Home	Our Hope
Bible Study		July 31, 2011
The Great Commission – Fulfilled

Introduction

When we consider the Second Coming our attention is usually drawn to the catastrophic events like earthquakes, wars, and famines. We tend to use these as landmarks to determine where we are in the end-times chronology and when the end will come. But the final landmark, given by Jesus, is not so dramatic to us but much more important to Jesus. That is the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

Lesson

Jesus announced the Great Commission after his resurrection and just before he ascended to Heaven as recorded in Matthew 28

¹⁸ And [Jesus] spoke with them and he said to them, "All authority has been given to me in Heaven and in the earth; in the manner in which my Father has sent me, I am sending you. ¹⁹ Therefore go disciple all the nations and baptize them in the name of The Father and The Son and The Spirit of Holiness. ²⁰ And instruct them to keep everything whatever I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you every day, even unto the end of time. Amen"

Though the Great Commission was given by Jesus during his lifetime that evangelism was anticipated by the prophets many years before.

Isaiah 56:7 - my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations

Amos 9:11,12 - "In that day I will restore David’s fallen shelter – I will repair its broken walls and restore its ruins – and will rebuild it as it used to be, ¹² so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name," declares the LORD, who will do these things.

What would it mean that the Great Commission was fulfilled? Certainly it would not mean that the whole world had converted. We know that some will reject the message. Instead it means that all people will have had a chance to hear the message and to choose whether or not to accept it.

But how have we done at fulfilling that command?

¹

"This decline has been caused primarily by defections from Christianity due to secularism in Western Europe, Communism in Eastern Europe, and Materialism in the Americas and elsewhere."²

I think another major player has been science. None of us remember a time when homes didn’t have electricity and telephones, when there weren’t cars and airplanes, radios and televisions. But for 1900 years after Jesus, none of these existed. It has only been in the last century that all of these came into being.

In that time science explained so many of the mysteries of our world that many people have come to believe it will eventually explain them all. Thus people have put their faith in science. Scientific findings are now commonly the basis for criticism of religion in general and Christianity in particular.

At first glance it appears that the Great Commission has stalled. But these statistics are for the entire world. When the data is broken down by regions we find that Christianity has spread into the Third World in a big way.

In 1900 Christianity was predominately a White Western religion – 81% of its members were white and 85 % lived in the Western world. But, as a result of its spread into the Third World and southeast Asia, in 1980 only 48 % were white and only 33 % were Western. "There are today Christians and organized Christian churches in every inhabited country on earth."³

It was science and the technologies that sprung from it that made this possible. Until the 16^th century Bibles were copied by hand so there were very few of them. Now everyone that wants a Bible can have one. And not only that, but they can have it in their own language in most cases. In 1980 the Bible was available in 1811 languages representing 96 % of the population. With the rapid advances in technologies such as Unicode and the internet since then there must be far more now.

That still left about 5200 languages in 1980 but many of them have very few speakers and often the speakers speak a more common language as a second language. Even so, in 1980 there were 986 translation projects underway.

Before Jesus gave us the Great Commission, he described the conditions that would lead to his return in the Olivet Discourse. The table below breaks out the primary text from Matthew 24, with references to Mark 13 and Luke 21.

Questions

¹ World Christian Encyclopedia (1982), Oxford University Press

² The Advent Hope for human Hopelessness, Samuele Bacchiocchi, 1986

³ The Advent Hope for human Hopelessness, Samuele Bacchiocchi, 1986