Matthew 27:20

“And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world (or ‘age').”

And the guarantee of their success will be that He Himself is with them always, in all His authority and power as the risen Lord. This reflects the words at His birth in Matthew 1:23, ‘He will be called God With Us', again an emphasis at both beginning and end. That He will indeed be so is again evidence of His divinity. Only One Who was divine could accompany each member of a group which spread out throughout all the world. To Matthew this is the equivalent of Pentecost, which made this situation apparent to the world. There also the breath of God and the fire of God indwelt His people.

So the divine King is now among them and will continue among them and the Kingly Rule of Heaven and its power is confirmed as available to all who respond to the King. Thus to Matthew the presence of Jesus continually with His people (as the drencher in the Holy Spirit - Matthew 3:11) is parallel with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit in Luke, and the fulfilment of the coming of the Kingly Rule of Heaven. For this presence of Jesus with His people compare Matthew 18:20; also Matthew 10:40. For when the Holy Spirit possesses a man he comes under the Kingly Rule of Heaven. But such men must still ‘repent' and become disciples, for the Kingly Rule of Heaven is at hand in the presence of the King (Matthew 4:17). Thus as they go out teaching men to observe all that He has commanded they must pray, ‘may your Name be made holy (by the triumph of the word), may your Kingly Rule come (by the bending of the knee to Jesus as Lord and reception of the Holy Spirit), may your will be done (by obedience to His commandments), on earth as it is in Heaven' (Matthew 6:9), as they ask for their teaching to have its divine effect.

We should note here how Jesus, when He called on men to go forth in His Name, based His way of going about it on that of God in the Old Testament. He too constantly promised that He would go with those whom He called and sent out in His service, and the assumption also was that His power would be with them as long as they were obedient. Consider, for example, Joshua 1 where, having commanded his full obedience to the Law of Moses, God's promise is ‘I will not fail you or forsake you --- be not frightened nor dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go' (Joshua 1:5; Joshua 1:9), which is very similar to this, apart from the fact that now it is the presence of Jesus that will go with them, and that too was in a situation where Joshua and Israel were going forward in order to establish God's Kingly Rule, and all had to be careful to do all that the Law of Moses commanded. Compare also Exodus 3:12; Judges 6:16; in both of which is the promise ‘I will be with you', where a similar overall idea was in mind. But in all these cases in the Old Testament the promise is basically to individuals, even though their followers were also included in a general way. In Matthew 28:20 the promise is given to all who go out in order to make disciples, and to each of them as individuals. Thus Jesus is taking over the prerogative of God in a big way, and promising that He Himself would do what God had previously done for His people in even greater measure. Whoever else in history has ever dared to make such a claim?

That Jesus' continuing presence with us is a comfort can hardly be denied. We can be assured that He will never fail us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). But the emphasis here is not so much on that, as on the fact that He is with us in order that we might successfully carry out His mission. He is with us in order to empower us in that. This is not a promise on which simply to rest, although it includes that, it is a promise on which to go forward. The servants must fulfil their responsibilities before the Lord returns (Matthew 25:14) and the end of the age/world comes, so that all nations might hear the good news of the Kingly Rule of God. For ‘the end of the age/world' compare Matthew 13:39; Matthew 13:49; Matthew 24:3 with 30-31. It is the time of final judgment and consummation of God's purposes when final destinies are determined. And that is what all is leading up to, a fitting end to the Gospel.