The gospel is not national
Looking at the Great Commission(s)
by Brad Isbell
It seems the Christian Nationalist project overburdens and spins Matthew 28: 19 & 20 much like the for-the-city transformationalist crowd does with Jeremiah 29:7:
"But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare"
No verse has launched so many church plants or informed so many mission statements/church slogans in the last 30 years. The Christian nationalist crowd interprets “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you,” in a way that puts the transformational discipling of nations (as political entities or ethnic groups) nearly on par with the evangelism of individuals of all nations, thus undermining the church’s spiritual mission.
This got us thinking: What “commissions” do we find at the end of the other gospels, and do they support the Christian nationalist spin of the Great Commission in Matthew 28? The longer ending of Mark has this commission:
And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.’
Luke 24:47 says the program is “that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” The nearest thing to a grand program announcement from Jesus to the disciples in the last chapter of John is the personal-churchly command, “Feed my sheep.”
Post-Pentecost in Acts 2:42 we see the life of the church that began to send missionaries all over the known world:
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Note the spiritual character of the commissions that prompted the church’s true apostolic mission. We can only conclude that these other “commissions” in the gospels and the example of the life of the church in Acts just don’t support the Christian nationalist reading of the Great Commission in Matthew.
Brad,
You make an important point when you interpret the post-resurrection commission in Matthew with the same in the other gospels, which is precisely what Westminster taught (WCF 1:9). Two other brief points might strengthen your observation.
Contextually, “disciple the nations” is qualified by the two partiples that follow, one of which says, “baptizing them (Greek αὐτούς)…”, which can hardly be a reference to a geo-political entity, which could not be baptized.
Also, when the third pledge to Abraham was translated into Greek, and repeated several times to his descendants, “nation” (ἔθνη) and “family/tribe” (φυλή) are used interchangeably, indicating that, though ἔθνη can, in some places be employed to refer to a geopolitical nation, it can also refer to an ethnic identity, and in these passages it can only mean the latter.
Genesis 12:3 … and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed (πᾶσαι αἱ φυλαὶ τῆς γῆς).”
Genesis 18:18 …seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη τῆς γῆς) shall be blessed in him.
Genesis 22:18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη τῆς γῆς) shall be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
Genesis 26:4 And in your offspring all the nations of the earth (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη τῆς γῆς) shall be blessed.
Genesis 28:14 … and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth (πᾶσαι αἱ φυλαὶ τῆς γῆς) be blessed.
When the NT authors (esp. Paul in Galatians 3) view the blessings pledged to Abraham as now having arrived in Christ, we either make the realities of Mat. 28 something different from the blessedness-in-Christ of Gal. 3, or we assume that both Jesus and Paul were referring to the same thing that was pledged to Abraham, to wit that God would all the peoples of the earth descended from Adam, regardless of their geo-political status.
T. David Gordon
Well, Matthew Henry would be shocked to learn that his own exegesis of Matthew 28 was Christian Nationalist "spin":
"Christianity should be twisted in with national constitutions, that the kingdoms of the world should become Christ's kingdoms, and their kings the church's nursing-fathers."
The interpretation of "commissions" here is tendentious: Matthew 18 is interpreted in the light of other commissions, against Christian Nationalism, as if Christian Nationalists (among others) could not justly understand those other "commission" in terms of Matthew 28.
One need not be a Christian Nationalist, as I am not (except in the same sense Kevin DeYoung is also) to see this as little more than anti-Christian Nationalism axe-grinding.