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"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
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at what discipleship is; defining it as the process of imbuing a person with the thought pattern of their teacher, with Christian Discipleship being the process of teaching people to internalize and adopt the mind of Christ. We’ve looked at the great commission and seen why we’ve been sent out and what we’ve been sent to do. As we draw to the close of this brief survey of discipleship, we need to address an important question: How exactly are we supposed to do this? It’s a tall order; discipling the nations, and we’re going to need some considerable support in this endeavor.
The last portion of the great commission, which is often overlooked in discussions of discipleship, is actually the key to rightly understanding how we are to disciple: we can disciple the nations because Jesus Christ is with us always.
Before we can understand what a comfort that is to us, we must first know to some extent how exactly Jesus is with us; we have to grasp some of the nuances of His omnipresence.
Now, the doctrine of Christ’s omnipresence is something of a conundrum for many of us, especially when we factor in the critical fact that Jesus is not only divine but also human. We know that the Bible teaches us that Jesus is fully and truly God and yet fully and truly man; so when Jesus ascended into heaven, He as ascended as a real, physical, resurrected man. A real, genuine man sits at the right hand of the father, interceding on our behalf. We confess that one day He will physically return to the earth to judge both the living and the dead. So if he’s there right now, how could it be that He is here with us?
Thankfully, wiser men than I have thought through and articulated a good explanation for this theological quandary. The Heidelberg Catechism, in Lord’s Day seventeen, question forty-seven, puts it this way:
“Christ is true man and true God. With respect to his human nature, he is no longer on earth, but with respect to his divinity, majesty, grace, and Spirit he is never absent from us.”
Jesus’ two natures are distinct but hold together in His singular person, which is what the Church has always confessed. Now, here’s how this distinction in the natures of Christ helps us: Because according to His divine nature, Jesus is not bound to any spatial location, He can be present with us at all times fully. Not partially, as though He can hear all our prayers and knows where we all are, but He only gives a little bit of attention to all of us, or that He gives His full attention to only some of us. No, Jesus is fully present with all of us in every moment and in every place, with His full attention devoted to each and every one of us. When Jesus is with you (and with me) in that moment of prayer or distress or joy, He is present as though you or I were the only person in the world, while at the same time being present in that capacity and at that level of attention and care with every other Christian in the world. This is a great mystery, but it should be one that comforts us.
This mystery of Jesus’ omnipresence means that when you are teaching others to obey Jesus, you don’t have to be afraid of fumbling and being without help, because Jesus is literally right there with you. When you’ve resolved to go out and obey Jesus by discipling others, you’re not left like a baby bird out of the nest to fly or fail, He’s got your back. It would be impossible to fulfill the task we’ve been given on our own, which is why Jesus said that we don’t have to do it on our own. He is with us and gives us His Holy Spirit to bear us up.
So what do you do with this? You take this comfort and you use it to steel your resolve to obey the great commission. You’ve been comforted that this tall task has not been left for you to fulfill alone, so let that pressure fall from your shoulders. You get out there and talk to unbelievers and share the gospel, you exhort that brother or sister that’s not living out the gospel you know that they have received, and you lay a hand on that friend who is facing a hard situation and you give them the wisdom that you’ve been learning from the scriptures. And you do it with the confidence that the eternal and sovereign Lord Jesus Christ is right there with you, and that He is pleased by His Spirit to bless and sanctify your work that it might be presented to the Father. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
This post was originally given as a devotion at a Wednesday night prayer meeting at Christ the King Church in Belfast, Maine.
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