when He sets His feet on Terra Firma and begins His Reign here on Earth.

So, I would expand (or paraphrase) these verses as follows:

"As you are going, be investing deeply in each others lives, and in the lives of the unsaved, so as to point others the towards Me (Jesus), when people understand and put their faith in Me do this ritual of identification that you all understand as an outward commitment to something or someone, and do it in such a way that they will know that the whole power of the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit): the perfect community of the Godhead is the basis for their salvation and intimacy with Me and with each other. As a part of your investments in each others' lives teach people to live out My life and commands every day. If they ask how they can do this, or if you ever wonder how you could do it, remember I, myself, the Son of God, am always with you...even to till I wrap up this whole Church age."

Then I realized, that these people were already at it. What a blessed day.