Matthew 28:16-20

OUR LORD MEETS THE APOSTLES, AND MORE THAN FIVE HUNDRED BRETHREN, ON A MOUNTAIN IN GALILEE

“Then He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at once; many of whom remain till now, but some indeed have fallen asleep.” (1 Corinthians 15:6.)

Matthew 28:16-20 : “ And the eleven disciples departed into Galilee, into the mountain where Jesus commanded them. And seeing Him, they worshipped Him; but some doubted.” No one knows what mountain that was. As He appeared to them on the coast doubtless it was one of those mountains around the Sea of Galilee, and more likely to be the, Mount of Beatitudes, back of Capernaum; His headquarters the first two and a half years of His ministry.

“ Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying, All authority is given unto Me in heaven and upon earth. Therefore, going, disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things, so many as I command you; and, 1o, I am with you all the days, unto the end of the age.” This is the Great Commission of our Lord to His apostles and their successors down to the end of the age. Let no one foolishly say, “The age of miracles is past,” since our Lord flatly contradicts all such fanaticism, assuring us that He is with us all the days, unto the end of the age. Where He is, miracle is the order of the day. The E. V., “Go...teach” is incorrect, the word being matheteusate, “make disciples of all the nations,” didaskontes, “teaching,”

occurring further on in the sentence. Hence, you see, baptizing and teaching are for the disciples, as you are not allowed to baptize a sinner, from the fact that God does not mark the devil's hogs, but His own sheep; meanwhile you can not teach a dead man, and all sinners are dead. Then what can we do for the sinner? Our Lord plainly commands us to make disciples of them. How shall we do that? Preach, pray, sing, exhort, and work, as the Spirit leads you, till you get him truly and genuinely converted Then, being a disciple, he is ready for baptism and a place in the school of Christ i. e., the Church where he is to be taught the “way of the Lord more perfectly,” sanctified wholly, and thus become an assiduous student taught by the Holy Ghost and human instrumentality the deep things of God and the wonders of His kingdom.

TENTH AND ELEVENTH APPEARINGS OF OUR LORD

“Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” (1 Corinthians 15:7.)

“To whom He presented Himself alive, after He suffered, in many manifestations, being seen by them through forty days, and speaking the things concerning the kingdom of God. And assembling them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to await the promise of the Father, which you heard from Me that John indeed baptized with water; but you shall be baptized of the Holy Ghost not many days hence. Then indeed they, having come together, asked Him, saying, Lord, at this time do You restore the kingdom to Israel? And He spoke these things to them, It is not for you to know the times or seasons, which the Father put in His own authority. But you shall receive the dynamite of the Holy Ghost having come on you, and you shall be witnesses, both in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and in Samaria, unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts 1:3-8.)

It is now the end of the forty days. In E. V., “power” occurs both in verses 7 and 8. In the original, the same word does not occur in these two verses as in the English, but exousia, “authority” or power, in verse 7, and dunamis, “dynamite” or power, in verse 8. Dunamis, “dynamite,” is the Pauline definition of “gospel” (Romans 1:16), and the word constantly used revelatory of the Pentecostal blessing. Power is the best English definition, but hardly strong enough. The rule of translation is, that when a word has been adopted in the English language, we no longer translate, but transfer. According to that rule, where dunamis occurs we would render it “dynamite,” as it has been adopted into the English language, with slight modification peculiar to Anglicization; whereas the E. V. translators could not so render it, from the simple fact that dynamite had not yet been discovered, and therefore dunamis had not been Anglicized. When men of science made this wonderful discovery of the greatest mechanical power the world had seen, finding no word in the English language strong enough, they went to the Greek, and took the most prominent word in the New Testament, being actually used to define gospel and the enduement of the Holy Ghost in His sanctifying power. You see, this heavenly dynamite, which came down at Pentecost and so empowered the disciples as to make them witness to all the world the wonders of full salvation, constitutes the very essence of Christian experience, and is here emphasized in the very valedictory of our crucified and risen Savior at the very hour of His ascension into glory, and is thus His own honored climax of the glorious redemptive scheme. Hence, we see, it becomes the burning message of every true gospel preacher, and the sine qua non of all doctrine and experience. Without this glorious, culminating truth, experienced in the heart and verified in the life, all profession is a failure.

You see here that when the apostles said to the Lord, “ Do You at this time restore the king, down to Israel?” He simply answered, “ It is not your privilege to know the periods or epochs, which the Father placed in His own authority.” The truth of the matter is, the Son Himself, as He says in His sermon on the Second Coming (Mark 8), did not at that time know the date when He should come in the glory of His kingdom. You know that if He had not been going to “come in His glory and restore the kingdom to Israel,” He would certainly there have corrected such a mistake on the part of His disciples. All those misapprehensions in reference to His crucifixion and resurrection He had already corrected, so that their minds were clear and cloudless on those great, salient facts of His Christhood. The statement of our Lord on this occasion warrants the conclusion that He led His disciples and ascended to heaven knowing that they were looking for Him “to restore the kingdom to Israel.” He never permitted mistakes and illusions to remain with His people. All the apostles lived and died looking for Jesus to return on the throne of His glory and “restore the kingdom to Israel.”

“ And you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” This is a part of our Lord's valedictory, spoken at the time of His ascension, and certainly will bear exhaustive analysis. You see the “fire” is not mentioned, confirming the fact that, like water, wind, and oil, it is a concomitant symbol of the Holy Ghost, always to be expected, recognized, and realized simply as an accompaniment of the Holy Ghost, and never separate from Him. When you separate any of the symbols from Him, you run headlong into fanaticism.