The Great Commission

"And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 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, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.'" (Matthew 28)


“What is the Church?” and “What is faith?”: Two key questions with which, it seems, any thoughtful Christian must reckon. Such questions are at the heart of the Christian revelation, and, also, sadly, at the heart of much division between those who desire to follow Christ. In answer to the first question, I will base myself upon the "Great Commission" in the Gospel of Matthew, and try to begin to describe the nature of the Church by seeking to show that the Church, in some recognizable way, is infallible. In a later post I will then seek to show that faith, by its very nature, presupposes the Church’s infallibility, and the denial of the Church's supernatural commission, authority and, thus, infallibility results in the denial of possibility for true faith.
In this post I will briefly seek to draw out certain implications of the Great Commission that Jesus, shortly before his ascension, entrusted to his disciples. I will employ certain historical data, and proceed to draw what I see as their logical implications. I will also take for granted certain facts about the truthfulness of God, Jesus divine personhood, and the consequences that follow. An important consequence of the immediately preceding sentence will be that Jesus' words and deeds always fully conform/ed with the will of God, are/were actions undertaken by a divine person, and are/were infallibly truthful and efficacious.


Some background remarks which I believe will be granted by all:


Jesus’ resurrection and all his actions and words are historically attested to by the Gospels and Paul. (Here one could also appeal to the historical witness of church Fathers.) Moreover, the Great Commission itself is a historical fact.


Without citing chapter and verse, it is evident that the Gospels relay Jesus' divine self-attribution: both in reference specifically to the established Old Testament understanding of God and His rights and attributes, and in reference to a more general manner in which God is known by pagans (Rom. 1-2).


Since God is Truth itself, and because, by necessary consequence, He can only ratify, speak and act truthfully, He could not vouch for any message that is false. Because a miracle comes from a divine/supernatural cause, that is, it is a divine action, and pertains to and participates in God’s truthfulness, such an event (if it be authentic) would not occur in the case of something which would contradict God’s own truthfulness.


A resurrection is manifestly a miraculous action that, since its cause is divine/supernatural yet its effects natural (at least in terms of its object and its intelligibility), attests to God’s approval of the one resurrected. Moreover, a resurrection, as far as we know, only occurs within history. It is an historical event, then, that discloses God’s own message of approbation in the case of the one resurrected. In Christ’s case, he, as a matter of historical record, claimed for himself divinity. The human Christ, not only worked His own wonders, but in the resurrection was worked upon, after His human life has ceased, by divine power. Thus, in virtue of the historical fact of the resurrection, Christ’s claims and miracles were indubitably vindicated.


On this basis, we can come to a knowledge that Jesus Christ is divine, and, since divine, also always spoke and speaks truthfully, with divine authority. Now, granting the historical reliability of the Gospel accounts (cf. Mt. 28:18-20; Mk. 16:16ff.; Lk. 10:16, et al.), we can move a step further in our argument. It is a historical fact that Jesus did historically commission certain teachers. Beyond the biblical record this is a fact that is independently corroborated by portions of the patristic witness and pagan testimonies contemporaneous with the period under discussion.


Some thoughts on the Great Commission:


Scope:


Moving now to the record of the commission, we see that Jesus is addressing a group, delegating responsibilities/duties, ascribing ubiquity to the commission in its effects, and promising that said commission will perdure to the end of the age/world. Christ in his commission thus established a foundation that depends for its existence and end upon His Will, that of the Founder.


When considering the commission in terms of its effects we can immediately see that such a commission could not have been given exclusively to those individuals whom Jesus was addressing—in this case the disciples—in terms of either their concrete, historical presence as a group or their individual persons. This fact is evident on the basis of the terms and nature of the commission: the commission is to extend to terrestrial (at least) universality in both space and time. The former seems quite unlikely in a literal sense (although Paul in Romans 10:17-18 speaks of the Gospel's widespread diffusion), but the latter, is impossible. While all the earth was in existence at the time of the Apostles, not all time was.


Thus, on the basis of the terms of the commission that we find in Matthew 28, we see that the commission cannot have been given to the disciples qua disciples, only for a time. This because they could not fulfill such a commission. This commission was for all times and all places. As noted above, it is unlikely in the extreme that the disciples could physically preach to all nations, and, as all the apostles were deceased by A.D. 100, it is quite impossible that the disciples will literally preach until the end of the world.


Moreover, as noted above, the said commission was not given to any particular disciple in virtue of his person. Rather, we find that the commission must have been given to the disciples as a society or body of teachers: a foundation, with its own structure and function. So, where does that leave us in terms of our understanding of the nature of Christ’s commission to the apostles?


One explanation and I believe the one that best deals with all the data, sees that Christ’s commission could not have been founded exclusively upon the personal qualities of the various disciples, nor upon the office or historical designation of apostle, as such. Rather, Christ’s commission to the apostles effects the founding of a teaching office or body that is distinct from the specific charism of the apostles, although it operates through a body of teachers that stems back to the “college” of apostles and the commission that Christ initially charged them. That is, the teaching office was included within the office of apostle but is not identifiable with it. Such a teaching office was to be maintained through the successors whom were initially appointed by the apostles, who, though not teaching “new revelations” as did the apostles, nevertheless taught what the apostles taught with the apostles’ own authority without, unlike the apostles, offering any new public revelation. This body of teachers must exist lest the words of Christ return void. He commissioned his disciples with a charge to teach that encompassed the entirety of space and time from that point forward, and such a commission, if divine, must be realized.


Nature:


Another aspect of Christ’s commission is that it requires the infallibility of those whom Christ commissioned. Such an infallibility follows from the fact that Christ commissioned his apostles and their successors to teach everyone everything that He (Christ) commanded. Christ whose person is essentially truth charges a society or foundation of men to teach, giving them his own spirit. Christ gives this teaching body his own authority to teach, and in virtue of assigning such a body with the duty of teaching for him, Christ himself vouches for what it will teach. As was argued above, Christ who is truth can only vouch for or affirm what is true. Therefore, whatever the so commissioned body teaches will, by virtue of Christ’s truthfulness,be truthful. The reasoning is similar to that of understanding the meaning of the miracle of Christ’s resurrection in relation to the assertions that Christ made. The fact that the apostles were given the task to teach, on Christ’s own authority, or, in other words, as if Christ himself were there teaching is made explicitly clear in Luke 10:16 (Mk. 16:15ff. et al., also speak to this). If one denies the apostles and by implication their successors, that person denies Christ, and, in denying Christ, that person denies the Father.


In sum, the infallibility of the teaching body commissioned by Christ follows from the fact that this body teaches as if it were Christ teaching. Christ can only teach what is true; Christ commissioned teachers to teach in his place thereby vouching for the content of their teaching; therefore, the body of teachers is also infallible to the extent that their commission requires. Once this is understood the denial of the infallibility of the teaching body seems impossible.


Where is such a teaching body or foundation? There are only a couple options. Protestantism and Bible-only Christianity are not among them. The only realistic options--Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism--were once united in their apostolic faith and witness, and far less separates them from one another than both from Protestantism and Bible-onlyism.