The Great Commission Can and Will be Completed
Few things are more exciting than the beginning stages of sharing the Gospel regularly. When you are in a community of brothers and sisters pursuing the same thing, it amplifies this feeling. Many of us for years have heard that we should share the Gospel – that is at the heart of the label “evangelical” – so it is a great joy to begin living that out rather than feeling bad about not sharing the Gospel. Along with that joy of doing something we’d always said we’d do is a renewed wonder at the Word of God. I remember being a middle schooler working through Proverbs and thinking, “Wow, there is some really good stuff in here!”
That’s pretty funny in hindsight, but you don’t know what you don’t know. I had a similar feeling in adulthood, reading the Gospels, when I realized, “Wow, this Jesus guy had some pretty amazing strategies as well.” Since then, as I’ve read Scripture, additional senses of awe and wonder have helped lock me into being a Great Commission Christian for life. One of the first dominoes to fall was realizing that the Great Commission can and will be completed.
In a number of churches, it is common to know Matthew 28:19 by heart:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
It was a revelation to me that the verse immediately before helps color and emphasize what Jesus is asking us to do. Essentially, I wasn’t asking what the “Therefore” was there for. Jesus told His disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth” had been given to Him, and He followed that with the well-known command. Clearly, this is not optional for His disciples and Church. He is our commanding officer, and this was His last command to us. He is the King of the world, and we would be rejecting His authority if we ignored this or were flippant about it. However, for the evangelical, this is simply an amplified version of what we already know. We are supposed to preach the Gospel to the lost.
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).
This was my gateway verse. Plain as day, in the Bible, there is an answer to when Jesus will come back. Expectedly, it is not given in years or months. It had nothing to do with Y2K, and it isn’t connected to the Mayan Calendar. When the Gospel of what Jesus has done for us has been preached in every nation (every ethnic group), then the end will come. Depending on your eschatology, you might interpret that verse differently, so for good measure let’s look at another.
In Luke 24:47, we see that:
“Repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”
If the Gospel will be preached to all nations (again, ethnicities), and the best data that we as the global body of Christ have assessed says some of those ethnicities have less than 1% or less than 0.5% born-again believers, then it is not a stretch to say that they haven’t really heard about forgiveness of sins. For example, surely Jesus didn’t want missionaries landing on foreign shores with their feet still in the sand, shouting, “Jesus is Lord,” hoping that someone heard and understood. No doubt, this is an extreme example, but it can be used to pull out a principle. If a nation hasn’t effectively heard, then the Gospel has not yet been effectively preached to them.
Jesus said that all nations would have this message preached to them, and it hasn’t happened yet. If you follow the logic, then this will happen before Jesus’s return – it is only a matter of time. This clarifies that the Great Commission is not an ethereal thing with an undefined endpoint. In fact, the direction the Lord has given us is extremely clear. We are to work toward a defined endpoint: all nations effectively hearing the Good News. And based on the current global status of the Great Commission, we have a lot of work to do.
One might ask, “How do we know that the work already done has not been enough?” This question can come in many different forms. Isn’t the internet enough? How do we know the verses don’t just mean a lot of nations generally instead of all nations specifically? Why do we need more than a small percentage? The general question is valid at its face value because we do use a few of man’s definitions and man’s judgment to define the status of the remaining task. You won’t find me saying that Jesus can’t come back at any moment because of what has been plugged into man-made websites.
In Mark 13, Jesus makes a statement that I believe is for all people at all future times regarding the day and hour of His return:
“Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”
There is no doubt we should be acting like our Master might return at any moment, but I will remind you that our Master told us to go and make disciples of all ethnic groups, and I intend for Him to find me doing so when He returns or until He calls me home. To answer the question of if we’ve done enough, let’s look ahead to the end. In Revelation 7:9, John saw…
“a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
In Revelation 5:9-10, a song to the Lamb is sung with similar language. Here are some of the lyrics:
“with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”
Not only will there be people from every tribe, tongue, and nation in heaven, but they also serve as priests and reign on the earth. That’s a strong clue there. If we don’t see the nations serving the Lord and worshiping Jesus on the earth, then we have not yet reached the end.
Imagine the trumpet sounding right now, the dead rising, and us instantly meeting the Lord in the air, our bodies being transformed and made new in a flash. Then imagine that we kick off the eternal state in Heaven with a party and start singing our songs. The English and French and Spanish and Greek singers can be heard quite loudly and quite clearly. Some African languages can be heard as well.
But we listen further and start to wonder, “Where are the Japanese? Where are the Bengalis? Where are the Egyptians, Libyans, and Turks?” Their songs are not there because they are not there. This is a version of heaven that cannot exist, because Jesus bought people from each of these tribes and languages and peoples and nations. He is going to get all of the glory that He deserves! To the best of our knowledge, that day is not today, but one day it will come – still surprising us in His timing. What a glorious surprise that will be because not only will His Bride have completed the task, but also because we will meet Him face to face and enjoy Him forever.
If you’ve followed my argument so far, you might be thinking to yourself, “What should I do next?” Please know that you do not have to go far to take part in this Great Commission. Yes, there is a special case to be made for the unreached, those nations who have never really heard, but as a simple reminder, you are a part of a nation. In America, there are a number of different ethnicities in one country, but even reaching your own people further or reviving them as a whole with the Gospel is a worthy endeavor. Not all of us need to get on a plane and go to foreign lands and peoples. Some of us do.
For now, let your neighbors, family, and friends (and even strangers) be your mission field. If you do go one day, you will be much better equipped to serve the unreached and bring more nations into the Kingdom. Let us pursue the end of the Great Commission because our Master commanded us, and because we are thankful for our names being written in Heaven, and because Jesus deserves even more glory. The Wedding Supper of the Lamb is coming. The full Bride is still getting ready, and there is much to do until we are done. Let’s get to work!