THE GREAT COMMISSION and GOD'S PLAN

By Nate Wilson Delivered 30 May 2004 in Denver and in Rome GA, Oct 2004-Illiana Presby­tery, Jan 2005 in West Frankfort, June 2006 and April 2026 – CTR-Manhattan, and Feb 3, 2026 to Telos class in Manhattan KS. References in the “All The Earth” chart are colored red.

REVIEW

• In the last sermon, I showed that when Jesus gave the Great Commission, He had prepared His disciples for it.

• Jesus prepared His disciples for cross-cultural ministry through modeling ministry to foreigners, including Samaritans, Greeks, Romans, and Canaanites.

• Jesus also prepared His disciples by consistently teaching them throughout His ministry that He expected the Gospel to be preached throughout the whole world.

• We also saw how Jesus gave the Great Commission five different times.

• The Great Commission represented a radical departure from traditional Jewish thinking. Was Jesus instituting something new in saying that the Gospel was for all the world? Was this a new twist in God's plan, or was it something God had always had in mind?

• The key to answering this question lies in the answer to another question: If Jesus gave the Great Commission five times, why don’t any of the apostles refer back to it?

  • If you look at the book of Acts and the epistles, the apostles never quote the Great Commission as the basis for their ministry. Why not?

  • I believe that the reason why the apostles never referred back to it was because Jesus didn't give the Great Commission to them in the first place.

  • Don't stone me yet as a heretic! Let's just look at what the apostles did when they talked about the subject of preaching the Gospel to gentiles. We're going to look at three apostles: Peter, Paul, and James.

PETER – ABRAHAMIC COVENANT

• Turn in your Bibles to Acts 3:25-26. Here Peter is preaching his second sermon in the temple at Jerusalem. He says, “Y'all are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant which God contracted with our forefathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And by your seed all the families of the earth will be blessed.’ It was to y'all first that God, after resurrecting His Servant [Jesus], commissioned Him to bless y'all by the turning of each one from your iniquities.” (NAW) Where does Peter go? To the Covenant with Abraham in the Old Testament.

• Let's look up that covenant in Genesis 12, verses 1-3: “Then Yahweh said to Abram, ‘Get on with you – away from your country and from your birthplace and from the house of your father, into the land which I will show you. Then I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great. And I will bless those who bless you, and the ones who make light of you I will curse, and all the families of the earth will be blessed by you.” (NAW)

• The Abrahamic Covenant is where God promised to bless Abraham and to make him and his descendants a blessing to the whole world. Do you see what Peter is doing back in Acts? He is saying that just as God had blessed Abraham and promised to bless all the families of the earth through His offspring, God had now blessed the descendants of Abraham, the Jews, by sending Jesus to them first, and the implication is that secondarily it would result in blessing to all the families of the earth.

• Interestingly enough, the Abrahamic covenant was given on five different occasions just like the Great Commission was. And, just like in the repetitions of the Great Commis­sion, there are different words indicating who would be blessed. Two of the repetitions of the Abrahamic Covenant (Gen. 12:3 and 28:14) use the Hebrew phrase “all the families of the earth,” and this is the phrase Peter picks up on in Acts 3 “all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

• That was Peter. How about Paul?

PAUL - ISAIAH’S SERVANT & THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT

• He had his own form of a commission on the road to Damascus in Acts 9, but He also refers back to the covenant with Abraham to explain his call to preach the Gospel to the nations. In Galatians 3, Paul refers back to the Abrahamic covenant just like Peter did, but Paul picks up on the three times that God repeated the covenant to Abraham using the word “nations” or “ethnic groups” instead of “families.” Gal. 3:8 says, “And the script­ure, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel before­hand unto Abraham, saying, 'In thee shall all the nations be blessed.'” (ASV) Paul, too, saw the Great Commission as a continuation of the Old Testament promise to Abraham!

• In Acts 13, Paul is on his first missionary journey and is speaking to a group of Jews and Gentiles in the city of Antioch (in modern-day Turkey), explaining why he chose to preach to Gentiles in that city. In Acts 13:47, Paul quotes Isaiah (49) saying, “the Lord commanded us, saying, ‘I have set thee for a light of the Gentiles, That [y]ou should... be for salvation unto the uttermost part of the earth.’” (ASV) Paul used Old Testament Scripture to prove that he should preach the Gospel to the nations beyond the Jews.

JAMES QUOTED AMOS

• James, the brother of Jesus, also used Old Testament Scripture to justify preaching the Gospel to Gentiles. Acts chapter fifteen describes the situation where the leaders of the church in Jerusalem were wrestling with the issue of Gentiles coming to faith in Jesus. In Acts 15:14ff, James quotes from the prophet Amos: “Symeon (Simon Peter) ha[s] rehearsed how first God visited the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, 'After these things I will return, and I will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen; and I will build again the ruins thereof, And I will set it up: that the residue of men may seek after the Lord, And all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who make[s] these things known from of old.¹" (ASV)

• Even in Amos' day, this was “old” news that that “all the nations” would call upon the name of the Lord, because it had been promised thousands of years before to Abraham that “all the families and nations of the earth would be blessed.”

JESUS TAUGHT FROM the O. T. (LUKE’S Great Commission)

• Now, tell me, where did the apostles get the idea to use these Old Testament passages to support preaching the gospel to the nations? Was it from Hebrew school? I don't think so. I believe the idea came from Jesus.

• Do you remember the odd wording of the passage we read in Paul's letter to the Galatians ch. 3? “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand unto Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations be blessed.'”

  • Here we have a personification of Scripture. Can a book “foresee” God's work and “preach” to Abraham? No, but Jesus is the Word of God, and I believe this may refer to the work of Jesus Himself, back in the book of Genesis, being the mastermind behind the covenant with Abraham which promised salvation to the nations!

• This was Jesus' idea to begin with. God didn’t change His plan with Jesus, as some Christians teach. God’s plan to save people through Jesus started before Creation:

  • 1 Corinthians 2:7 Regarding the preaching of the Gospel in the first century, Paul wrote “...we are uttering GOD'S wisdom which has been hidden in a mystery, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory…” (NAW)

  • Ephesians 1:4-5 “...He chose us in Him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will…” (ASV)

  • Hebrews 13:20 “[T]he God of peace... raised up from among the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by means of the blood of the eternal covenant…” What was the “eternal covenant”? It was already in motion when Adam and Eve sinned:

  • Genesis 3:14-15 “And Jehovah God said unto the serpent, ‘Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou... and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.’” (ASV) 700 years before the birth of the Messiah, Isaiah explained how the seed of the woman would crush the Devil’s head:

  • Isaiah 53:5-6 “...He was being pierced as a result of our rebellion – beaten as a result of our iniquity. Chastisement for the sake of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes there is healing for us. We all (like the flock) have strayed, each has faced toward his own way. But Yahweh interposed in Him the iniquity of us all.” (NAW)

  • God’s plan – His eternal covenant – included placing our sins on Christ and punishing Him for our sins when He died on the cross in order to crush the problem of evil and give peace and healing to us who believe it.

  • This plan, made by God before He created the world, was re-stated by the Old Testa­ment Prophets, re-stated by Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels, and re-stated again by the Apostles in the New Testament epistles. God, Who does not “fluctuate” or “change” (James 1:17-18) has been working out this plan through all of history, and He will make sure His plan succeeds!

• Now there is also a scripture which explicitly states that Jesus taught His disciples about world evangelization using the Old Testament. Let's look at Luke’s account of the Great Commission. In Luke 24:45-47, it says, “Then He opened wide their mind in order to comprehend the Scriptures, and He said to them that, ‘Thus it has been written (and therefore it is necessary) for the Anointed One to suffer and to rise again from among the dead during the third day, and for repentance and forgiveness of sins to be preached in His name among all the peoples, beginning from Jerusalem.” (NAW)

  • You see, Jesus taught his disciples from the Scriptures that the Gospel would “be preached... in all the nations.”

  • What were the “Scriptures” of that time? Our Old Testament! Jesus did not give the Great Commission in a vacuum as though it were a new thing, rather He taught His disciples about God's intention to bless every group of people on the earth with salvation by starting with the Abrahamic Covenant where God promised to bless all the families and nations on the earth! Jesus couched His Great Commission in the context of God's covenants in the Old Testament!

  • Because Jesus did this, it’s only natural that the disciples followed His example and referred back to those same Scriptures when they spoke of world evangelism!

• So does it make sense now when I say that Jesus didn't give the Great Commission after his death and resurrection, but rather He restated it?

ALL THE EARTH CHART

• Because I have kinda jumped all around the Bible here, I thought it would be good to offer you a chart that has all of these Bible verses organized in some fashion. Would you take a look at that chart with me? <http://www.natewilsonfamily.net/natespdf/all_the_earth.pdf>

• One of the first things you may notice is that it has Greek and Hebrew letters on it. Now, whether or not you can read those languages, we have all played the game of "what symbols look the same and which one looks different" ever since kindergarten. What I want you to be able to see for yourself is that the Bible verses across history have phrases that look the same - comparing the rows in the chart from left to right. I also want you to notice that these Bible verses also use a wide variety of synonyms, so the phrases look different as you look at the columns up and down.

• Starting with the “Genesis (Beginning)” column, we see that God created ethnicities and languages at the tower of Babel then stated His intention to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, and others to make a people for Himself out of all those ethnic groups.

• Notice that God didn’t use the same word every time he stated His intention to Abraham and his descendants; twice He said that all the “family structures” of the earth would be blessed, and three times He used the word “nations.”

• When we look at the center column, we can see the Great Commission passages of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts and see that Jesus used phrases that are quotes of the Abrahamic covenant!

• I have also included in the center column the quotes of the apostles referring to God's plan to bless the nations. The passages in Acts, Galatians, and Romans so clearly copy the word­ing of the Old Testament passages that it becomes clear that Jesus must have taught His disciples about reaching the nations by using those very passages of Old Testament Scripture that you see in the Left-hand column!

• Finally we come to the prophecies of the end times when the purpose of God is seen as fulfilled. Note the detail with which the prophecies speak of the fulfillment of every category of humanity: the earth, nations, families, tribes, tongues, peoples.

GREAT COMMISSION SUMMARY & APPLICATION

• There is something that is the same as you look at this chart of Scripture from left to right: God’s mission, stated at the beginning, was restated in the New Testament, and its fulfillment is anticipated in the apocalyptic literature. There is a big picture to history. God has a pur­pose which He is working to accomplish, and this gives meaning and development to history (and to our lives) as we see the big picture and realize where our little puzzle piece fits into the big picture.

• At the same time, there is something diverse as you see the variety of vocabulary used to express God’s mission. It is a Comprehensive plan to bless every sociological stratifica­tion of mankind.

• To you who believe in Jesus, this should be a tremendous comfort – God loves you. He decided to save you before your parents were even born. There is nothing you can do to earn His love, and there is nothing you can do to discourage Him from loving you. He will always be steady in His love for His people. He will not change.

• For those who are not in a right relationship with God, it should be a great encourage­ment to know that saving people all over the world is God’s plan for history! There is no better time than now to step into the stream of what God is doing and ask Jesus to forgive all the wrong things you have done and to make you right with Him.

• Knowing that God’s plan is consistent throughout history should also encourage us to step into the stream of what He is doing and tell this good news to other people.

  • Evangelism and discipleship is IMPORTANT. God has stated this as His purpose throughout the Bible – Beginning, middle, and end!

  • And evangelism is PARTNERSHIP with God – You don’t have to be anxious about how to give the perfect gospel presentation; He will be with us (Matt 28:20) because He is working to do His will. And if you mess-up, it won’t mess-up His plan. He will bring you back around or He will bring someone else around to share the Gospel again because He isn’t going to give up on those He loves and wants to save.

• In my previous sermon, I talked about how God has uniquely prepared each one of us to participate in fulfilling His plan of blessing all the nations.

  • He has given us His Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth,

  • He has given us finances that we can share,

  • He has given us a knowledge of His word so we can teach others,

  • He has given us opportunities to disciple other people close to us.

  • He has also given us skills which we could use on a mission field, such as speaking English and other vocational skills.

• I don't want you to come away feeling guilty that you ought to do more than you are doing or that you ought to do something that God has not built you to do. What I want you to come away with is the knowledge that God has always been working on a big plan to spread His blessing of salvation to every group of people on earth, and I want you to see that your life fits into God's big plan in some way. We all have a part – we are a body, working together with God Himself to accomplish God's purposes.

• Some will go be missionaries in a far away land,

• some will give birth to and raise the missionaries who will be sent in the next generation,

• some will reach the lost here,

• some will teach and prepare missionaries now,

• others will create the business platforms that missionaries need to settle in countries that don’t provide missionary visas,

• some will grease the wheels of government and society so that everybody else can do their part without being disrupted by civil disorder, crime, disease, and entropy,

• some will give to finance missionaries,

• some will pray down the kingdom of God,

• some will provide the encouragement and help that we all need to press on in our various roles in fulfilling the Great Commission,

• but we all have a part – probably even multiple parts – in God's big plan.

• As we have seen from scripture today, God stated His intention thousands of years ago to use His people to bless all the nations. In the Great Commission, Jesus restated that original divine plan, and the Bible promises that at the end of history, God’s intention will be fulfilled as persons from every tribe, tongue, nation, and people worship God in heaven. I encourage you to pray and ask God to help you understand what your role is in the big picture and how you are a part in fulfilling God's big plan to bless every group of people on the earth! Let's pray now.