How do you see the Great Commission of Christ relating to believers today?

The Great Commission is a repeat of the Dominion Mandate God gave Adam and Eve. They were to be fruitful and fill the earth with God-fearing, God-obeying progeny. They were commanded to bring about the equivalent of what today we would call a Christian world. They failed but God’s plans are never frustrated.

The mandate to produce a Christian world was given to Christ, the second Adam, and to His progeny, all Christians. Christ, just prior to His ascension gave His instructions to His disciples, and indirectly to all the regenerate, all the members of His body. They were told to go out and do what Adam had failed to do.

Christ began by declaring that He had all power in heaven and in earth and that the disciples were to go out and teach the nations (that were now under His rule and authority) to obey Him. They were to obey all His commandments. What could this mean other than that they were to become Christian nations? To limit this to a command to merely preach the Gospel to the nations is either a cowardly way of avoiding responsibility or it is a redefinition of goals as a way of excusing failure.

The Commission was to teach the nations, not to force them to obey through conquest or through political control. The means to be employed was regeneration, not revolution.  Jesus called for their baptism, which implied the need for the dissemination of the Gospel message. But the requirement of obedience to Christ’s commandments also brings God’s law into the picture; it is the law that defines obedience.

The first task would naturally fall to missionaries, pastors and teachers, those that have the knowledge and skills needed. The greater task, though, falls to individual believers; it is they that must shape the cultures and laws of their nations to bring them into conformity to the law of God. The entire body of Christ is addressed here and each and every believer is an integral part of the Great Commission.

Christ’s Great Commission cannot be relegated to pastors and missionaries. The entire body of Christ, every believer, you and I, have been told, “go ye therefore,” make your nation a Christian nation. This must begin at home.

Scripture References:

Matt. 5:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Matt. 6:33  But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.