6. The Great Commission,
The Name of God
“Then the
eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the
mountain which Yeshua had appointed for them. And when they saw Him, they
worshiped Him; but some doubted. Then Yeshua came and spoke to them, saying,
‘All authority has been given to Me in Heaven and on earth. Go therefore and
make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things
that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of
the age.’ Amen.” Matthew 28:16-20.
16 οἱ δὲ
ἕνδεκα
μαθηταὶ ἐπορεύθησαν
εἰς τὴν
Γαλιλαίαν εἰς
τò ὄρος οὑ̃
ἐτάξατο αὐτοι̃ς
ὁ ’Ιησου̃ς
17 καὶ ἰδόντες
αὐτòν
προσεκύνησαν
οἱ δὲ ἐδίστασαν
18 καὶ
προσελθὼν ὁ
’Ιησου̃ς ἐλάλησεν
αὐτοι̃ς
λέγων ἐδόθη
μοι πα̃σα ἐξουσία
ἐν οὐρανω̨̃
καὶ ἐπὶ τη̃ς
γη̃ς
19 πορευθέντες
οὐ̃ν
μαθητεύσατε
πάντα τὰ ἔθνη
βαπτίζοντες
αὐτοὺς εἰς
τò ὄνομα του̃
πατρòς καὶ
του̃ υἱου̃
καὶ του̃ ἁγίου
πνεύματος
20 διδάσκοντες
αὐτοὺς
τηρει̃ν πάντα
ὅσα ἐνετειλάμην
ὑμι̃ν καὶ ἰδοὺ
ἐγὼ μεθ' ὑμω̃ν
εἰμι πάσας τὰς
ἡμέρας ἕως
τη̃ς
συντελείας
του̃ αἰω̃νος
ἀμήν
Jewish imagery permeates the book of Matthew. There
is no doubt that it was composed for a Jewish audience. Yet at first glance
this final paragraph seems to go beyond what Jews could accept about the
nature of God. Therefore, before evaluating what is meant by “baptizing,” we must
digress for a moment to investigate the special phrase, “The name of the
Father and Son and Holy Spirit.” This New Covenant idea, and all it implies,
has been especially unbearable for much of the Jewish people. Israel
is under divine commandment not to serve other gods, and has suffered
severely in the past for doing so. This passage is viewed in that light and
believed incompatible with God. Furthermore, Israel’s
Messiah would never speak in such a way. But the other side of the question
is too ominous to “brush away with a straw.” If the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob has truly communicated His greatest Expression in Yeshua, then Israel
needs to repent and return to the God of our fathers, as does the rest of the
world.
This grave controversy about the nature of God
boils down to a simple question:
“At what level
does the God of Israel speak?”
Israel
valiantly testifies that the Creator of the Universe once took us out of the
slavery of Egypt,
into the wilderness, and spoke to the entire nation at the mountain
of Sinai. All Israel
heard the voice of the Living God. Israel
knows firsthand that God is a communicating Being. His nature includes the
attribute of expressing Himself.
But at what level does the Eternal “speak”? Has He
only spoken human words, one word after another, like human beings? Perhaps
He uses a higher form of communication with angels?...Or, from
eternity, has the God of communication fully expressed all of His
magnificence, every incomprehensible thing about Himself, including self-sustaining
personal identity? The question is that simple. Either the communicating
God always fully expresses all things about Himself from eternity or
He never will. The Eternal One cannot start expressing all His
glory in the midst of time. To declare eternal glory it is necessary
to express it from eternity. If not there is a permanent
limitation of nature. It would be the unthinkable proposition of a God who is
forever unable to express all His unlimited glory. Thus the Word of the God
of Israel must be all the eternal splendor of God, including self-sustaining
personal identity. The Word was with God and the Word was God. There
can never be division or rivalry, the Word always expresses only that which
is of the nature of the Father who speaks. God is echad (one). The
glorious Father eternally generates the exactness of His essence, His
Expression, His Son.
If the God of Israel does eternally express all
things about Himself, Israel
also knows He has lowered Himself to speak in humans terms, like a father
speaks to his young son. Not even the greatest prophet climbs to the heights
of infinite communication. God must limit Himself to speak with us,
even as it is written,
4.
The
LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens.
5.
Who
is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high,
6.
Who
humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the
earth! Psalm 113:4-6. (KJV)
The God of Israel humbles (Heb. mashpil)
Himself to express His concern with His creation. This fact is clearly seen
in the three Visitors who came to Abraham where all three ate a meal.
Abraham was asked, “Is anything too hard for the LORD.” All three got
up to leave and Abraham was told the LORD was going to inspect Sodom
and Gomorrah to destroy them if
the out-cry was true. Abraham interceded with the LORD for the sake of the
cities, the LORD left Abraham and two angels entered Sodom
(Genesis 18:1-19:1). The face value of the text says the LORD limited Himself
and came to Abraham in the form of a Man and ate a meal.
God called to Moses from the midst of the bush, “I
am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob.” Moses turned his face, for he was afraid to look at God, Exodus
3:4-6. In the very next verse God says of Israel’s
suffering, “For I know (yada’ti) their sorrows.” The Hebrew indicates
He fully knows the sorrow of His suffering creatures, and that
is the heart of the message of the Good News. The “Arm of the LORD” was a
“Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” Isaiah 53:1,3. The Word of God
was limited to flesh and expressed infinitely deep pangs of sorrow, since God
knows the atrocity of human rebellion in this world. The Word
expressed God’s boundless woe over sin in a way humans could comprehend:
whipped back, beaten head, thorny crown, humiliating nakedness, splintery
wood, pierced hands and feet, vinegar to drink, agonizing death.
Long before that sacred revelation in Jerusalem God
proclaimed to Moses the name of the LORD, making all His infinite goodness (cal
tuv) pass before him (Exodus 33:19). God declared; The LORD, The
LORD, GOD, (Exodus 34:6), three divine names for three infinite
Persons, in the "name" of the Living God of Israel, and revealed
through Messiah as the Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Far from being an
alien concept to Judaism, Messiah’s phrase of the Father and Son and Holy
Spirit readily conforms to Biblical ideas. This brief survey of the Jewish
heart of the New Covenant cannot be “brushed away with a straw.”
The Christian world, in general, long ago concluded
Messiah ordered a new water ritual in Matthew 29:19. The verse is taken as
the basis for water baptism by many in Christendom. Some modern critics deny
the authenticity of the passage,1
while others see it expressing the goal of fellowship with the living God.
The last idea would correspond well with the context of King Messiah
commanding Jewish apostles to go beyond the borders of Israel
to make disciples from all defiled nations of the world and to purify them,
teaching them the truth of Israel’s
God.
The Commission takes about thirty seconds to read.
While these may be the actual words of the Lord, we know from other passages
that He spent more time with His disciples after the resurrection. In fact
here the Lord said “teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded
you” without elaborating on His commandments. He expected His apostles to
know them. Matthew is giving the high points of Messiah’s instructions as the
capstone of his story and he may have written them in his own words, a
perfectly legitimate practice. Some exegetes suggest the Commission actually
provides the basis for the entire story of Matthew. The resurrected Yeshua is
Lord of Heaven and earth, therefore Matthew will declare His story.
We must not miss the fact that Messiah commissioned
His Jewish apostles. At the time of writing it included no one other than the
eleven. It is also helpful to realize that certain features of the Commission
parallel the developing Rabbinical creed. The opening verses of Pirke Avot,
Sayings of the Fathers, establish the authority of the oral and
written Torah for Rabbinical Judaism, and give command to “make disciples.”
This is comparable with the Great Commission’s chain of authority of Messiah
to Jewish apostles who pass on traditions about Him, and who are also to
“make disciples.”
Pirke Avot says, “Moses received the Torah
from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua....” He received it from the Lord of
Heaven and earth on the mount of revelation in Sinai and passed it on to his
apostle Joshua. In a similar way Messiah Himself is Lord of Heaven and
earth and transmitted His command to His apostles on the mount of New
Covenant revelation in Israel.
As noted above, God declared His name to Moses, “the LORD, the LORD, God.”
The Son of God, Yeshua, declared the name of God to His disciples, the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Both the Pharisees (from whom Rabbinical
tradition developed) and the apostles of Yeshua promoted versions of
“prophetic” Judaism that were in direct competition with the priestly
Sadducean hierarchy that claimed jurisdiction over Jewish worship in Jerusalem.
Matthew wrote his work from within the Jewish
culture. He concluded his story by revealing the authority vested in the
eleven apostles, and then why the Good News had gone beyond the confines of
the nation. The risen Messiah is not just King of Israel, He is Lord of all
creation. That is why He sent Jewish apostles to go to all nations. But we
know the apostles did not take the Good News to the nations for a long time.
Some ten years after Messiah’s resurrection Cornelius had to fetch a Jewish
apostle to be saved. That astounding event jolted Peter’s mind and he finally
understood something about baptism that Messiah had said years earlier.
In a similar way, we must keep in mind that the
Commission in Matthew was written years after Peter remembered Messiah’s word
of Acts 1:5. No doubt the apostles slowly remembered many things, and
eventually their thoughts were collected into the four gospels. Such being
the case, it is impossible to make Matthew’s Commission the basis for water
baptism as recorded in the early chapters of Acts--where gentiles were
avoided--because Matthew explicitly says, “make disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them.” In other words, for whatever reason the early Jewish
apostles baptized with water in Acts, this verse was not in their mind. They
were not going to the nations, not until Acts 10, and that was years before
Matthew was written. On top of that, the premier Jewish apostle to the
nations, Paul, who was specially selected and sent by Messiah, said the Lord
had not even sent him to baptize, 1 Corinthians 1, and this forces us to reconsider
the usual interpretation of baptizing in Matthew 28:19.
Critics have long pointed out that no water baptism
in New Covenant Scripture is ever found in such a form as Matthew 28:19.
Indeed those who date Matthew late say this verse was written to justify
Christian ritual practices which had arisen quite a bit later. Others counter
that Matthew may not be speaking of a ritual formula at all, but that after publication practices
arose from a misunderstanding of what had been written.
“The objection
that the Gospel containing this phrase cannot be early, because it conflicts
with the custom of the early Palestinian Church, which baptized in or into
the name of Christ, rest upon the false assumption that the editor intended
to represent Christ as prescribing the formula which should be used at
baptism. The words rather mean baptizing them into the fellowship of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and describe, not the formula
to be used at baptism, but the end and aim which would be secured in and
through baptism. The editor may well have written these words at a period
when it was customary to baptize in or into the name of Christ, without at
all wishing to represent Christ as having prescribed a fuller formula, but
simply the intention of summing up the end and aim of the Christian life into
which the convert entered at baptism.”2
Most importantly, on two other occasions Messiah is
recorded using baptize and baptism to speak of tremendous influence with no
connection to water rituals.3
There is plenty of warning that something far beyond water is meant in
Matthew. In this Commission baptize does not signify a one-time ritual act.
Instead, defiled pagans were to be permanently purified from their
wicked ways, including idol worship, by a true knowledge of Israel’s
God. Remember also that Yeshua taught in ways which required spiritual
discernment. “Beware and take heed of the leaven of the Pharisees and the
Sadducees.” When the disciples thought He was talking about bread He rebuked
them.
“‘O you of little faith! Why do you reason among
yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not see nor understand? Are
your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to
hear? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand and how many
basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand and how
many basketfuls you gathered? How is it you do not understand that I was not
talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the leaven of the
Pharisees and the Sadducees.’ Then they understood that he was not telling
them to guard against the leaven used in bread, but against the teaching of
the Pharisees and Sadducees.” (Amalgamation of Matthew 16:5-12, Mark 8:14-21.)
Here the Lord was completely misunderstood, not by
enemies, but by His closest disciples who had followed Him for several years.
They could not see beyond the physical realm. Their hearts were dull and slow
to hear His profound warning and, through lack of discernment, the entire
point was missed. This powerful example compels us to carefully discern the
command for Jewish apostles to baptize the nations.
If the “bread,” the teaching, of Pharisees and
Sadducees was dangerous and to be avoided, could Jewish apostles teaching the
truth of God baptize--transform--disciples in a wonderful, positive way? We
may certainly answer yes. Today the Lord is asking, “How is it you do not
understand I was not talking to you about water?”
New believers from the nations were never obligated
to be “water” baptized. Instead Jewish apostles were obligated to “wash
clean” new believers with the truth of God. We must keep in mind that not
long before the Commission was given the disciples were told that Messiah’s
words had cleansed them, John 15:3. They had been washed by His words
which were spirit and life, John 6:63. So it is with Paul, the bride is cleansed
with a washing, not of physical water but of the word, Ephesians
5:26.
Consider the following comments which elevate our
understanding of the Lord’s words. Plummer suggested on page 433 of his Gospel
According to S. Matthew, that Messiah’s command may not speak of a
formula for water baptism, but that;
“Our Lord may
be explaining what becoming a disciple really involves, it means no less than
entering into communion with, into vital relationship with the revealed
Persons of the Godhead.”
Simcox said on page 311 of his, The First Gospel;
“We are to
baptize all into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: into the
manifested nature, into the very life, of God, as God pours forth this life
through His Son. Baptism is infinitely more than an appropriate sacrament of
initiation into membership of the Church; it is the communication of the new
and eternal life which Christ has triumphantly brought into the world and
which he lovingly offers to all who will receive it. Once men have been
baptized into this new life, they are to be taught the simple but
revolutionary laws of Jesus by which this new life is to be lived out on
earth.”
J. K. Howard, on page 45 of his New Testament
Baptism said,
“The one who
is baptized, ‘into the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit,’ has entered the sphere of an entirely new relationship with God. He
knows God as Father in the unique way in which Christ the Son came to reveal
Him. Further, the knowledge of this revelation is made actual in real
experience by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.”
James W. Dale surveyed many commentators in
his Christic and Patristic Baptism and several believed Matthew 28:19 spoke
of something beyond water baptism. Page 441 contains a quote from Neander, p
197;
“We certainly cannot prove that, when Christ
commanded his disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Ghost He intended to establish a particular formula of baptism....He
wished to show the dependence of the whole life on the one God, who had
revealed himself through his Son, as the Father of fallen man, and who
imparts his Spirit to sanctify man, whom his Son has redeemed; as well as to
point to the true worship of God, as He had revealed himself through his Son,
in a heart sanctified by the Divine life, which is shed forth from him.”
Doubtless the above writers hold to the general
validity of a Christian water baptism. But their comments on this verse in
Matthew carry us far beyond the power of water to the realm of the Spirit of
God. In light of these comments it is quite reasonable to believe the Lord of
Heaven and earth did not command a new ritual in His Great Commission in
Matthew. Instead He sent Jewish apostles to purify the nations, to sanctify
them in a living relationship with God. Transformation of souls is His great
desire.
Mark 16:16
is another command from Messiah which has been taught to mean a water ritual.
But, as with Matthew 28, it outlines the necessity of being spiritually
transformed. “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” Simon
the sorcerer had believed and was water baptized, but Peter said he was full
of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity, Acts 8:20-23. He needed to be
spiritually purified, water had not saved him. Water is read into Mark 16:16
because of tradition. Nevertheless, here Messiah says everyone who believes
and is transformed shall be saved.
There are only four passages in the New Covenant
where the risen Messiah spoke of baptizing: Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:16, Acts 1:5, and Paul’s direct testimony
in 1 Corinthians 1:17, that though
he did baptize with water, Messiah had not sent him to baptize. These four
alone reveal His desire after the resurrection. In 1 Corinthians He did not
send His apostle to the nations to baptize with water. In Acts He contrasted
John’s water and the greater Spirit with no mention of another new
water baptism. The reliability of Mark 16:9-20 is questioned today, and the
form of the last baptism, Matthew 28, is unlike any water baptism in
the New Covenant. Matthew and Mark are the only places where it is remotely
possible to think a water rite was ever commanded by Messiah. The foundational
belief that the Lord ordered universal water baptism for the house of
Christendom has long been known to be based on a small amount of fragile
material! It evaporates in the light of day.
In this discussion a major question must be faced.
What possible sense does the Lord’s final instruction of Acts 1:5 make if
just days earlier, at the meeting in Matthew 28:19, He really had commanded a
new water baptism? Why then contrast John baptizing with water against being
baptized with the Spirit? If a new water baptism had been commanded there
would be no point in such a contrast because the new baptism would supersede
anything of the past and render John’s defunct, obsolete. Messiah should have
said something more like, “You will baptize with water, and I will baptize
with the Spirit” if he had really commanded water baptism. On the other hand
if water was not meant in Matthew and Mark, but instead transformation, then
the contrast of Acts 1:5 makes perfect sense. John’s was the only Messianic
water baptism there ever was and it was infinitely transcended, the Spirit is
now being poured out in New Covenant power. So although it goes against the
prevailing attitude of many centuries, it makes more sense to believe Messiah
never commanded water baptism. Instead He gave threefold instructions to His
disciples about transformation:
1.
To
be baptized with His outpoured Spirit, Acts 1:5.
2.
For
mature disciples to baptize new believers, transforming them with the truth
of God, Matthew 28:19.
3.
For
new believers to be baptized, letting their lives be completely changed, Mark
16:16.
This concept is highlighted by the fact that the
four gospels and Acts all contain the contrast of John baptizing with water,
Messiah with the Spirit. On the other hand Luke, John and Acts give no
indication of a new command after resurrection, while post-resurrection
baptismal passages in Matthew and Mark do not say water.
Messiah’s “High Priestly Prayer” of John 17
explains His understanding of the “name of God” and can be directly
compared to the “name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit” in the
Commission of Matthew 28.
“I have manifested Your name to the men whom
You have given Me out of the world.”
“Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom
You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.”
“While I was with them in the world I kept them in
Your name.
“O Righteous Father! The world has not known You,
but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have
declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with
which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them,” John 17:6, 11-12, 26.
This prayer says nothing of a formula for baptism.
Neither does it have anything to do with continually pronouncing the
tetragrammaton, yud-kay-vav-kay, the holy name of God that Jews will
not utter. Rather it is expressive of the presence of the Father.
Yeshua manifested the life of His Father and spoke of this life as His
Father’s name. That was the heart of His work on earth, to manifest
the name, the very essence of the life of His Father. He also prayed that His
disciples would also manifest this life,
“They are not
of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth;
Your word is truth. As You have sent Me into the world, I also have sent them
into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be
sanctified by the truth. I do not pray for these only, but also for those who
will believe in Me through their word, that they all may be one, as You
Father are in Me and I in you, that also they may be one in Us, that the
world may believe that You sent Me.” John 17:16-21.
Messiah envisioned His disciples manifesting the
name of His Father, that all might be one, even as the Father and Son are one.
All are to dwell in the life and truth of God, loving one another, even as
the Father loves the Son. Just as Messiah had been sent to manifest His
Father’s name, so He sent His disciples. This prayer in John contains a
commission every bit as important as Matthew 28, but with no sign of a water
ritual. The disciples were told of a living relationship--communion--with the
Father. Messiah said He would continue to declare this name of His Father to
His disciples, and if they live their lives in His name they too declare His
name by their lives.
Israel
had long been promised a revelation of God’s name in the Messianic
age.
"Therefore
my people shall know my name. Therefore in that day they shall know
that it is I who speak; here am I." Isaiah 52:6. (English Standard
Version)
This verse also correlates with the Commission of
Matthew 28. Certainly in Isaiah’s day the word that is God’s name was known
by Israel but
was not sanctified. The very names Isaiah and Jeremiah contain parts of God’s
name. Israel
knew the word but had limited awareness of His reality. But the prophet had
promised;
34 And no
longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know
the LORD,' for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the
greatest, declares the LORD. Jeremiah 31:33 (34) (English Standard Version)
The loving Father seeks fellowship with His
children. Neither does Messiah desire the situation of disciples who have
heard the name of God but do not know Him personally. Yet sadly enough, many
in traditional Christianity have heard the words Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
and have no relationship with God. Messiah knows everyone’s heart. He wants
to send mature disciples to bear the reality of the living God in their human
vessels, displaying His name to others so that they also might have
fellowship with God. Messiah seeks disciples who will walk in this world as
He walked, submitting their wills to the Father, and empowered by the Holy
Spirit.
Messiah Himself completely fulfilled all
requirements of the holy Torah given by Moses. But He is even greater than
the Torah. He transcends it with the Torah of the Spirit of Life. He works in
us in a new and living way as a great High Priest for His disciples. In this
light we consider the commandment,
“Thou shalt
not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not
hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.” Exodus 20:7 (KJV)
This holy command prohibits bearing the name of the
LORD in a way which associates it with things contrary to His righteous, holy
nature. It is a restriction placed on man in its sinful, powerless state, a
fallen humanity at enmity with God. Messiah transcends the need for this
prohibitive command by the awesome power exuding from His divine life. When a
disciple has truly received the Spirit of Messiah, and is led by the Spirit,
he lives moment by moment in a new life. He abides in a new nature which
fulfills and ever transcends the requirements of the Torah. The new heart, regenerated
into the image of the Son of God, will not allow them to take the name of the
LORD in vain. No, infinitely beyond that, this new heart will glorify the
name of the LORD in the world.
When a disciple rightly glorifies the name of the
LORD he radically affects the hearts of others. Those who are receptive are baptized
with the name of the living God. Messiah’s command for mature disciples to
baptize new disciples in the name of God reveals the power He gave them to
glorify the name of the LORD with their new lives. Messiah was concerned that
the life of God be manifested through His disciples, with the hope that one
day “God may be all in all,” 1 Corinthians 15:28.
Paul continually warned disciples from the nations
not to be yoked to the Law by outward commandments of men.4 If serious problems like these were
already occurring during Paul’s career, how much more after his death. A
water baptism, supposedly commanded by Messiah would be of utmost importance,
though Paul previously had flatly refuted such an idea in 1 Corinthians
1:13-17. Paul’s epistles and the rest of Scripture were already being twisted
in his lifetime, 2 Peter 3:16.
Writings exist today to show that by the beginning
of the second century, only about forty years after the deaths of Paul and
Peter, water baptism was deemed by many as the pivotal event for eternal
salvation. It was not merely a sign of salvation.5 As decades passed more and more error found place in
the minds of believers. Instead of understanding the end-time Messianic water
baptism as an element of Jewish ritual practice, it was assumed a superior
water baptism commanded by Messiah provided ultimate purification before God.
The glorious insights of sharing resurrection life became clouded as water
baptism overshadowed the experience of Messiah baptizing with His Holy
Spirit.
We now turn to Shaul, Paul the apostle, sent
specifically to the nations, to consider his teachings about baptism.
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