Read Matthew 28:16–20
Questions from the Scripture text: Who go to Galilee (Matthew 28:16)? Which mountain do they go to? Whom do they see (Matthew 28:17)? What do they all do to Him? What do some of them do? Who came and spoke to them (Matthew 28:18)? How much authority has been given to Him? Which authority has been given to Him? What are they to make, therefore (Matthew 28:19)? By what two actions are disciples made (verse 19b, Matthew 28:20)? Into what single name are they baptized? What are they taught to do with Jesus’s commands? How many of them? Who is with them always, as they make disciples? Even until when?
For what does the Lord institute baptism? Matthew 28:16–20 prepares us for the sermon in the morning public worship on the coming Lord’s Day. In these five verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that the Lord institutes baptism as a sign of Christ’s authority and power in His gathering church.
When Jesus’s disciples are brokenhearted at the Passover, the Lord Jesus instituted the Supper to direct their hearts and minds unto Him, to feed spiritually upon Him repeatedly for the rest of the age.
And now, when some of them are still doubting after having seen Him multiple times (as we learn from John 21), the Lord Jesus institutes baptism to affirm to them His authority and glory (Matthew 28:18), obligate them to His service (Matthew 28:19), and assure them of His presence and power unto the end of the age. These are exactly the things to which every single one whom Jesus adds to His church needs to commit.
In the first century, baptisms were already used as initiations/identifications by set-apart groups. The same had been true of circumcision. Now, Jesus initiates baptism as the mark of the church of His disciples. And what does this mark teach us?
That all authority has been given to Him in heaven and earth. He is God from all eternity. But He became a Man, lived a perfectly obedient life, died an atoning death, and rose again from the dead. His saving work as the Christ is done. His time of humiliation is over. Even in His human nature, He is now exalted. Not only over the earth. But even over heaven! He is, in His divinity, “He who sits upon the throne.” But He is also, in His humanity, the risen and ascended and exalted “Lamb who sits upon the throne.” We must trust in Him and worship Him. Faith.
Christian baptism also teaches us that we are obligated to be disciples who make disciples. If our risen Lord is in authority generally, how much more over His disciples specifically! And what does He want them (and us) to do? Well, there is a great and primary duty: make disciples. But, there is also something else that He wants disciples to do “observe all thing that Jesus has commanded.” If the church does not teach the whole counsel of God, it is guilty of the lives of its members (Acts 20:26–27). Not all may be teachers, but all must learn. We have a duty to study in order to believe all of Jesus’s doctrine and obey all of Jesus’s commands. Obedience.
And the last big thing that Christian baptism teaches is that this faith and obedience can come only through the grace of ongoing, continual delight in and dependence upon Jesus’s fellowship. “and lo, I am with you always.”
The Lord Jesus had said that He Himself would build His church and that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it (cf. Matthew 16:18). But now the Lord Jesus is leaving, and this group before Him is not very promising.
There are only eleven of them because one who was numbered among the disciples turned out to be the betrayer. That might dampen your confidence about the new disciples in Matthew 28:19—especially when you consider that even from among the eleven that remain, there are still some who are doubting.
But it is exactly into our consideration of these disciples, and the disciples that they are to be making, that Jesus announces that it is about His authority and power, not ours, and His faithfulness, not ours.
Jesus announces that He has authority in heaven and on earth, and a church that is in heaven and on earth. The resurrected Man before them has authority even in Heaven to pour out the Holy Spirit, for He is a divine Person. They have known since Matthew 3:11 that He would baptize with the Holy Spirit.
Baptisms were already used as initiations into groups, and now Jesus notifies them that as He is the Second Person of the Trinity, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is the church of the Triune God. He commands that the one Name (singular—one God) into which they be baptized be Triune (three Persons, whose one name is “Father and Son and Holy Spirit”). And so, our baptisms remind us that Jesus has this authority both with reference to His eternal godhood, and with reference to His finished and perfect work as the Redeemer.
When He marks of His holy assembly with this particular sign in this particular Name, we can see that He is saying: “it depends upon My power.” And when He follows by saying, “and lo, I am with you always,” we can hear that it depends upon His faithfulness. That is wonderful news for those whose weakness and unfaithfulness would lead to ultimate failure!
Jesus answers our weakness by His strength in His gospel signs and words.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that we need not do anything. It rather means the exact opposite: that we must do everything. He has marked us as His own, and as those to whom He has committed His power. We ought to obey all His commands merely because we are His creatures, and then again because He has bought us by His blood, and now again because He has marked us off as holy and set apart to Him! Therefore, disciples must be taught to “observe all things I have commanded you.”
Thus, we realize that baptism is not a statement by the new disciple, but by the Lord of the disciples, through those whom He has commanded to mark and teach them. It is a mark that is displayed anew to the holy assembly, whenever it is being applied to a new addition to that assembly. In it, our Lord presents Himself and His Spirit for the worship of His people!
Who is “saying something” in baptism? What is He saying? How are you responding?
Sample prayer: Lord, thank You for giving us baptism as a sign of Your authority and power to make us into disciples, and to make those whom we teach and baptize into disciples. Forgive us for whenever we are self-reliant in evangelistic work, or when we are neglectful of evangelistic work. Grant that we would keep teaching, keep baptizing, and keep trusting that You will be with us to use these for making disciples of Christ, we ask in His Name, AMEN!
Suggested songs: ARP32AB “What Blessedness” or TPH424 “All Authority and Power”
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