_THE GOSPEL FOR ALL THE NATIONS THROUGH "ALL THE DAYS."_
MATT. xxviii. 16-20.
This brief concluding passage is all St. Matthew gives us of the
thirty-nine days which followed the Resurrection and preceded the
Ascension. It would seem as if he fully realised that the
manifestations of these days belonged rather to the heavenly than to
the earthly work of Jesus, and that therefore, properly speaking, they
did not fall within his province. It was necessary that he should bear
witness to the fact of the Resurrection, and that he should clearly
set forth the authority under which the first preachers of the gospel
acted. Having accomplished both, he rests from his long labour of love.
That the commission of the eleven was not restricted to this
particular time and place is evident from notices in the other Gospels
(Mark xvi. 15; Luke xxiv. 48; John xx. 21-23, xxi. 15-17); but we can
see many reasons why this occasion was preferred to all others. We
have already seen how natural it was that St. Matthew should call the
attention of his readers to the appearances of the risen Lord in
Galilee rather than to those in Jerusalem and its vicinity; and the
more we think of it, the more do we see the appropriateness of his
singling out this one in particular. It was the only formally
appointed meeting of the Lord with His disciples. In every other case
He came unannounced and unexpected; but for this meeting there had
been a distinct and definite appointment.
This consideration is one of many which render it probable that this
was the occasion referred to by St. Paul when our Lord was seen by
above five hundred brethren at once; for on the one hand there was
nothing but a definite appointment that would bring so large a company
together at any one point, and on the other hand, when such an
appointment was made, it is altogether natural to suppose that the
news of it would spread far and wide, and bring together, not the
eleven only, but disciples from all parts of the land, and especially
from Galilee, where the greater number of them would no doubt reside.
That St. Matthew mentions only the eleven may be accounted for by the
object he has in view--viz., to exhibit their apostolic credentials;
but even in his brief narrative there is one statement which is most
easily understood on the supposition that a considerable number were
present. "Some doubted," he says. This would seem altogether natural
on the part of those to whom this was the only appearance; whereas it
is difficult to suppose that any of the eleven could doubt after what
they had seen and heard at Jerusalem.
In any case, the doubts were only temporary, and were in all
probability connected with the mode of His manifestation. As on other
occasions, of which particulars are given in other Gospels, the Lord
would suddenly appear to the assembled company; and we can well
understand how, when first His form was seen, He should not be
recognised by all; so that, while all would be solemnised, and bow in
adoration, some might not be altogether free from doubt. But the
doubts would disappear as soon as "He opened His mouth and taught
them," as of old. To make these doubts, as some do, a reason for
discrediting the testimony of all is surely the very height of
perversity. All the disciples were doubters at the first. But they
were all convinced in the end. And the very fact that it was so hard
to convince them, when they were first confronted with so unexpected
an event as the Lord's appearing to them after His death, gives
largely increased value to their unfaltering certainty ever
afterwards, through all the persecution and sufferings, even unto
death, to which their preaching the fact of the Resurrection exposed
them.
As Galilee was the most convenient place[37] for a large public
gathering of disciples, so a mountain was the most convenient spot,
not only because of its seclusion, but because it would give the best
opportunity for all to see and hear. What mountain it was we can only
conjecture. Perhaps it was the mount on which the great Sermon was
delivered which gave the first outline sketch of the kingdom now to be
formally established; perhaps it was the mount which had already been
honoured as the scene of the Transfiguration; but wherever it was, the
associations with the former mountain scenes in Galilee would be fresh
and strong in the disciples' minds.
The choice of a mountain in the north was moreover suitable as
signalising the setting aside of Mount Zion and Jerusalem as the seat
of empire. From this point of view we can see still another reason why
St. Matthew, the Evangelist for the Jew, should mention the formal
inauguration of the new kingdom in the north. The rejection of the
Messiah by His own people had gone very deeply to the heart of the
author of this Gospel. He certainly never obtrudes his feelings, even
when they are strongest, as is most strikingly apparent in his calm
record of the Passion itself; but there are many things which show how
keenly he felt on this point. Recall how he tells us on the one hand
that "Herod the king was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him," when
the report was spread abroad that the Christ was born in Bethlehem,
and on the other that the wise men from the East "rejoiced with
exceeding great joy." Remember how he speaks of "Galilee of the
Gentiles" as rejoicing in the great light which had been unnoticed or
unwelcome in Jerusalem, and how he calls special attention to "the
coasts of Cæsarea Philippi," the utmost corner of the land, as the
place where the Church was founded. And now, having recorded the
Lord's final and formal entry into the ancient capital to claim the
throne of David, only to be despised and rejected, mocked and scourged
and crucified, it is natural that, as the Evangelist for the Jew, he
should pass away from what he often fondly calls "the holy City,"[38]
but which is now to him an accursed place, to those calm regions of
the north which were associated in his mind with the first shining of
the light, with so many words of wisdom spoken by the Lord, with the
doing of most of His mighty deeds, with the founding of the Church,
and with the glory of the Transfiguration.
The words of the Lord on this last occasion are worthy of all that has
gone before. Let all doubters ponder well the significance of this.
Suppose for a moment that the story of the Resurrection had been only
"the passion of a hallucinated woman," as Renan puts it, and then
consider the position. No one of course denies that up to the moment
of death there was a veritable Jesus, whose sayings and doings
supplied the material for the history; but now that the hero is dead
and gone, where are the materials? The fishermen and publicans are on
their own resources now. They have to make everything out of nothing.
Surely, therefore, there must be now a swift descent; no more of those
noble utterances to which we have been accustomed hitherto--only
inventions of the poor publican now. No more breadth of view--only
Jewish narrowness now. It was about this very time that the disciples
asked, "Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"
Suppose, then, these men obliged themselves to invent a Great
Commission, how narrow and provincial will it be!
Is there, then, such a swift descent? Are not the reported words of
the risen Lord--not in this Gospel merely, but in all the Gospels--as
noble, as impressive, as divine as any that have been preserved to us,
from the years of His life in the flesh? Search through this Gospel,
and say if there can be found anywhere an utterance that has more of
the King in it, that is more absolutely free from all Jewish
narrowness and from all human feebleness, than this Great Commission
which forms its magnificent close. It is very plain that these simple
artists have their subject still before them. Manifestly they are not
drawing from imagination, but telling what they heard and saw.
* * * * *
There is an unapproachable majesty in the words which makes one shrink
from touching them. They seem to rise before us like a great mountain
which it would be presumption to attempt to scale. What a mighty range
they take, up to heaven, out to all the earth, down to the end of
time!--and all so calm, so simple, so strong, so sure. If, as He
finished the Sermon on the Mount, the multitude were astonished, much
more must these have been astonished who first listened to this
amazing proclamation.
"All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth" (R.V.).
What words are these to come from One Who has just been put to death
for claiming to be the king of the Jews! King of kings and Lord of
lords is the title now He claims. And yet it is as Son of man He
speaks. He does not speak as God, and say, "All authority is Mine": He
speaks as the man Christ Jesus, saying, "All authority has been given
unto Me"--given as the purchase of His pain: authority in heaven, as
Priest with God--authority on earth, as King of men.
Having thus laid broad and deep and strong the foundations of the new
kingdom, He sends the heralds forth: "Go ye therefore, and make
disciples of all the nations, baptising them into the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I commanded you" (R.V.). These are simple words
and very familiar now, and a distinct effort is needed to realise how
extraordinary they are, as spoken then and there to that little
company. "All nations" are to be discipled and brought under His
sway,--such is the commission; and to whom is it given? Not to
Imperial Cæsar, with his legions at command and the civilised world at
his feet; not to a company of intellectual giants, who by the sheer
force of genius might turn the world upside down; but to these
obscure Galileans of whom Cæsar has never heard, not one of whose
names has ever been pronounced in the Roman Senate, who have excited
no wonder either for intellect or learning even in the villages and
country-sides from which they come,--it is to these that the great
commission is given to bring the world to the feet of the crucified
Nazarene. Imagine a nineteenth-century critic there, and listening. He
would not have said a word. It would have been beneath his notice. A
curl of the lip would have been all the recognition he would have
deigned to give. Yes, how ludicrous it seems in the light of reason!
But in the light of history is it not sublime?
The hidden power lay in the conjunction: "Go ye _therefore_." It
would have been the height of folly to have gone on such an errand in
their own strength; but why should they hesitate to go in the name and
at the bidding of One to Whom all authority had been given in heaven
and on earth? Yet the power is not delegated to them. It remains, and
must remain with Him. It is not, "All authority is given _unto
you_." They must keep in closest touch with Him, wherever they go
on this extraordinary mission. How this may be will presently appear.
The two branches into which the commission divides--"Baptising them
into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,"
"Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded
you"--correspond to the twofold authority on which it is based. By
virtue of His authority in heaven, He authorises His ambassadors to
baptise people of all nations who shall become His disciples "into the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." Thus would
they be acknowledged as children of the great family of God, accepted
by the Father as washed from sin through the blood of Jesus Christ His
Son, and sanctified by the grace of His Holy Spirit--the sum of saving
truth suggested in a single line. In the same way, by virtue of His
authority on earth, He authorises His disciples to publish His
commands so as to secure the obedience of all the nations, and yet not
of constraint, but willingly, "teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you."
Easily said; but how shall it be done? We can imagine the feeling of
bewilderment and helplessness with which the disciples would listen to
their marching orders, until all was changed by the simple and sublime
assurance at the close: "And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the
end of the world." This assurance is perhaps the strangest part of
all, as given to a company, however small, who were to be scattered
abroad in different directions, and who were commissioned to go to the
very ends of the earth. How could it be fulfilled? There is nothing in
St. Matthew's narrative to explain the difficulty. We know, indeed,
from other sources what explains it. It is the Ascension--the return
of the King to the heaven whence He came, to resume His omnipresent
glory, by virtue of which alone He can fulfil the promise He has made.
This brings us to a question of considerable importance: Why is it
that St. Matthew gives no record of the Ascension, and does not even
hint what became of the risen Christ after this last recorded
interview with His disciples? It seems to us that a sufficient reason
is found in the object which St. Matthew had in view, which was to set
forth the establishment of the kingdom of Christ upon earth as
foretold by the prophets and expected by the saints of old; and
inasmuch as it is Christ's kingdom on earth which he has mainly in
view, he does not call special attention to His return to heaven, but
rather to that earthly fact which was the glorious result of it--viz.,
His abiding presence with His people on the earth. Had he finished his
Gospel with the Ascension, the last impression left on the reader's
mind would have been of Christ in heaven at the right hand of God--a
glorious thought indeed, but not the one it was his special aim and
object to convey. But, concluding as he does, the last impression on
the reader's mind is of Christ abiding on the earth, and with all His
people even to the end of the world--a most cheering, comforting, and
stimulating thought. To the devout reader of this Gospel it is as if
his Lord had never left the earth at all, but had suddenly clothed
Himself with omnipresence, so that, however far apart His disciples
might be scattered in His service, each one of them might at any
moment see His face, and hear His voice of cheer, and feel His touch
of sympathy, and draw on His reserve of power. Thus was it made quite
plain, how they could keep in closest touch with Him to Whom was given
all authority in heaven and on earth.
After all, is it quite correct to say that St. Matthew omits the
Ascension? What was the Ascension? We think of it as a going up; but
that is to speak of it after the manner of men. In the kingdom of
heaven there is no geographical "up" or "down." The Ascension really
meant the laying aside of earthly limitations and the resumption of
divine glory with its omnipresence and eternity; and is not this
included in these closing words? May we not fancy one of these
doubting ones (ver. 17), who trembled in the presence of that Form in
which the Lord appeared to them upon the mount, recalling afterwards
the supreme moment when the words "Lo, I am with you," entered into
his soul, in language such as this:
"Then did the Form expand, expand--
I knew Him through the dread disguise,
As the whole God within His eyes
Embraced me"--
an embrace in which he remained, when the Form had vanished.
The Ascension is all in that wonderful "I am." It is not the first
time we have heard it. Among His last words in Capernaum, when the
Saviour was thinking of His Church in the ages to come, gathered
together in companies in all the lands where disciples should meet in
His name, the great thought takes Him for the moment out of the
limitations of His earthly life; it carries Him back, or rather lifts
Him up, to the eternal sphere from which He has come to earth, so that
He uses not the future of time, but the present of eternity: "_There
am I_ in the midst of them" (xviii. 20). A still more striking example
has been preserved by St. John. When on one occasion He spoke of
Abraham as seeing His day, the Jews interrupted Him with the question,
"Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?"
Recognising in this a challenge of His relation to that timeless,
dateless sphere from which He has come, He promptly replies, "Before
Abraham was,[39] _I am_." It is as if a foreigner, speaking perfectly
the language of the country of his adoption, were suddenly betrayed
into a form of expression which marked his origin.
That was a momentary relapse, as it were, into the language of
eternity; but this last "I am" marks a change in His relations to His
disciples: it is the note of the new dispensation of the Spirit. These
forty days were a transition time marked by special manifestations--not
wholly material as in the days of the Incarnation, nor wholly
spiritual as in the days after Pentecost; but on the borderland
between the two, so as to prepare the minds and hearts of the
disciples for the purely spiritual relation which was thenceforward to
be the rule. Whichever appearance was the last to any disciple would
be the Ascension to him. To very many in that large gathering this
would be the Saviour's last appearance. It was in all probability the
time when the great majority of the disciples bade farewell to the
Form of their risen Lord. May we not, then, call this the Ascension in
Galilee? And just as the parting on the Mount of Olives left as its
deepest impression the withdrawal of the man Christ Jesus, with the
promise of His return in like manner, so the parting on the mount in
Galilee left as its deepest impression not the withdrawal of the human
form, but the permanent abiding of the Divine Spirit--a portion of the
truth of the Ascension quite as important as the other, and even more
inspiring. No wonder that the great announcement which is to be the
Christian's title-deed, for all ages to come, of God's unspeakable
gift, should be introduced with a summons to adoring wonder: "_Lo_, I
am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."
The Gospel ends by removing from itself all limitations of time and
space extending the day of the Incarnation to "all the days,"
enlarging the Holy Land to embrace all lands. The times of the Son of
man are widened so as to embrace all times. The great name Immanuel
(i. 23) is now fulfilled for all the nations and for all the ages. For
what is this finished Gospel but the interpretation, full and clear at
last, of that great Name of the old covenant, the name Jehovah: "I
AM," "I AM THAT I AM" (Exod. iii. 14)? All of the Old Testament
revelation is gathered up in this final utterance, "I AM--with you";
and it has in it by anticipation all that will be included in that
last word of the risen Saviour: "I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning
and the End, the First and the Last" (Rev. xxii. 13).
This last sentence of the Gospel distinguishes the life of Jesus from
all other histories, biographies, or "remains." It is the one "Life"
in all literature. These years were not spent "as a tale that is
told." The Lord Jesus lives in His gospel, so that all who receive His
final promise may catch the light of His eye, feel the touch of His
hand, hear the tones of His voice, see for themselves, and become
acquainted with Him Whom to know is Life Eternal. Fresh and new, and
rich and strong, for "all the days," this Gospel is not the record of
a past, but the revelation of a present Saviour, of One Whose voice
sounds deep and clear across all storms of life: "Fear not: I am the
First and the Last: I am He that liveth _and was dead_; and
behold I AM ALIVE FOR EVERMORE."
[37] The number at Jerusalem at the time of the Ascension was only a
hundred and twenty (Acts i. 15).
[38] St. Matthew alone of the Evangelists uses this designation.
[39] The full significance of the original can scarcely be given in
English. The Greek language, rich in the vocabulary of philosophy, has
two verbs corresponding to our "to be," one indicating phenomenal, the
other absolute being. It is the former which is used of Abraham; the
latter is used by our Lord in speaking of Himself. There is,
therefore, more than a difference of tense.