Go Ye Therefore

The Body

This closing commission Jesus gives is explicitly outward, go, all nations, not merely inward maintenance of an existing, gathered community. Whatever genuine gathering, sharpening, and mutual ministry this book’s first two movements have described, all of it was always aimed, ultimately, at this outward sending, not merely at internal community health alone.

Notice the comprehensive scope: teach, baptize, teach them to observe all things. This is not a narrow, single-task commission, but a full, ongoing discipleship process, initial proclamation followed by genuine, sustained teaching toward observing all things Christ commanded, a lifelong process, not a single completed transaction.

Notice also the closing promise: lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. This commission is not given to be carried out in unaided human strength. It is accompanied by Christ’s own continuing presence, alway, through the whole span of this ongoing, outward- facing work, however long it actually takes.

Whatever your own community’s outward mission currently looks like, consider today how the gathering and sharpening this book has already described are meant to actually serve this larger, outward commission, not remain merely internal, but genuinely sent, go ye therefore, toward all nations, with Christ’s own continuing presence promised alongside.