Jesus | Obedient Sonship and the Great Commission
As God’s word is the means of missions and worship is the purpose of missions, so Jesus reveals how to be obedient sons of God on mission. Though Abraham is our earthly father of the faith and the first missionary by way of calling, Jesus is “the author and perfecter of faith” and the perfect missionary sent by the Father in the incarnation (Heb 12:2). “Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come of Myself, but He sent Me’” (John 8:42).
So central is the role of Jesus as the Son of God, that to know God at all is to know Him as Father through Christ, for “all things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matt 11:27). When Jesus teaches the disciples to pray “our Father,” He’s doing so precisely through Him (Matt 6:9). One cannot pray “our Father” unless one has become a son through Christ. Jesus teaches the Church how to be obedient children of the Father.
As Abraham is called out of Ur into the land of promise, and Jesus is the Word sent by the Father in the incarnation, so the Church is called out and sent by Christ in the Great Commission. Abraham’s willingness to offer his only beloved son Issac in obedience to God in Genesis 22 foreshadows our Heavenly Father’s willingness to offer his only beloved Son for our sins. Abraham’s response to God and the disciples’ response to Christ are parallel. Like Abraham hears God and worships Him rightly in obedience (Gen 22:12), so the disciples hear Jesus and worship Him rightly through obedience (Matt 28:10-17). As Abraham obeys God, knowing that God Himself will provide the sacrifice needed (Gen 22:13), so Jesus is given all authority in heaven and on earth because He is the obedient sacrifice prefigured in Isaac (Matt 28:18). And as Abraham trusts God to accomplish all that He has promised (Gen 22:14) so the disciples trust in Christ’s promise to be with them to the end of the age (Matt 28:20). Abraham is left with a promise and a covenant, “I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have listened to My voice” (Gen 22:17-19). This is the promise and covenant being enacted and continuing to be fulfilled in the Church when the disciples are left with a mission: worship God rightly, make disciples of all the nations, baptize, teach and trust in Christ (Matt 28:16-20). This commission is given to the eleven disciples as the eleven disciples (Matt 28:16). This commission is entrusted to the Church. Though it belongs to all Christians who make up the Church, it does not belong to each individual Christian as such. There is no such thing as an individual Christian apart from Christ’s Church. We are members of Him and of one another (1 Cor 12:12-27; Eph 4:25).
The Parrhesians 