Bibelkommentare

Matthew 28:18-20. he final commission.

Matthew 28:18. προσελθὼν, approaching; the speech of Jesus is majestic, but His bearing is friendly, meant to set them free from doubt and fear.—ἐλάλησε: this may seem a word not sufficiently dignified for the communication made. But it is often used, especially in Hebrews, in reference to divine revelations (vide, e.g., chap. Matthew 1:1).—ἐδόθη μοι, there was given to me; the aorist as in Matthew 11:27, the thought of which earlier text this utterance reiterates and amplifies. The reference may be to the resurrection, and the meaning that that event ipso facto placed Jesus in a position of power. Cf. Romans 1:4.—πᾶσα ἐξουσία, every form of authority; command of all means necessary for the advancement of the Kingdom of God.—ἐν οὐρανῷ: this points to session on His celestial throne at the right hand of God. Jesus speaks as one already in heaven. There is no account of the ascension in Mt. It is conceived as involved in the resurrection.—ἐπὶ γῆς: upon earth, the whole earth. The two phrases together point to a universal cosmic dominion. But so far as earth is concerned, the dominion is only a matter of right or theory, a problem to be worked out. Hence what follows.

Matthew 28:19. πορευθέντες οὖν: the οὖν omitted in many texts aptly expresses the connection. The commission to the Apostles arises out of the power claimed = all power has been given to me on earth, go ye therefore, and make the power a reality.—μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη: make disciples (act., cf. at Matthew 27:57) of all the nations (cf. Matthew 10:5, “go not into the way of the Gentiles”).—βαπτίσαντες: baptism the condition of discipleship = make disciples by baptising; the sole condition, circumcision, and everything particularistic or Judaistic tacitly negatived. Christian baptism referred to here only in this Gospel.—αὐτοὺς refers to ἔθνη, a constr. ad sensum, as in Acts 15:17; Romans 2:14. In the anabaptist controversy αὐτοὺς was taken by the opponents of infant baptism as referring to μαθητὰς in μαθητεύσατε, and the verb was held to mean “teach”. For some references to this extinct controversy vide Wetstein, ad loc., and Hermann’s Viger, p. 61.—εἰς τὸ ὄνομα, into the name, i.e., as confessing the name which embodies the essence of the Christian creed.—τοῦ πατρὸς, etc.: it is the name not of one but of three, forming a baptismal Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It is not said into the names of, etc., nor into the name of the Father, and the name of the Son, and the name of the Holy Ghost.—Hence might be deduced the idea of a Trinity constituting at the same time a Divine Unity. But this would probably be reading more into the words han was intended.

Matthew 28:20. διδάσκοντες α., teaching them, present participle, implying that Christian instruction is to be a continuous process, not subordinate to and preparing for baptism, but continuing after baptism with a view to enabling disciples to walk worthily of their vocation.—τηρεῖν: the teaching is with a view not to gnosis but to practice; the aim not orthodox opinion but right living.—πάντα ὅσα ἐνετειλάμην ὑμῖν: the materials of instruction are to be Christ’s own teaching. This points to the desirableness for the Church’s use of an oral or written tradition of Christ’s words: these to be the rule of faith and practice.—καὶ ἰδοὺ, introducing an important promise to the missionaries of the new universal religion to keep them in courage and good hope amid all difficulties.—ἐγὼ μεθʼ ὑμῶν, I the Risen, Exalted, All-powerful One, with you my apostles and representatives engaged in the heroic task of propagating the faith.—εἰμὶ, am, not will be, conveying the feeling of certainty, but also spoken from the eternal point of view, sub specie aeternitatis, for which distinctions of here and there, now and then, do not exist. Cf. John 8:58, “before Abraham was I am”. In the Fourth Gospel the categories of the Absolute and the Eternal dominate throughout.—πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας, all the days, of which, it is implied, there may be many; the vista of the future is lengthening.—ἕως τῆς συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος, until the close of the current age, when He is to come again; an event, however, not indispensable for the comfort of men who are to enjoy an uninterrupted spiritual presence.

This great final word of Jesus is worthy of the Speaker and of the situation. Perhaps it is not to be taken as an exact report of what Jesus said to His disciples at a certain time and place. In it the real and the ideal seem to be blended; what Jesus said there and then with what the Church of the apostolic age had gradually come to regard as the will of their Risen Lord, with growing clearness as the years advanced, with perfect clearness after Israel’s crisis bad come. We find here (1) a cosmic significance assigned to Christ (all power in heaven and on earth); (2) an absolutely universal destination of the Gospel; (3) baptism as the rite of admission to discipleship; (4) a rudimentary baptismal Trinity; (5) a spiritual presence of Christ similar to that spoken of in the Fourth Gospel. To this measure of Christian enlightenment the Apostolic Church, as represented by our evangelist, had attained when he wrote his Gospel, probably after the destruction of Jerusalem. Therein is summed up the Church’s confession of faith conceived as uttered by the lips of the Risen One. “Expressly not as words of Jesus walking on the earth, but as words of Him who appeared from heaven, the evangelist here presents in summary form what the Christian community had come to recognise as the will and the promise of their exalted Lord” (Weiss-Meyer).