Or, Completing the Trinitarian Commission
Scripture: Matthew 28:16-20
Date: October 14, 2012
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Making disciples is not an option. Christ commissioned His disciples to make disciples, so a follower cannot be a (faithful) follower of Christ without making fellow followers. The very nature of discipleship requires that every disciple must also be a discipler.
But there is another reason for making disciples. Personal discipleship isn’t merely one methodological option, it is deeply, eternally theological. The ground and the goal, and the process in between, are all Trinitarian. That’s why the sub-title of the sermon is: Completing the Trinitarian Commission.
Even as we’ve talked the last couple Sundays about life to life, about getting to know Christ and each other, about the air war and the ground war, it all comes back to who our God is. I’m a different man (let alone discipler) because of the Trinity. Apart from the Trinity, discipleship is like “tying shoelaces tighter to make up for a bad fitting shoe” (Sanders, The Deep Things of God, 8).
Interestingly enough, one of the clearest, most conspicuous statements of the Trinity comes in the Great Commission.
Matthew 28:16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
In all our rush to purchase cheap plane tickets to “the nations,” for all the baptism robes and hermeneutics books we’ve bought, I wonder if we’ve run right by the Trinity.
The warm-up exercise—one for which the teacher gives no points—is that discipleship requires “baptizing [disciples] in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (v.19). Why is “name” singular when more than one person is mentioned? How can three persons have one name? That’s the Trinity.
That’s only the most obvious observation in the paragraph. How do we explain that when the eleven disciples went to the mountain and saw Jesus, “they worshipped him” (v.17)? Isn’t worship reserved only for God? The disciples worshipped Jesus and Jesus didn’t stop them because Jesus is God. That’s also the reason they didn’t question His order to teach their disciples to “observe everything I [Jesus] commanded” (v.19). Jesus is Lord, that’s why His commandments bear authority. In Jesus, God was in flesh.
That leads to another question. Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth have been given to me” (v.18). Who gave Him that authority? He’s God; they worshipped Him as God. Isn’t it odd for Jesus to talk about giving authority to Himself? Why didn’t Jesus say, “I’ve always had authority”? Who could give God authority? God, and in particular, God the Father gave authority to God the Son.
Jesus is God. The Father is God. The Father sent His Son, the Son sends His disciples. That’s not all the Son sends.
That brings us to another question. Jesus comforts the disciples with, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (v.20). How so? Didn’t Jesus ascend into heaven (Acts 1:9-11)? Did the “end of the age” already happen? It doesn’t help to say that the end of the age was the destruction of Jerusalem because that didn’t happen for almost another 40 years. Did Jesus change His mind? Consider the ascension account in Acts 1.
[Y]ou will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8, ESV)
This is more Great Commission speak: “be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” In other words, make disciples of all nations. The Trinity is hidden in plain sight again. We see the Father with authority, a global witness program for Jesus, carried out by the power of the Spirit! And that’s the answer to His promise of presence: Jesus is with His disciples in His Spirit.
Making disciples is carried out under the authority of the Father by the power of the Spirit for the sake of the Son. Our work is Trinitarian, it’s basis, it’s energy, and it’s goal.
Why, oh why, so much Trinity stuff? Is this really necessary? How much of this is on the test? Isn’t the God-man difficult enough to explain to people? Isn’t the cross enough of a scandal and offense? Isn’t the call to take up your cross and lose your life demanding enough?
It’s safe to assume that God knows exactly how difficult the doctrine of the Trinity is for us to wrap our minds around. I think it’s also safe to assume that He revealed it because it is important, and that there is also a reason it is so intricately woven into our disciple-making commission. In fact, perhaps one of the reasons we don’t know how to approach personal discipleship (as well as Body life) is because we don’t know how to approach the Trinity. So there are at least two reasons the Trinity is the theological basis for discipleship.
Disciple-making relates to a particular God. God is unique above the gods of the nations and God reveals Himself as one-of-a-kind and three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Disciple-making is Trinitarian, not unitarian: one God and one Person. We talk about three Persons, not three different modes of God, as if He changes from one form into another depending on the time or situation. That means that there is a confessional commitment to discipleship. When we baptize disciples, the disciples identify with a specific God. Certain facts about God must be communicated in the form of words to disciples. God is who He is so we must worship Him in truth. The truth is that God is Triune.
God minus creation would still be God, but God minus Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would not be God. (Sanders, 70)
If we do not teach who He is, if we leave the Godhead vague or foggy, we are making disciples of another god. Unless disciples identify with and worship the triune God, they are idolators. But that’s not all.
Disciple-making relates to a particular God who is a personal God. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit, all three Persons, work as a tri-unit, not only that we may know certain facts about them, but also that we would have fellowship with them! Yes, there is a confessional commitment to discipleship. But we also have a relational commitment.
There are two ditches, not one, to avoid. The Trinity keeps disciple-making from being idolatrous. The Trinity also keeps disciple-making from being impersonal. Which implies that, to the degree that our disciple-making is impersonal, we are reflecting another god/idol, too.
Redemption is the work of the Trinity to save sinners. That’s the gospel, that’s the message of disciple-making. But we can make that sound so impersonal depending on how we say it.
Maybe this question would help to clarify the difference in tone. Do you think God prefers justification or adoption? Based on how we usually speak and disciple, adoption sounds good, but “justification is the doctrine by which the church rises and falls” (per Luther). In its Reformation context, sola fide was a watershed that provided relief to many burdened souls who believed they needed to purchase or earn their approval with God, no doubt. But in itself, would you rather get your freedom from prison or a Father who provides?
Consider the purpose statements in the following verses.
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God… (1 Peter 3:18, ESV)
The substitution of Christ, the righteous taking on our unrighteousness, justification, was so that “He might bring us to God”!
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. (Galatians 4:4-7)
The Father’s eternal plan, the history of redemption, involves delivering men from the law in order to adopt sons. We’re brought close enough to cry, “Abba, Father!” The Son redeems “so that we might receive adoption as sons,” making us brothers with Himself. The third Person of the Trinity, “the Spirit of His Son” (v.6), “the Spirit of adoption” (Romans 8:18), indwells us. We are brought into the family of the Trinity.
The basis for us to make personal disciples, to bring men and women from every nation into fellowship with God the Father through Christ by the Spirit, is that making disciples is God’s goal to share Himself, eternal life, the relational joy of the Trinity with men and women from every nation. God delights in Himself, and discipleship is His delight extended and shared with persons. Making disciples is completing the Trinitarian commission.
Our lives as disciples of Christ, as members of Christ’s Body, the church, will reflect what we actually believe about the Trinity, not what we say we believe. Life without the Trinity will be fractured, stressful, and empty. We can’t pull the shoestrings tighter to make life work without the Trinity.
Because we become like what we worship, we need the Trinity. To the degree that we live Trinitarian, we will be whole, joyful, and loving. The Trinity holds everything together, better than velcro. What does it mean that our God is Triune and what does that mean for our lives together?
Have you ever considered God before Genesis 1:1? “In the beginning was God.” He was; He always has been; He never began. What was He doing all that time? Was He bored? Was He lonely?
One provocative translation I’ve heard is, “In the beginning was community” (Douglas Jones), certainly not “In the beginning was Me.” God always has been in relationship. His being is personal. That’s who He is, not something added. He didn’t learn how to relate to others after creation. He has never been alone. Eternal life is Trinitarian, it is shared life, not individual life.
God made us for fellowship, with each other and with Himself. What happened at the fall? Separation from God and separation between Adam and Eve. The separation in fellowship is also called death. But “this is eternal life, that they might know You and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). Life is fellowship.
that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)
Life is not endless bachelorhood or Internet church in your pajamas or any sort of extended isolation. The Trinity means God is not distant or antisocial, He is eternal community. The Trinity created us, as His image-bearers, for relationship.
Another way to say it would be that the Trinity means uniqueness for unity. Three Persons, all different in function but equal in being, means that all three deserve the same honor.
One god in three persons—every person is the entire deity and yet no person exists as the deity for itself without the other two. (Martin Luther, quoted in Culver, 105)
What does the Trinity have to do with the church? Why can the members of the Body be different and united, without competition?
If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. (1 Corinthians 12:17-20, 24-26)
It’s not just fact that we’re different yet connected; it’s better because we’re different and connected! We don’t exist for ourselves without others.
Trinitarians appreciate and exult in diversity; diversity in the same direction produces harmony. Unitarians are cookie cutters; everyone must play the same instrument. Unless the other person looks like them and talks like them (uniformity), something must be wrong (most likely in the other person). Unitarians are always stressed, because they are always needing the other person to change OR they are always competing with the other person for superiority and power. There can only be one person in the first chair, one person who is esteemed. Unitarians serve others out of fear, because the only reason you would serve someone is if they had more power than you. Unitarians can’t be served without (wrongly) believing themselves to be in the top spot. That’s why Christian Unitarians freak out because they know they’re supposed to be humble and let others serve them.
The Trinity created us to be different and simultaneously glorious; no one’s shadow gets in the way.
”God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). He has always been love and He didn’t create in oder to finally be able to express it to someone. He has always been expressing it. When He created, He expanded and shared His expression of love, but love always was in the Trinity. Wisdom is Jesus personified in Proverbs.
When he established the heavens, I was there;
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master workman,
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
Proverbs 8:27-30
We should think when we say “Father and Son.” It’s okay to talk about Jesus as the Second Person of the Trinity, but don’t leave it at the technical level. The Persons of the Trinity love each other.
The first and greatest commandment is to love God because that’s who God is and we were made to enjoy intimacy with Him. The second greatest commandment is to love one another because we were made to reflect the Trinity. They will know we are Christians, baptized disciples, Trinitarians, by our love.
The Trinity is a revealed and relevant doctrine, the eternal Three-in-One is truth and life. Our failure to worship a Triune God results in practical day to day failures. Sin messes up Trinitarian life.
Sin is why we need the gospel—the evangel. The gospel overcomes sin to reconcile us to God and to each other, to humble us and help us show honor to one another, and to give us new hearts that can love. To the degree that we as a church ignore the Trinity we will fail to be the baptized community of disciples that Jesus commissioned.