The military is led by officers, and authority makes the officer.
One man holding a position of authority delegates a portion of his authority to another man. This delegation is called a “commission” and this commission delegating authority makes the officer. Having received his commission, it is now this officer’s duty to carry out the commands of his superior officer by exercising his command of the soldiers his commission placed under him. Authority possessed, authority delegated, authority exercised.
Matthew brings his gospel to a close with these words spoken by Jesus to His (now) eleven Disciples:
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
Christians call these words of Jesus “the Great Commission.” Why “Great?”
As Commander in Chief, when the president of the United States commissions a military officer, the authority he can delegate is limited to the armed forces of the United States. But Jesus’ authority knows no such limit.
Before commissioning His eleven, Jesus makes this statement:
All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
Jesus holds total authority over heaven and total authority over earth, so the extent and nature of His authority is totalitarian. There is no competing authority that has ever existed in the past, and no authority today is able to contravene or oppose the authority held by the Only Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This is the reason His commission of the eleven is called “the Great Commission.”
Having stated His universal authority, Jesus’ commission of the Disciples was, “Go therefore and make disciples.”
Following His commissioning of the Eleven, Jesus ascended to heaven, and the New Testament book of Acts is the history of the Eleven taking up their work. Often called “the Acts of the Apostles,” an “apostle” is a representative sent bearing the message and authority of the sender.
What is the nature of the history Acts records of the Apostles beginning their work?
One might have thought they would enjoy a broad and level path as they picked up their work. Jesus had prefaced their commission with the reassurance He Himself had been given all authority in heaven and on earth, so the Eleven might expect smooth sailing as they preached the Name of Jesus. They themselves were exercising the universal authority of their Master, so why would making disciples for Him not simply be a matter of properly learning how to exercise His authority most efficiently?
It’s a shock to read, then, that the Apostles’ work flowing from Jesus’ authority met with the intense opposition and persecution recorded throughout Acts. The hostilities began immediately.
After just the second sermon preached by the Apostle Peter (his first was on the Day of Pentecost), Acts chapter 4 records, “the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to [the Apostles and] laid hands on them and put them in jail.” Jesus’ authority did not protect them from arrest and imprisonment.
The next day, the “rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem; and …when they had placed [the Apostles] in the center, they began to inquire, ‘By what power, or in what name, have you done this?'”
Asking the Apostles what “power” and “name” is a question of authority. This is the same question the rulers asked Jesus the day after He cleansed the Temple: “By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority” (Matthew 21:23)?
The Church had grown to 5,000 souls already, and naturally the rulers were fearful. Thus “they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.”
Remembering they had been commissioned with their Lord’s universal authority, the Apostles responded:
Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. (Acts 4:19-20)
At this point, the governing authorities issued further threats against them, but then allowed the Apostles to leave.
Reunited with their brothers in Christ, we read the text of their prayer:
O Lord, it is You who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them; who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David Your servant, said, “Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples devise futile things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.”
For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur. And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence, while You extend Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus. (Acts 4:24-30)
In this prayer, the Apostles recount the rebellion of rulers against God’s Anointed One described in Psalm 2. The kings and rulers of the earth take their stand “against the Lord and against His Christ.”
This is the steady state political economy Jesus recently, and they presently, suffer; and this is an accurate summary of the response of the kings and rulers of the earth to the Apostles documented in the Acts of the Apostles and the rest of the New Testament.
The Apostles have and exercise the authority of the Lord Jesus, but they rarely benefit from His authority. To take the most astounding example, the Apostle Paul lists the things he suffered:
- many imprisonments
- beaten times without number
- often in danger of death
- five times received 39 lashes
- three times beaten with rods
- once stoned
- three times shipwrecked
- in dangers from his countrymen
- in dangers from the Gentiles
- in dangers in the city
- in dangers in the wilderness
- in dangers on the sea
- in dangers among false brothers
- in labor and hardship
- in many sleepless nights
- often in hunger
- in cold and nakedness 1
Where is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise of authority?
When the Apostles first began to make disciples, why were the civil and religious authorities opposing them? What good was it for Jesus to tell them He held all the authority if His authority provided almost no protection from persecution and suffering? Were they not doing the work He had assigned them?
If your pastor preaches the Great Commission or you take a Bible course on the book of Acts, this seeming contradiction is unlikely to be addressed. The closest approach to it will be pastors and seminary profs pointing to how the persecution recorded in Acts was essential for the growth of the church. They will point out the Apostles would have been content to stay in Jerusalem had the civil and religious authorities not opposed and persecuted them. It will be said that kings and rulers forcing the Apostles out of Jerusalem was necessary to fulfill Jesus’ prophecy made to His disciples immediately before His ascension:
you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
We may grant all these things, but still: what happened to Jesus’ authority over heaven and earth? He promised the Eleven their commissioned work would be covered by His universal authority, but the record of Acts doesn’t show that at all. The Apostles were oppressed and beaten and stoned and imprisoned; they took up their cross just as Jesus before them took up His cross. Despite Jesus’ promise that His authority would be over them and go with them, they became the focus of the hatred and attack of their civil and religious authorities.
What’s the point of His authority if it leaves His Apostles defenceless in the face of the hatred of the kings and rulers of the earth? We can cheer ourselves up with explanations about the dispersion of the Apostles from Jerusalem across the Roman Empire, but that doesn’t answer the question why the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ did not stop the wickedness and oppression of Christ and His apostles?
Was Jesus really given all authority in heaven and on earth, or wasn’t He? And if so, why didn’t He use it to bring in His kingdom? He could have placed His Apostles at the head of the triumphal procession into Rome celebrating the Apostle’s success making a disciple of all nations, beginning with the Roman Empire. Wouldn’t that have been splendid?
Reading the Great Commission and then the book of Acts, a certain type of man would naturally conclude one of two things: either Jesus was lying about what authority He had, or He didn’t know how to use it.
(To be continued…)
| ↑1 | 2Corinthians 11:24ff. |
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