The Great Commission

I've always known that the Great Commission was given to the 11 apostles, and to no one else, and that it has never even been started yet. If it ever did start, and if the job was passed on to someone else, the Bible is totally silent about it. The truth is, that it's part of the promises to Israel, to be a blessing to the Nations. It's definitely future, either the 700 year Kingdom of Heaven or the 1000 year Millennium. My guess is the Kingdom of Heaven, since the context, especially near the end of Matthew, is mainly the Kingdom of Heaven

I never spent much time studying the Great Commission, since there was no doubt in my mind that it had absolutely nothing to do with me, plus I had bigger fish to fry. When I did need to look at it, I always went to:
Mt 28:19-20
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

For some stupid reason, I never thought to look for the Great Commission in the other Gospels, until recently. I found it in Mark and Luke. Luke is just a one-liner, but Mark is a treasure trove and is absolute proof that no one is involved with the Great Commission today..
Mk 16:15-18
15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

The denominational preachers, who specialize in stealing doctrine that solely belongs to Israel and teaching it, as Gentile truth, to their unsuspecting Gentile sheep, in their fake Gentile synagogues, teach that the Great Commission is something that all saved Gentiles should be diligently working at. They have it all wrongly tied in with missionary work.

Do all those gifts sound familiar? Aren't they the same ones that were passed out during Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell on the 120 Jews in the upper room? The ones discussed in Joel? Acts 2 was just a sample of the New Covenant. The gifts lasted for about 33 years, until Israel and everything associated with Israel DISAPPEARED, when Israel was set aside in Ac 28:28.

There have been NO Gifts of the Spirit since then. If anyone does actually have them now, it is 100% guaranteed that they come from a much darker spirit. Healers, with no exceptions, are either fake or Satanic. That's the only possible way they could heal. If you think you've seen real healing done by a Healer or that the tongues you're speaking in are the same as those during Acts, you've been duped.

So, since there have been ZERO gifts of the Spirit since about 63AD, it is totally impossible that anyone during the past 1955 years has spent 1 milli-second "helping God" with the Great Commission. If you don't have ALL of those gifts listed, or if you witness to someone that gets saved and they don't suddenly have ALL those gifts, you are not participating in the Great Commission, period. Once more, the denominational preachers have been pulling the wool over your eyes. In essence, it's not their fault, though, since they honestly don't know any more than their sheep do. On average, a sermon contains maybe 50% truth.

Revived said:

Depending on the sermon topic, it could be much less than 50%.

I've rightly divided for a few years now and it remains inexplicable to me that many Pastors fail to grasp the divisions in Scripture and how Paul is the Apostle for the Body of Christ.

Regarding the "great commission", it does not contain one word about "the preaching of the cross" or "the gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24). The gospel which they were sent to preach was very evidently the same gospel they had been preaching — the Gospel of the Kingdom — only they could now declare, as Peter did at Pentecost, that the King had risen from the dead and would still some day occupy the throne of David.

The great commission demanded faith and baptism for the remission of sins (Mark 16:15,16); it included the power to heal the sick and work miracles (Mark 16:17,18), but it did not include the message that "Christ died for our sins" (I Cor. 15:1-3). At Pentecost, when Peter began to carry out this commission, he rather blamed his hearers for the death of Christ and when, convicted of their sins, they asked: “What shall we do?” he did not say: “Believe on Christ who died for your sins.” He rather commanded them to “repent and be baptized every one…for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38).

But after Christ and His Kingdom were again rejected, God interrupted the prophetic program and sent Paul forth to proclaim the preaching of the cross and the gospel of the grace of God. In II Corinthians 5:14-21 this apostle proclaims "the love of Christ" who "died for all" and declares to the TRUE "great commission" for us, the Body of Christ, in this age/dispensation of grace:

“And all things are of [provided by] God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, AND HATH GIVEN TO US THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION;

“To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself… AND HATH COMMITTED UNTO US THE WORD OF RECONCILIATION” (II Cor.5:18,19).​

Great post!

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Great post back at you.

I won't go into it any further, but this Great Commission thing is only one among hundreds that must be rightly divided but most usually aren't. It was given to the 11 apostles and ONLY to the 11 (12, now) apostles it must remain. Christendom doesn't care much for right division. They would prefer just mixing all the Gentile stuff with the Israel stuff. That way, though, such confusion and contradictions exists that only Mighty Mouse, your wonderful, denominational preacher, with a lot of charisma, but little knowledge, can pretend to sort things out and save the day. I am convinced that, if everyone would rightly divide the Word of Truth, preaching, as we know it, would be a profession of the past. Unless, of course, the preachers started rightly dividing also, and would finally learn what the Bible is really about.

As I've said before, the ONLY people approved unto God and those that need not be ashamed are those who rightly divide (correctly cut) the Word of Truth, according to 2Tim 2:15. Also, since the only people I know of on the planet who even attempt to rightly divide are dispensationalists, the only people who are approved unto God and need not be ashamed are those dispensationalists who succeed in cutting the Word of Truth correctly. Read it for yourself. Plain as the nose on your face.
"Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

Talking to every person that reads this, if you don't rightly divide, you will never know any more about the NT, especially, than those denominational preachers. That would make you about a 50% know-nothing and that would be tragic. Surely, your goal is greater than that. True Bible knowledge is IMPOSSIBLE without right division.

Duplicate

DeaconDean said:

The two things I see wrong with this post right off is using Mark 16:16 "as is", and not really having a knowledge of the Greek in Acts 2:38.

1) Other than the glaring fact none of the earliest Greek MSS/Codices even contain the last nine verse of Mk. 16. Not to mention, it places a "condition" upon salvation.

Paul said you are saved by grace through faith.

Mark says you can't be saved UNLESS you are baptized. (He who believes AND is baptized shall be saved)

2) The Greek word in Acts 2:38 (eis) has a number of meanings.

B. H. Carroll comments:

"There are three principles of interpretation which enable us to safely determine when to depart from the ordinary meaning and render this word according to the frequenter rare meaning. These principles are (1) the bearing of the local context; (2) the bearing of the general context (by general context I mean the trend of the whole Bible teaching, or what is called the "canon," or rule of faith); (3) the nature or congruity of things. You do not need any more than those three principles when you come to study that Greek preposition in the New Testament to enable you to know whether to give in its ordinary, its frequent or its rare meaning.

(3) To illustrate the power of the local context in determining the meaning of the Greek preposition, eis (here we have the preposition with the accusative case after it), we now cite most pertinent New Testament examples: Matthew 12:41: "They repented eis the preaching of Jonah." Because eis ordinarily means in order to, must we so render it here? It is a fact, according to chapter 3 of Jonah, and did our Lord so mean it? If so, they failed in the object of their repentance, because Jonah never preached to them after they repented -- not a word. The only preaching he did preceded the repentance, and was the cause of the repentance. Therefore, Dr. Broadus teaches in his Commentary on Matthew that eis here must have its rare meaning - because of. They repented because of, eis, the preaching of Jonah."

B. H. Carroll, The Theory of Baptismal Regeneration, p90-91

Also, as a tenant of Dispensationalism, Fundamentalists said a hundred years ago:

"“Faith is a vital principle. "If it hath not works, is dead, being alone" (James 2:17,18). Two things are required of the believer, immediately upon his profession of faith in Jesus as Saviour and Lord, namely, verbal confession and water baptism. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Romans 10:10. See also Psalm 107:2; Matthew 10:32,33; Romans 10:9; 1 John 4:15, etc.) "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16). The believer is not saved because he is baptized; but, baptized because he is saved. We are saved through faith alone, but not the faith that is alone, because "Faith without works is dead, being alone." Water baptism is a divinely ordained ordinance whereby the believer witnesses to the world that he died with Christ, and is risen together with Him," an habitation of God through the Spirit. (See Matthew 28:19,20; Acts 2:38,41; 8:12,13,16,36,38; 9:18; 10:47,48; 16:15,33; 19:5; 22:15,16; Romans 6:3,4; Colossians 2:12; 1 Peter 3:21; 1 John 2:3; 3:22).”"

The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, Book III, Theology, Chapter 12, The Doctrines that Must be Emphasized in Successful Evangelism, By Evangelist L.W. Munhall, M.A., D.D

Mark 16:16 adds a "condition on salvation, by requiring baptism:

"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved;" The condition: "baptized".

This negates what Paul taught.

And, the Greek does not agree with "baptism" as a means to remove sin.

Only one "type" of blood was/is able for "the remission of sins". (cf. Heb. 9:22; 10:4)

God Bless

Till all are one.

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If all scripture is god-breathed, as in 2Tim 3:16, that means that every word is without error, at least in the original manuscripts. That means that both Paul and Mark are right. If that's true, and I totally believe it is, what can we do with this contradiction, this confusion? There is only one answer - that the people Paul and Mark are talking to are different and they, obviously, operate under 2 different sets of rules. There is no other possibility. Instead of thinking that either Paul or Mark was wrong, isn't it obvious that this is a perfect spot where right division is required?

Obviously, Mr Carroll doesn't rightly divide and, therefore, anything he said on this subject, and probably most anything else, is suspect. For example, he mistakenly seems to include James, which is written TO Israel, as it plainly says in Jam 1:1, as rules meant for Gentiles. For us Gentiles, faith without works is 100% alive, according to Paul, the only apostle that we have - in Eph 2:8-9. Since we're not Jews, Paul is the last word in what our rules and directions are, with no exceptions