What is the Great Commission? What does it have to do with Christian missions?
Let’s discover what the word of God has to say about these questions and about “Building the Biblical Church to Bridge the World”.
All through the Bible God’s vision for the world is clearly seen. In the beginning God intended for one man to replenish the earth (Genesis 1:28 ). After man’s fall, the Old Testament reveals God’s plan for one nation, Israel, to be the lighthouse to reach all nations. Israel rejected their mission, yet God still sent forth His Son through the nation of Israel whom would prepare twelve men to reach the world.
Regardless of the age or man’s failures in every dispensation, God’s vision has never changed. His vision has always been to accomplish His plan of establishing His kingdom with multitudes who would willfully choose to worship, praise, adore and love Him for eternity. For God to accomplish His plan of establishing His kingdom, it involves a mission. This is where the vision for church missions comes from.
Jesus Christ was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:18-21 ; Rev 13:8 ). From the very first moment God begin to create to set forth the establishment of His kingdom, He knew His perfect creation would fall from perfection and would need provision for sin.
Knowing that there would be a brief period of interruption in establishing His kingdom, in His loving grace and mercy, before speaking His creation into existence, before even laying the foundations of the world He had a plan to provide this provision for sin.
God the Father sent God the Son into the mission field to do his mission work.
The plan of the Father was to provide this provision through His Son whom He sent on a rescue mission to seek and to save that which was lost and to give his life a ransom for many (Luke 19:10 ; Mark 10:45 ). This is the core of Christian missions. God the Father, motivated by His great love had a mission carried out by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came down from heaven and took on the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, to bear the punishment for the sin of the world on the cross. (John 6:38 ; 51; Phil 2:7-8 ). He gave his life as a sacrifice for the eternal life of many.
The purpose for this rescue mission was a part of God’s plan to establish His kingdom. There was a commission given from God the Father to God the Son to cross the boundaries from the heavenly realm and take on existence in the physical realm for the purpose of laying down His life as a ransom to redeem those who would come into His kingdom.
This missionary work of Jesus Christ has become our mission. As His church, we are to take his gospel to the uttermost. This is the entire vision of world missions. After Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, and before ascending to heaven, Jesus commissioned His disciples: “as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” (John 20:21 )
Jesus Christ has commissioned His body to take the message of the gospel into all the world and make disciples of all peoples. To reach people who have never heard the message of Jesus Christ. As the Father commissioned the Son to cross from the heavenly boundaries to the earthly boundaries and lay down His life for the purpose of redeeming those who would come into His kingdom, the Son commissioned His body to lay down our own lives that He may live through us (Gal 2:20 ), to cross cultural boundaries (foreign missions) and to deliver the gospel message of Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection to all those who have never heard so that they might come into His kingdom.
This is the essence of Kingdom Family World Missions.
