Christians Are Missionaries

Introduction

My question in this essay is this: ‘how central or important is mission for every Christian person?’ In what sense is it important? Is there a group of people called missionaries whose vocation it is to bring the good news to the unevangelised, and a majority group who just get on with normal every day holiness? Is every Christian to give a portion of their time and effort to missions, like tithing? Is evangelism a temporary concern peculiar to the New Testament church? I will argue that the whole of Christian life is for mission- ‘domestic’ and ‘frontier’ missions. To this end I will look at a number of passages on God’s worldwide purposes, and a number of passages on the nature of our participation in His purposes.  I will leave out some important lines of biblical teaching, like that of King David, because, rather than being comprehensive, I merely want to present evidence for what I am arguing. In my conclusion I will suggest four ways of applying the principles which I think need special emphasis in our time and culture.

God’s Mission

Mission is sustained and shaped by theology. “You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy” (Leviticus 20:26). Be holy “for” I am holy. Our holiness is in accordance with God’s holiness, motivated by God’s holiness and created by God’s holiness. Our holiness is an extension of God’s holiness. We are sanctified by receiving God’s righteousness. Therefore, in order to say anything about the purpose or actions of Christian life, we must make sure it is upheld by the purpose and actions of God.

The Exodus

My first point is this: God’s reason for creation and redemption is to set His glory among the nations. That is, God’s intention to demonstrate his glory is behind all of history. In the Exodus story, this concept is the pivot on which all else turns. Chapter 7 starts to show this priority.

Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts. For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs. -7:11

This scene is polemical. That is, there is a debate being enacted. The magicians vie to defend the supremacy of the Pharaoh and the pantheon. The magicians’ serpents signified the Egyptian snake God, Apep the destroyer. Moses on the other side defends the name of Yahweh, the God of a tiny squalid nation. But Apep is decisively swallowed up by Moses’ staff. Apep the destroyer is destroyed. Pharaoh’s first assertion in the debate of final power is refuted.

This happens again and again, throughout this famous sequence. The plague of blood rebutted the Nile’s claim to power over life and fruitfulness. “The Nile River, the source of Egypt’s agricultural life, was revered as a god. Beginning with this plague the Lord’s superiority over the Egyptian pantheon of gods is demonstrated” (Reformation Study Bible on 7:19). What God was doing was overcoming his rivals. Apep should not be feared for his capacity to destroy- Yahweh should. The Nile should not be revered as the source of life and growth- Yahweh should. God the Great Missionary is de-constructing the dangerous delusion of idolatry so as to upholding Him as truly powerful.

In chapter 9 the statement of God’s self-glorification is found again

“‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth.” -9:13-14

What does this passage say is the reason for the deliverance of Israel? God’s people are not delivered so that they might be simply independent and unoppressed, but “that they might serve me”. Israel is rescued so that Israel might serve. Furthermore, why didn’t God just zap the Israelites out of Egypt? Why must God bring about so much pain and death? The answer is amazing: “…so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth”. Salvation is for servant-hood and judgement is for the proclamation of the knowledge of God. The former, as I will later argue, has an intimate relationship with the latter - the content of servant-hood is the subject of proclamation. The Egyptians, having been given ample opportunity to repent, are used for God’s worldwide renown. But this, as one might think, was not plan B. It is not that God tried really hard to save Pharaoh but His attempts were thwarted by Pharaoh’s fortress of a heart.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.” -10:1-2

God’s mission to Pharaoh, and Moses’ task was not to save Pharaoh, it was to evangelise. The task was to present Pharaoh with the opportunity to have safety and peace with God. His response just so happened to be already known, and in fact expressly ordained by God. This does not render the offer of peace empty or meaningless. If Pharaoh were to have acknowledged Yahweh and ‘let my people go’ then the plagues would not have continued and they would not have been destroyed at the Red Sea. But God decided that Pharaoh would willingly reject it (see also http://refractiontheology.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/do-we-have-free-will-if-god-is-in.html) and that they might ‘know’ that He is the Lord. How heavy the word ‘know’ has become. God decides to leave them to the mercy of the gods they have chosen. So rejection of the gospel does not invoke plan B, but is an integral part of God’s master-plan to glorify Himself among the nations. This demonstrates a staggering truth: that mission is about something bigger than salvation. The missionary’s task reaches into both hell and heaven. He is to proclaim the glory of the Lord and the offer of reconciliation; acceptance produces saving knowledge, and rejection produces condemning knowledge. Both outcomes magnify the justice of God.

The main point I wanted to make from the Exodus story is exactly that of the Psalmist in Psalm 106.

“Our fathers, when they were in Egypt,

did not consider your wondrous works;

they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love,

but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.

Yet he saved them for his name's sake,

that he might make known his mighty power.” -Psalm 106:7-8

The Exodus is a key event in redemptive history, which means that its purpose is key to redemptive history. Its purpose was “to make known his mighty power”. Therefore,

salvation is for the knowledge of God.

There is bewilderment in that word ‘yet’ on the fifth line. It doesn’t make sense that they would forget His works of love, if His works of love were designed to magnify to them His works of love. They were set free so that they would be astonished that they are free, that they would have deep knowledge of God’s salvific power, and yet they grumble.

Ezekiel 39

Around 700 (probably) years after the Exodus, Ezekiel declares a prophecy that is beautifully harmonious with Moses’ emphasis on God’s demonstration of His glory to the nations.

“And I will send fire upon Magog and those who inhabit the coastlands in safety; and they will know that I am the Lord. “My holy name I will make known in the midst of My people Israel; and I will not let My holy name be profaned anymore. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel.” … “And I will set My glory among the nations; and all the nations will see My judgement which I have executed and My hand which I have laid on them. And the house of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God from that day onward.”  -Ezekiel 39:6-7, :21-23

Spurgeon said he loved the ‘I will’s and ‘I shall’s of scripture. There is no promise surer than when God says ‘I will’. As the aggressive Magog looms threateningly on the horizon, the Lord’s sweet and bitter promise is ironclad. “I will send fire”, ‘I will make known my holy name’, “I will not let my holy name be profaned” and “I will set my glory among the nations”. God’s set of concerns could not be clearer. God’s mission in human history is to glorify Himself. He achieves this through two means:  1. by making His holy name known in the midst of His people (v7) and 2. by executing judgement (v21). In the Exodus God was glorified by 1. The deliverance and servant-hood of Israel and 2. by judgement of proclamation to the unbelieving nations. Likewise, He is glorified twofold in Ezekiel – in Israel and in Magog. His dealings with both are so that

His glory is set among the nations.

Another thematic titan in Old Testament theology is Idolatry. The ‘Servant Songs’ in Isaiah teach us how God’s zeal for His glory is also the central concern for this theme. In particular, chapters 42, 44 and 49 show how God’s opposition to idols carries out His ultimate mission to spread the knowledge of Himself.

Isaiah 41-53

 “Behold, they are all a delusion;
Their works are nothing,
Their molten images are wind and emptiness.” -41:29 

This verse is packed with meaning. Four different Hebrew words are used to describe the folly of idols:

               -tohu (‘delusion’) means 1. non-existence, for example it is used to describe the formless deep over which the Spirit hovered in Genesis 1, and 2. confusion, like groundless arguments (e.g. Isaiah 29:21) or moral falsehood (e.g. Isaiah 40:17).

               -ephes (‘nothing’) simply means cessation, limitation or worthlessness

               -ruach (‘wind’) means spirit, or breath. The mantra in Ecclesiastes is that life is ruach (‘vanity’), that is, a wisp or a breath. Job says ‘my life is wind’ (Job 7:7). The idea is of a momentary, ineffectual little puff of air before death.

               -aven (‘emptiness’) has overtones of misery (e.g. Job 15:35), trouble that comes from iniquity (e.g. Proverbs 22:8) or wickedness, like of evil plots (e.g. Proverbs 6:18)

The point is that little replacement lords are deceitful, misleading and have no stable existence. They cannot make any real changes to our lives nor can they impact other nations. They cannot stop suffering, they cannot produce happiness, and most importantly, their ‘delusion’ and ‘emptiness’ consists in their inability to save (44:17). So the aim of all things - the knowledge of God’s glorious salvific power – is exchanged for incompetent images of animals. Knowledge is exchanged for lies so salvation is traded for death.

“Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold;
My chosen one in whom My soul delights.
I have put My Spirit upon Him;
He will bring forth judgement to the nations.” -42:1

The contrast is deliberate: idols are wretched and abhorrent, but ‘My Servant’ is delightful. Idols achieve nothing but confusion in their local followers, ‘My Servant’ achieves justice on an international scale.

The glaring question is ‘who does Isaiah mean by ‘My Servant’’? An answer that allows for the complexity here is important. Often, the phrase in Isaiah refers to Israel as a whole (e.g. 41:8) but the ‘my servant’ is also spoken of as if he is distinct from Israel. For example, ‘The Servant’ is “The Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One” (49:7). He achieves things that Israel has failed to, namely, bringing judgement (42:1) and salvation (49:6) to the ends of the earth. In chapter 42 the Servant is distinct from Israel, and although Hebrew verbs do not denote tense like English verbs, his actions are described in the imperfect aspect, that is, his actions are ongoing. Closure has not arrived, and in this case, some aspect of his work remains in the future.

               Therefore, The Servant is distinct from Israel and operating on a different timescale, but this does not mean they are separate. The close relationship between The Servant and Israel is just as significant and is built in to the structure and language of the text. Keeping our thumb in chapter 44, briefly looking at 49:3-6 elucidates this relationship. Isaiah fluidly switches between different uses of the designation ‘Servant’. That is, he is talking about Israel, and then himself and then the Servant in quick succession.  

Isaiah can only succeed if he is plugged into his power source- the work of the Servant, and Israel will only succeed if she plugged into her power source- Isaiah’s revelation of God. To put it another way, God is achieving His end of global self-glorification through the Servant who empowers Isaiah to raise up Jacob. This connection between the three subjects is possible because the concern is the same. Israel’s vocation is the same as Isaiah’s, whose vocation is the same as the Lord’s: the international fame of the Lord. This is really important for bridging the gap between God’s Mission and our mission. We are the servants of the servant (Isaiah) of the Servant.

Returning to chapter 42, the next verse in the passage is something that I would have left out if I were the writer, or at least put somewhere else. Is it not incongruous with the vast, glorious, authoritative truth of the previous verse?

“He will not cry out or raise His voice,

 Nor make His voice heard in the street

A bruised reed He will not break
And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish;
He will faithfully bring forth judgement.” -42:2-3

In contrast, for example, with the conqueror Cyrus who “tramples” on (41:25) and crushes the weak while shouting demands, God’s Chosen One is quiet and tender. “Calm in the sereneness of authority, strong in his far-reaching and pitying sympathy” (Ellicott’s commentary for English Readers). His name is Servant, and that is his character. Precise, intentional, supernatural meekness is an indispensable part of who he is. The man who ’publishes salvation’ (52:7) is the lamb who is ‘silent before its shearers’ (53:6). Would it not be right for God to crush the unfaithful nation in order to uphold justice? Surely this is just judgement requires? But instead of shouting orders and stamping out the insolent, he defers his anger so that they might not be cut off (48:9). He refrains from breaking the bruised reed. How is this possible if the requirements of just judgement must be met? He affords this opportunity to the arrogant adulterous world by taking on the bruises of the reed (ch53). The organic power relationship between the servants and the Servant, therefore is multi-directional. We can partake in God’s Mission only because the Servant partook in our iniquity. We fulfil our mission by taking His power and He fulfils His mission by taking our sin. In sum, God’s mission to glorify himself is brought further into light here: He is bringing it about through the sacrificial substitution of the Servant, who will achieve the task set for Israel by taking on their penalty for not achieving it, and therein enabling them to achieve it in him.

This description of his quiet, faithful execution of justice is followed by a description of the intent behind it.

“And I will appoint You as a covenant to the people,
As a light to the nations,
To open blind eyes,
To bring out prisoners from the dungeon
And those who dwell in darkness from the prison.” -42:6b-7

When the Servant comes, literal, physically blind eyes will of course be opened and literal prisoners will be set free, but this is not the point here. This would not accord with ‘a covenant to the people’, because a covenant is moral and theological. This and the context of idolatry makes it clear that the author is using two metaphors (blindness and imprisonment) to speak about spiritual reality. 44:17-18 says the idolaters cry out ‘deliver me’ to idols because ‘they cannot see’. That is, their hearts could not see the futility of their idol-worship. Their blindness meant mistaking inanimate objects for saviours, and so being imprisoned by falsehood and futility. On the other hand, it means mistaking saviours for frailty and fantasy.  The Servant is the antidote to this delusion. He destroys the cycle and opens eyes. He exposes the futility of idols by showing their incompetence, he shows their incompetence by showing his power, he shows his power by saving from idols, and he saves from idols by exposing their futility. God saves to show us His saving power and He shows us His saving power to save us.

What I want to glean from this is that the Servant’s substitution is central to God’s mission to magnify His glory in more than one way: He opens eyes to the light and he is the light which people behold, because he is God’s salvific power. He is the glory of God, the glory which the universe is designed to magnify. He is both the grounds and object of our faith.

Isaiah goes deeper into the end result of God’s salvation plan. 

“I am the Lord, that is My name;
I will not give My glory to another,
Nor My praise to graven images.
“Behold, the former things have come to pass,
Now I declare new things;
Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.”

Sing to the Lord a new song,
Sing His praise from the end of the earth! -44:8-10

Notice the progression from verse 8 to verse 10: I will not give my glory to idols (like in the past), I declare new things (now), let the nations sing (future). God is moving the world from idolatry to prophecy to the opposite of idolatry: singing. This sequence should be familiar to us because we saw it in chapter 44: the servants wandered into idolatry and the prophet brings them back to God through the future ministry of the Servant. Here we see that idolatry derogated from the praise of God’s glory, so He proclaims the glory of the future Servant, so that His praise might be sung from the ends of the earth. After so much lofty soteriology and anthropology, this is the imperative the writer gives to the nations, out of all he could have chosen. Having seen the idols’ affront to God’s honour and the Servant’s sacrifice, this is what he calls for: a song. The culmination of His work fuelled by His zeal for His glory is a song of praise from across the earth. If you are a Christian, everything that is behind your existence and supporting you is arranged in order to produce this world-wide song. But just as in Exodus, where deliverance produced not only servant-hood but also knowledge through judgement, 42:13 also makes it clear that God’s victory also consists in ‘showing Himself mighty against His foes’. Neither from His people, nor from His enemies will His glory be hidden.

Here is my conclusory statement on the foundation of missions in the Old Testament: idolatry, being an obstacle to achieving the aim of creation (the global knowledge of God), is overcome through the sacrifice of the servant, who is God’s glory and opens our eyes so we can participate in His work.

John 1

Matthew tells us that Christ’s work in 12:17 ‘fulfils’ Isaiah 42. Isaiah 42:1 clearly parallels Matthew 4:1. 

Both are beloved and both are Spirit-filled. The Servant is the Son. A familiar passage in John 1 makes the connection even richer. All three elements of God’s plan to achieve global renown that we identified in Isaiah 42 and 49 are in view. Verse 6 focuses on the prophet’s declaration, v7 on the Servant who opens eyes and v11 on Israel’s idolatry.

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him” John -1:6

John is not the light but his power comes from the light. His purposes are the same as the source of the light. The priority of God and the reason for John’s existence is to bring about the knowledge of God. He humbly ministers ‘that all might believe’. John is a signpost, which is why he must ‘decrease’. He exists to magnify the Father even if it means, like the Servant, losing his life.

“The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” 1:9

Isaiah’s prediction that the Servant would be a ‘light to the nations’ is confirmed. The word is a ‘light to everyone’. One meaning of ‘light’ is that it enables apprehension. If light floods into a room, we are enabled to recognise what is in the room. If God gives light to the heart, it is enabled to apprehend spiritual reality. It reveals the incompetency of idols to save and God’s great power to save. If the ‘true light’ (Jesus) floods the earth, every person has the opportunity to behold God’s glory. So John points to the light that enables sight, just like Isaiah pointed to the servant who ‘opens blind eyes’. But the light can only enable the sight of the world, if it ‘comes into the world’. The God-light leaves eternal triune habitation and enters a foreign land. This is the supreme example of Abraham’s obedience in leaving his home to bless the nations.

“He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” -1:11

The law and the prophets heralded and prepared for the Servant. So Israel, having had access to the law and the prophets should have ‘received’ the Servant, but they didn't. Consequently, God redefines the parameters of ‘Israel’. “His own people” in this passage, transitions to ‘all who believe’. The locus is spreading outwards. This leaves us with the question, if God’s people had access to the light because of the special benefit of Israel’s teachers and priests, how can the whole world have access to it?

“and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” -1:14

Just as the Servant was both God’s salvific power to open blind eyes and the object which the opened eyes beheld, the Word is the ‘glory of the father’, “full of grace and truth”. He is the gracious power of God which is glorified in salvation. He enables sight and is what is seen.

Jesus is not only the apex of God’s gracious ministry to glorify Himself, but He is the God that God is glorifying.

He is God gone public. He is the embodied Mission of God to bring about the knowledge of Himself. He is God’s message to the world. He is the means of achieving salvation and the purpose of salvation.

John 17

In Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17 he prays for the realisation of what John 1 announces.

“Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” John 17:1

Chapter 18 sees the beginning of Christ’s passion: his anguish in Gethsemane and willing arrest. The amount of space given by the author to the theologically-rich prayer in chapter 17 shows how important its contents are for our understanding of the passion. John wants this to be fresh in our minds when we read what follows because it helps us interpret it. 

There are two similarly viable readings of the phrase ‘glorify your Son’. One is that he is asking for recompense- to be vindicated when he is risen. But I think the context leads us to read it as more directly concerned with the cross. Isaiah shows us that the Servant’s sacrificial ministry is the salvific power of God which our eyes are opened to. Likewise, here I think Jesus is asking to have his sacrificial work at the cross glorified. The reason for this is ‘that Your Son may glorify You’. Showing the Son’s death as great and good shows God to be great and good. Note the connecting word between ‘…may glorify You’ and ‘You have given Him’. The word is ‘as’, meaning ‘according to’ or ‘similarly’. The cross glorifies the Father ‘as’ the Son gives eternal knowledge of the Father to many.

Christ’s intercession continues, giving weight to the role of the ‘word’.

“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You 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.” – 17:17 

This passage employs the word ‘sanctify’, the verb ‘sent’ and the word ‘sanctify’ again, suggesting that the concepts are parallel. He asks that we be sanctified by ‘Your Truth’: by the knowledge that He is the ‘true God’ (v3). That is, He appeals that our apprehension of the Truth of the Father and His glory in the Son might set His disciples apart for a special purpose. How is this apprehension to be gained? This is answered by ‘Your word is truth’. Seeing God by accepting His word sets us apart for a task. This corresponds to the second element of Isaiah’s salvific plan: prophetic declaration.

By receiving God’s word in the words of the prophets (and apostles) we are revived from idolatry and entranced by the glory of God.

This consecrates us for the purpose of exhibiting what we are entranced by. The next clause explains that Christ has sent them into the world ‘as’ the Father has sent Him into the world. The Son was sent so that many will know the Father, just so are believers sent. The Son undertakes the sacrificial ministry of opening His people’s eyes so that His people may undertake the humble ministry of opening the world’s eyes to the glory of the Son in the word. So Isaiah’s triplex of servant-hood is reinstated. God’s people receive their power to serve the world from the word of Truth which receives its power to serve Israel from the Son whom it displays. He ends His intercession by asking that “the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” which is a spiritual union which brings forth the missional unity.

Philippians 2

You should expect by now that Paul is firmly in-line with this scheme.

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus…

v8 He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:5

Paul is equally concerned to teach that Christ’s death was for the global glory of the Father, and frames it in such a way as to emphasise the missional unity we have with Him. All of Paul’s other concerns should be seen as attendant to this eternal, international end. His desire to see ‘joy’, ‘affection’, ‘compassion’, ‘unity’, and ‘humility’ rests on this. He instructs us to “do all things without grumbling or complaining, so that”… “you will appear as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life” (v14-16). We don’t just keep the word in our back pocket while we act with anonymous humility, but we behave humbly so as to amplify the humility of the Son whom we are united to and proclaim in the world. Compassion and steadfast humility, for Paul, are only operating if they are operating to afford people the opportunity to confess that Jesus is Lord.

In conclusion of this section, God’s Mission to glorify Himself is realised by Christ’s death which is the apex of the Glory of the Father. He is achieving global knowledge of Himself through prophetic and apostolic revelation of His glory and by His people uniting in faith with Him by means of this revelation. This is the foundation of missions. The next step is to look at the shape of mission itself for God’s people in the bible. In theory His people should partake in His Mission, but is that the way it plays out? Or do God’s people actually live a helpful side-mission? Are some saints to carry out other temporary missions, safe in the knowledge that the great Mission will eventually be accomplished by God?

Our Mission

Genesis 1

“So God created man in his own image… And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””  -Genesis 1:27 

Blessing in Genesis does not mean ‘I hope you have a good life’ which is what we often mean. Blessing is the abundant provision that produces the holistic well-being called ‘shalom’. Just as blessing is accompanied by a commission in v22, so it is here. In fact, the mission is an extension of the blessing. God’s warm outward reaching concern creates beautiful, extravagant richness- the pinnacle of which is humanity. As a result, His God-like humanity replicates His extravagant creative outpouring. The personal unity with God (being the image-bearers) organically connects to missional unity. The mission is characterised by flourishing (“fruitful”), expansion (“multiply”) and governance (“dominion”). There are two things I want to emphasis from it: it is outward-facing and conscious. It is not selfless, because they are to subdue the earth in order to produce food for themselves just as God created us in order to image himself. But it is looking outward, performing a job that concerns ”every living thing” even before there was the problem of sin to solve. These are active verbs presented to them as imperatives. God is prompting them by His words to resolve to carry out the mission. Just as the disciples were set apart for a purpose by the Word. The mission is not being fulfilled simply by virtue of Adam and Eve’s existence. One of the points that the author of Genesis will make over and over is that godly governance can be perverted and neglected. They are commanded to deliberately extend their fruitful governance globally. Their purpose must be fulfilled outwards and consciously.

Genesis 12

Robert L. Raymond said “Genesis 12:1-3 is the centre point of the biblical story of redemption. Everything that comes before it leads up to it. Everything that comes after it fulfils it.” It is not coincidental that it is also thought of as the most important Old Testament passage on Mission. Redemption and mission are coalesced. Gospel and law are not disconnected or contradictory. They are united in God’s call to ‘come away with me’. The commission is integral to the election.

“Now the Lord had said to Abram:

“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.

I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” -Genesis 12:1-3

The call starts with an imperative that frames the rest of the section. Deliberate human action is as crucial as in Adam and Eve’s mandate. The majority, however is in the indicative. God is telling us what he will do, just like the ironclad missional promises of Ezekiel and Isaiah. The call, furthermore, is equally outward-facing and as global as the Adamic mandate. God requires Abram to forsake the comfort and security of His local familial setting, to a foreign land. In this land,

Abram will be a blessing to “all the families of the earth”

which focalises Adam and Eve’s dominion over “every living thing that moves on the earth”. This is possible because He will be made a great nation. That is, God will provide the blessing needed to ‘multiply exceedingly’ (17:2), in fulfilment of the Adamic mandate to ‘multiply’. Abram does not embody the power to carry out the mission, but the power is ‘in’ and ‘through’ Abram, that is, by his offspring. Abraham’s obedient, trusting fatherhood is missional. That is, it is essential to the calling for global extension of blessing. Begetting the Son was central to God’s mission to redeem the world, and fathering a nation was central to Abraham’s mission to redeem the world. Indeed, God’s mission through the Son was carried out by Abraham’s mission through his nation, because God’s Son is the Son of Abraham.

Therefore, the motifs of ‘multiplying’ and universal concern are common to the Adamic and Abrahamic covenants. The motifs of ‘blessing’ and ‘fruitful’ are also brought forward. “I will bless you” is at the centre of the call, echoing “and God blessed them” in chapter one (v28). Blessing from God leads to being ‘fruitful’ for Adam and being ‘exceedingly fruitful’ (17:6) for Abraham. Just as in the threefold structure in Isaiah between the Servant, the servant and the servants, here God’s work (culminating in his offspring: the Servant) is represented by Abraham (the servant), in whom the nations are blessed (producing servants). Remember that Moses was not presented with the task of saving Egypt, but with giving them the choice to accept salvation. Denying Moses, as God’s ambassador, amounted to rejecting the salvation that he heralded. The same is true for Abraham: cursing him amounts to cursing God and being cursed for the folly of your idolatry. Believing the covenant’s promises, on the other hand, and receiving the covenant sign, grafts the foreigner in (Ex 12:48). It implants him in the familial sphere of blessing: a blessing which affects the blessing of all families. “Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.” (Galatians 3:7).

Exodus 19

And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.” -Exodus 19:3-6

The first thing Moses here at Sinai is told to do is remind the people what they witnessed. It seems silly that the Lord Almighty would begin direct authoritative revelation by telling them what they saw. Do they not remember themselves what they saw? Cast your mind back to Psalm 106 where the writer was astonished that Israel could so quickly forget the Exodus, seeing as it was performed ‘for His name’s sake’. They were saved in order to see His saving power, but they forgot it. This passage in Ex 19 tells us that by His saving power He took them ‘to Himself’. He bought them and now they are His. “Therefore”, they will be His ministers. Languid apathy goes against the grain of their very existence, because they were intended to see and cherish and appropriate the knowledge of God.

He is not speaking to priests here in Exodus 19, He is speaking through His spokesperson to all the children of Abraham. If you were rescued by God, and you are obedient, you shall be a priest. Israelite priests had two primary tasks: teaching the law and handling the sacrifices of atonement. That is, they sought that the people see God through revelation and meet God through atonement. Both were designed to the end of serving God’s people and glorifying God. With singularity of purpose, the power and service flows from the Servant to the servant (the priest) to the servants who become the kingdom of priests. Israel joins with God and His intermediaries by serving the nations. Specifically, therefore,

God’s people teach His word to all the families of the earth and seek to reconcile them to God by atonement.

 This is not a dissolution of hierarchy, but an integration of it. It is not the death of leadership structures but a restoration of their function.

Matthew 28

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” -Matthew 28:18-20 

Jesus prefaces the commission with an affirmation of his authority from God. God could send Abraham and commission Israel because God is the great Missionary. God ransomed and redeemed Israel ‘to Himself’ as His treasured possession for His name’s sake. For this reason, He had the authority to pronounce their task. Jesus is not just transmitting the authoritative commands like the prophets did. He himself has the authority to command it. He does not simply proclaim the word, he is the Word. He is the commission. Jesus is asserting his deity.

Abraham did not obtain the land that was promised. He was called to leave his home but this was to find the home whose builder is God. This was not a hoax. The New Testament does not jettison this notion of the promised-land. The promises of Abraham’s covenant were ‘eternal’ (Gen 17:7). There will be land where the multi-ethnic people of God dwell, and there will be a city which “has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light.” (Rev 21:23). But Abraham’s journey outward is still not finished. There is not yet a Christian nation, and we are still sojourners in an alien land, gathering sheep from every ethnicity who will one day make up that city. Abraham’s nation is not complete, this is why the disciples are to disperse into nations where they do not belong.

Here an important question comes to the forefront: ‘can this command to ‘go’ be applied to every believer, wholesale?’ Should every Christian, regardless of age, spiritual maturity or financial stability, leave their family and country and go to “Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8). The fact is the command was to a specific, chosen, trained group of 11 people. There were converted men whom Jesus did not direct to that mountain to send. This call to ‘go’, although intimately connected with the responsibility of every believer to make the glory of God known globally, should be distinguished from it. It seems intuitive, given the truth of Isaiah’s threefold structure of power, that the universal call to serve the nations would always entail the call to ‘go’. However, it is clear that not everyone is to carry out this commission. It includes two tasks which the New Testament writers explicitly deny as being practicable for everyone. Paul says “Christ did not send me to baptize” (1 Cor1:17). Paul, the apostle and missionary, was not called to fulfil the great commission because he did not baptize. Furthermore, James says “Not many of you should become teachers” (James 3:1). Meaning, not many believers should ‘teach them to observe all that I have commanded you’. Similarly, not everyone should move to unreached people groups. The ‘Great Commission’ should be recognised as much more narrowly bound than is customarily understood.

It has been the passage most used to stir laymen out of their pews and into the streets, to engage with their community and show the love of Jesus. These are biblical passions to have, but to use Matthew 28:18-20 to support them is sloppy. In fact, out of the passages we have looked at, this one is the least appropriate to make that point. This is not what it is talking about. It is less talking about penetrating hearts with the gospel than it is talking about penetrating ethno-linguistic domains with the gospel. This event sees frontier missions being born by the power of Jesus’ word. Just as God’s words ‘let there be light’ brought about light, Jesus’ words ‘Go…’ brought about eleven missionaries (not in the broad sense but in the frontiers sense) from eleven disciples. They are being ‘sanctified by the truth. Your word is truth’ (John 17:17), that is, they are set apart to ‘go’ by Christ’s command.

Although the particularity of this commission may seem to go against the grain of the concerns in this essay so far, it is necessary to understand it before affirming the ways in which this passage is in fact relevant to every believer. The word “go” is translated as a separate command from ‘make disciples’, but many scholars believe this is misleading. The verb is in the ‘aorist’, meaning it is timeless and passive rather than active. A different kind of aorist passive verb might be rendered “in practising guitar, you will improve your skill” or “practising, you will improve”. The verb “practising” is subordinate to “improve” which is the focus. This is how the aorist passive has been dealt with in other passages like Hebrews 2:10. This leads some scholars to prefer a translation like “going…” or “in going…”, or “as you go, make disciples”. My point is, ‘Making disciples’ is the purpose, not ‘going’. ‘Going’ serves the universal aim of making the triune God known and honoured, that is, it serves the aim of making disciples. Each member of the body carries out its function, going or otherwise, performed towards the end of the global knowledge of God. The goer in Bihar, India does not have a different aim than the 8 year old believer in Houston, Texas or the 80 year old woman in London, England. The aim is always to serve ‘every living creature’ by proclaiming reconciliation with God by Christ’s atonement. The aim is always to ‘make disciples’ but not always to ‘go’.

I have stressed the point that goers are but one limb in the unified body in order to prevent a common misunderstanding of the text, but having done this, the positive burden of the text is a message which is desperately needed in our time. Much too often it is neglected and understated. Frontier missions is central to the New Testament age. This was a crucial transitional stage where Christ ascended and the Spirit descended. If ever the church was in danger of losing her impetus and zeal, it is when her leader disappears. Christ’s last words are calculated and intentional, they are not a ‘by the way…’ or a ‘good luck!’ They are in some sense the conclusion of His body of teaching and they are what he wants his followers to have fresh in their mind as they enter the age of suffering and explosive power. The final thing that Jesus wanted to talk about was frontier missions, because it is a pivotal part of the church’s calling. Notice that up to now I have not spoken of frontier missions as central to the church’s work. Although Abraham was called to leave his home to enter a foreign land it was to follow God in establishing an Israelite nation, rather than preach good news to the Canaanites, for example. The dynamic is outward-looking but largely centripetal (the force moving from the outside, inward). Foreigners would be attracted to the Israelite community, enter in, and receive circumcision. Only in the New Testament does the dynamic wholly shift to centrifugal, where we are to go to the places where Christ is not known, and to live where God is not exalted. It has always been outward-facing, but not outward going. Now the core group of Christ’s servants move out from Jerusalem, to the ends of the earth.

 

So the great commission represents and begins a new model for serving the nations.

Frontier missions leads the church

, in that it is the clearest example of the shift in dynamic which the whole church is to support and emanate. The Great Commission is not a command for the whole church, but it does display the new direction of the whole church. The whole church is to serve those who do not know God, with a special focus on unreached peoples. This is the same as the Old Testament model, but ratcheted up and sublimated. We should keep this in mind as we briefly look at this passage from 1 Peter 2.

1 Peter 2

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honourable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. -1 Peter 2:9-12

“A chosen race” and “a royal priesthood” are exact quotes from the Greek translation of the passage in Exodus 19 that we looked at. Peter is not making anything up. He is saying ‘the purpose of the church has never been anything different’. We are transplanted into Abraham’s nation if we join Him in faith, obedience and blessing the nations. If we listen to the teaching of the priests, and look to their Sacrifice of atonement, we become priests, carrying out their tasks to the world. We were chosen, and indeed called from darkness, in order to proclaim. ‘Proclaim’ means exactly what it sounds like: to announce publicly. It means to openly, verbally articulate with praise the work of the Saviour. This is the task of the global Christian priesthood. This is the only reason we were ‘called out of darkness’.

The next section joins two concepts counter-intuitively. 1. The idea of the centrifugal force of New Testament missions is acknowledged. Although we are a non-ethnic ‘nation’, we have not come home to the Promised Land yet. We are travellers, living ‘among the Gentiles’ not ‘among the rest of our nation’. 2. We are so ‘in’ and ‘with’ this foreign nation that they notice our impure “passions of the flesh”. Peter, in accordance with Deuteronomy 4 and Jeremiah 4, sees that our whole mission of bringing about the global knowledge of God is at stake when we are disobedient. The eternal destiny of many souls is at stake when we watch porn, or sleep with your boyfriend, or wear certain clothes to make people desire your body, or practice homosexuality. In this sense, our sex lives are not a private affair. This is why Paul can write a letter that is about ‘preaching Christ crucified’ and about sexual sin (1 Cor), without being schizophrenic. We live holy lives so that our Master’s holiness may be acknowledged and loved. Don’t misunderstand, Peter does not say you are disqualified from being a priest to the nations if you are impure, but the effectiveness of your ministry is proportional to your integrity.

In this passage, therefore, we see my central thesis that the sole purpose of every Christian in their earthly lifetime is to glorify God by serving non-Christians. We are called in order to proclaim. This is expounded in three ways: we serve by proclaiming God’s salvific power, we serve amongst the Gentiles (centrifugal), and

we ratify our message by conducting ourselves honourably.

1 Corinthians 10-13

I mentioned Paul’s double-message in 1 Corinthians. Let us look at a few sentences in that letter before I conclude the essay. It is a popular opinion that it was not a central concern of Paul’s to exhort the church to minister the gospel to unbelievers, but there are a number of ways to refute this misunderstanding. One way is to see Paul’s agreement with Isaiah on the contiguity of the Servant, the servant and the servants. Whenever Paul speaks of his mission to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, he is not only asking for support, but saying ‘follow me as I follow Christ’ (1 Cor 11:1). Secondly, we have seen that Paul exhorts us to humble ourselves like Christ so that ‘every knee should bow’ (Phil 2:6). Thirdly, we could stress his agreement with Peter in the fact that our holiness glorifies God among the Gentiles (Rom 15:9). But his admonition to missionary activity is equally evident in 1 Corinthians as he affirms the ultimate priority of love and the role of the Spirit in church service.

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offence to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.” -1 Corinthians 10:31 

Paul had just finished speaking about the balance between honouring our Christian liberty, the consciences of others, and the warning against syncretism. “So” at the start of verse 31 marks that it somehow concludes that discourse. The right thing to do in regards to grey-area issues like this is determined by what magnifies God’s glory. This is explained by the parallel at the end of the next sentence: “I try to please everyone in everything I do”… “that they may be saved”. To ‘please’ someone here does not mean to make them feel good, but willingly serve them, for their benefit. Paul is defining here what it means to glorify God. The glory of God is His holiness ‘gone public’ (Piper), that is,

glorifying God is multiplying those who exalt Him. This is the goal of ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’ and ‘everything I do’.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. 11:26 

This outward-facing servant-hood does not negate the fact that Paul is still talking about the content of a believer’s worship service. Paul reminds us that whomever eats without honouring the body of Christ ‘drinks judgement upon themselves’. Furthermore, Paul is writing to believers in Corinth. But this letter is about the building up of the body, for the public glory of God. If ever there was a Christian practice that has been thought of as introspective, the Eucharist would be it. It is treated as part of a brief, quiet withdrawal from the affairs of the world, where we huddle together, use Christian-talk, screw our faces up and feel sorry for Jesus. Needless to say, this is not how Paul treated it. Rather it is an “acted sermon, an acted proclamation of the death which it commemorates’ (Robertson and Plummer). It is not an act of personal contrition to God, nor is it for a sense of doctrinal unity in the community, rather, it is dramatic evangelism. Just as the ‘evildoers’ glorify God when our passions are pure, the gospel should be proclaimed to the evildoers when the body of Christ is eaten. They are not in the service when it is performed, nor did they watch circumcision be performed, but it is a dramatic, visceral, evocative symbol of our covenant with God, paid for by Christ who indwells us by His Spirit. Communion is for the world.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 13:1 

Two chapters later, Paul’s concern is exactly the same. “Whereas the highest concept of love before the New Testament was that of a love for the best one knows, the Christians thought of love as that quality we see on the cross. It is a love for the utterly unworthy, a love that proceeds from a God who is love” (Leon Morris on 13:1-13). Morris makes the point that Christian love proceeds from participation in the God of love: the Servant. By uniting with God, I acquire His actions and purposes. I am grafted into the holy nation that blesses the world. As revealed in the cross, the foremost characteristic of the love of God is that it is lavished upon those who deserve it least. By the context that we have seen, the idea is not that we can eat the Lords supper and speak in tongues and prophesy to ourselves as long as we have love firmly planted somewhere in our hearts which shows itself sometimes. Rather, do all things ‘that many might be saved’ and God publically glorified. The idea is if I speak a word in tongues or of prophecy or acquire knowledge or give away my possessions without the intention of reaching those who hate and ignore me, my prophesy and knowledge and charity is wasted. Love is the lifeblood of the church, church is for the world.

Allow me to summarise and then give four conclusory exhortations. Mission is not a career choice for some, nor is it a part-time activity for all. You exist on this earth for one purpose, namely, to bring about the world-wide knowledge of God. Everything from creation to redemption is arranged to awaken a song of praise from the nations. It is by means of the church’s humble proclamation of the gospel of the Servant that many begrudging knees will bow, and many joyful knees will bow. We are to do all things to that end. Christians are missionaries.

1.

As Peter reminds us, we are ‘sojourners and exiles’. We serve, not on our turf but on native soil, where the culture is hostile to us, where we look stupid and outmoded and offensive, where God is ‘dead’. This doesn’t mean that church buildings and Christian-schooling etc. is wrong but it must be for the purpose of sending people away from those places. We must be cautious of organising events and inviting non-Christians to come and hear the gospel, because this is not the model for missions, the model is centrifugal. That is like inviting Uzbeks to fly over to England and learn English so they can be evangelised. The ideal is not to invite unbelievers to come to church, but to go to sports clubs and bars and classrooms and work-places with the message.

2.

We should be asking many questions about the way this can be carried out. One important question is ‘what about full-time mothers?’. How can full-time parents serve on godless turf when they must spend almost every hour of the day focused on the wellbeing of their child(ren)? Though this topic deserves the countless books devoted to it, I want to emphasise two points: parenthood is mission, and their parenthood is the training ground for mission. The Adamic and Abrahamic covenants in particular teach us that bearing children in accordance with God’s law is central to the calling to bless the nations. Babies are not born exalting God, but in the mire of Adam’s iniquity (Psalm 51:5). Just as, when we were ignorant and helpless and inclined towards evil, He blessed us, so, when our children are spiritually blind and defenceless and giving us nothing in return, we are to relentlessly bless them. It is perilously myopic to treat mothers as wives of missionaries, rather than missionaries. Or to treat men who stay at home with children as performing necessary tasks of secondary importance. The home is the first mission-field. Secondly, the home is the training ground for mission. When I meet with my small-group to study the bible, I am not proclaiming on foreign turf, but it is for proclamation on foreign turf. Small-groups are to nurture missionaries. Similarly, mothers are to nurture missionaries. She is both a missionary and a missions supervisor. She is to exemplify and instruct. There can be no frontier missionaries if there are no domestic missionaries.

 3.

The Great Commission teaches us that frontier missions is central to the centrifugal force of the New Testament era. It plays a uniquely pivotal role in the church. By no stretch of the imagination is this task completed. 40% of the world’s people groups are still unreached. I urge you to consider going where there are fewest hands on the plough. Start saving money to work towards planting a church, get trained in bible translation, find partners in the gospel and support from the local church. Are you being called to go and die?

4.

But my essay is primarily written for those of you who are not ‘goers’ to foreign nations. Is your career in alignment with the truth that you exist to bring about the global knowledge of God? Is your life directed towards supporting frontier missions or towards carrying out domestic ministry? Or is your only answer to the question ‘why are you choosing that university course’, ‘because it interests me’? Is the only explanation for your career path you have taken, ‘it pays well’ or ‘it provides security’ or ‘I enjoy it’? Do you make life decisions according to what you happen to like, and hope that God will fit in somehow and use your decision, or do you make decisions based on what will make God look as good as He is? In short, are you wasting your life? If you are, quit your job. This is not rhetoric. Email your course supervisor. Gauge out your eye, because the alternative is much more violent. You must sell everything to buy the field with treasure. You must destroy your foundations before reconstructing your life. Your life may look the same at the end of the process, you may end up keeping your job, but you must rethink why you remain there. Are you to make a million pounds for mission-work in India? Will you be an uncompromisingly God-exalting politician or film-maker? Will you stay working at McDonalds so that your co-workers will, by your conduct and humble proclamation of the gospel, see, love, fear and know the Lord?

To live is not to balance what you want and what God wants. To live is Christ. To live is to crucify your old passions and to regenerate into a missionary creature. God will not stay a hobby of yours, He will glorify Himself in every breath of His servant, or He will glorify Himself in every breath of His vessel of wrath. “I will set my glory among the nations” (Ezekiel 39:21) “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our "God is a consuming fire."” (Hebrews 12:28-29).

Sources:

My work is thoroughly unoriginal. The words are all mine, but the essay is essentially a conglomeration of other works I have soaked up over a long time.

Most directly influential:

-Christopher Wright: The Mission of God

-John Piper: sermons and seminars on missions

Other works I have used:

-Edmund Clowney’s lecture series on ‘Theology of Urban Missions’

-http://www.schooleyfiles.com/2012/12/the-great-commission-who-does-it-apply.html

-Leon Morris’ commentary on 1 Corinthians

-J.A. Motyer’s commentary on Isaiah

-D. Kidner’s commentary on Genesis

- C.G. Kruse’s commentary on John