SECTION VII

Jesus showing himself to his disciples on the mountain in Galilee. his taking leave of the wider circle of the disciples

(Mat 28:16-20; Mar 16:15-18; Luk 24:45-49. Comp. 1Co 15:6)

Thus the meeting in Galilee was prepared, which the Lord had caused to be announced to the larger circle of His disciples on the first Easter morning, and the longed-for hour at last came, in which He showed Himself to all those at once who had made the pilgrimage to Galilee in the hope of meeting Him. This revelation was so significant, that Matthew could consider it as the most solemn revelation of the Lord to His people, and so close his Gospel with an account of it. He omits all the appearances in Judea after the first appearance to the women. He hastens onward to relate what he considered the highest expression of the Lord’s glory—His revelation to the assembled brethren. The eleven apostles went back to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had appointed them, and there He met them.

We can affirm with confidence, that this was the same manifestation of Jesus as that of which Paul relates (1Co 15:6), that it took place in the presence of more than five hundred brethren, the greater number of whom were alive at the time he wrote. The following are our grounds for believing so: As Jesus had before appointed that the distinctive meeting with His Church should take place in Galilee, and we know of no greater assemblage He met with there than that of the more than five hundred brethren referred to by Paul, that meeting must have taken place in Galilee. But due preparations must have been made for it, for such a large number of disciples would not easily meet together without a distinct arrangement. And if an arrangement was made, a lonely place would certainly be selected for assembling in; for the manifestation of Christ glorified to His Church tolerated no profane person, whether as member or spectator. But even before this, Christ was accustomed to hold such meetings of His more attached disciples in retired districts—‘upon the mountain.’ All this exactly suits the character of that assembling of the eleven which Matthew mentions. They went to the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. Then Christ’s manifestation of Himself to the wider circle of the disciples, as it was not to be repeated, necessarily assumed a very solemn character; on the one hand, that of a meeting after separation, and on the other, that of a farewell. These characteristics appear very prominently in the meeting described by Matthew. At our Lord’s appearance, His disciples fall down and worship Him; which was at least not always done at His earlier and more familiar appearances, and the words which He speaks to the disciples are such as must be considered words of farewell. If it be objected, that Matthew names only the eleven disciples, without mentioning that others were present at the meeting described by him, we must remember that the eleven were the leaders of the disciples who were commanded to go to Galilee, and therefore special mention of them does not exclude the idea of more being assembled with them. Matthew had a special reason for naming them alone, as he desired above all things to represent the last commission which the apostles received from the Lord in its theocratic form. Among things already referred to, the description which he gives of Christ greeting them, Mat 28:17, shows that he was aware that a larger circle of disciples were present.¹

The mountain on which the Church of Christ assembled is not named. But we must here remember that tradition has pointed out Mount Tabor as the mountain on which the transfiguration took place. We have seen that tradition was wrong in making Mount Tabor the place of His first glorification. Must it thence follow that that tradition is entirely unfounded? How easily in course of time could what was said of the second glorification of Christ before the eyes of His Church, in announcing His resurrection, be confounded with the narrative of His first glorification, especially when after a time His resurrection was not called His glorification so often as at first! How well suited, besides, was Mount Tabor for the purpose of assembling the Galilean disciples to solemnize their first Easter festivity! That the mountain was then inhabited, speaks against such a scene as the first glorification having taken place on it, but says nothing against its being appointed for the place where a large number of Christians should assemble. Only a few of the inhabitants of the mountain might be present; and we can imagine various ways in which the assembly of Christians might be so situated as to suffer not the slightest interruption, while the sublime summit seemed quite adapted for serving as the temple of the assembled Easter Church, waiting for her Lord’s appearing.²

As to the persons composing the assembly, it is certain they were mainly Galilean disciples; but after the instruction which our Lord had given to His followers, it might be very possible that many of His disciples from Judea and Perea also joined the procession which set out from Jerusalem to Galilee. The effect which Jesus’ appearance produced on this assembly was quite extraordinary. As soon as they saw Him, most of them worshipped Him with respectful reverence. In some, however, there arose a contradiction against this full measure of New Testament reverence given to the God-man.³ The first elements of the Ebionite feeling, which was afterwards developed in the Church of the Jewish Christians, seem to announce themselves here.

But Christ confirmed the truth of the feeling of a blessed sensation in the Church at seeing Him: He came unto them, and said, ‘All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.’ Without doubt He now gave those here assembled more definite explanations regarding the foundation upon which the kingdom of His power and glory rested. He also explained to them (Luk 24:45) the necessity and signification of His sufferings, which explanation they needed above all things. He had first to remove from His assembled followers the last shadow of offence at His cross, by opening their understanding, that they might understand the Scripture concerning the suffering Messiah. He next showed them how the glory of His resurrection was founded on His sufferings, and how the salvation of the world was accomplished by His death and resurrection. He then (Luk 24:47) announced to them that repentance and forgiveness of sins might and should be preached in His name among all nations. But this proclamation of salvation must begin at Jerusalem; it had to form there a home and centre for the Church of His salvation, and thence to spread abroad into the whole world.

Thus the revelation of His glory was unfolded to the spiritual vision of His hearers from the dark but divine mystery of the cross: from it proceeded the certainty of reconciliation for all the world; and in the realization of that reconciliation they saw the realization and unveiling of the kingdom of His infinite power which was given to Him over heaven and earth. But it denoted also the quiet, gentle, divine-human, and spiritual character of the power whereby He would spread His kingdom through heaven and earth.

And now they had to learn fully that they were to stand before Him in His glorious power, not as strangers, not as servants, not as childish, gazing wonderers, but that they were called as His trusted friends and members of His kingdom to extend His kingdom. He now showed them their calling as disciples in a new form by declaring to them ‘Ye are witnesses of these things.’ They were to consider themselves thenceforth witnesses of His death and His resurrection, of the judgment and reconciliation of the world in His victory, and of His divine and royal power.

Finally, He repeated to them the promise of His Holy Spirit, which He designated as the promise of His Father. He signified to them that they should receive this power in Jerusalem,⁴ that they should not begin to act openly as His witnesses before being endued with it, that they should wait quietly and patiently until they should be penetrated and borne onwards by the blessed certainty that they had been endued with power from on high. Then they should arise and go forth to all the world, and preach. He now announced their mission in solemn terms, which have become an everlasting royal mandate of Christ for all His disciples in all ages. ‘Go and teach all nations’ (make them disciples)! And how are they to do this? First, by baptizing their novices in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; next, by teaching them to observe all things whatsoever Christ had commanded them.

The first general instruction comprehended the whole. It expresses their whole calling as it is exhibited in the living unity of all His instructions.⁵ But the Lord shows in His further instructions how this first general command (the μαθητεύειν) branches out into two functions.⁶ The first is chiefly practical: its centre-point is baptism, as it is mediated by practical preaching of repentance, by the testimony of Christ convincing of sin and announcing salvation, by working on the nations pædagogically.⁷ Although teaching in its higher form is not brought forward here, because it presupposes a continuous walk in the practical paths of Christianity, yet no unspiritual or merely outward baptism is referred to here. This baptism with which the Lord commissioned His disciples, must be in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The catechumens must thus be made acquainted with the three great names in which God through Christ has glorified Himself in the world, and with their unity in the Trinity. The three-one God must be made known as He who sends to them the message of salvation.⁸ They must be baptized by His commission, in His presence, into fellowship with Him, and for blessed knowledge of His being.⁹ They must be baptized into the name of the three-one God.

But as the practical influence of Christ’s disciples is designed to bring men into the kingdom of the blessed knowledge of God and of Christ; so, on the other hand, their theoretical influence is designed to bring men to a practical realization of the blessed life in the obedience of Christ. They are to teach the nations—to teach in the proper sense, to bring them to living knowledge, to the freedom of spiritual life. But they are to teach the nations to observe what Christ has commanded them. They are, on the one hand, not to seek to persuade, terrify, or compel men to obedience against the commands of Christ, for that would be a contradiction. The commands are fully carried into practice, only in proportion as they are truly learned and freely obeyed, because they are perceived to be the right paths for the free spirit to walk in. On the other hand, Christ’s disciples could never think that they taught by His commission, if, in mistaken freedom, they sought to teach men to make small account of, or set aside, what Christ had commanded them. Thus Christ’s witnesses are, first of all, to lead their catechumens through a pædagogic treatment, which is represented by baptism, to inward knowledge of the Trinity, and thereby to Christian manhood.

But they are then, by means of free spiritual exercise, the type of which is doctrine, to lead confirmed Christians, so that they may always more and more see the light of divine truth in all Christ’s commands, and the light of blessed wisdom in the highest practical faithfulness to all these commands.

They will effect this the more successfully, the more faithfully they themselves continue in the living unity of their mission, going forth to preach, and in the midst of ceaseless travel making men true disciples of Jesus.¹⁰ With this great commission, the Lord now gave them a most comforting promise, both for themselves and for those who through their word should believe: ‘And, lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’ The contents of this promise are boundless. They are not to imagine that in course of time it would be far otherwise with them than on the day when He stood in their midst; that wide tracts of the world would remove them far from His throne; that through the afflictions of their life they might possibly be separated from Him. They are to continue bearing testimony to Him cheerfully, with the certainty that, in the power of His Spirit, and in the might of His royal rule, He will abide with them and confirm their testimony with victorious power, as if He visibly accompanied them. And through continued presence of their Lord, they shall be enabled to labour as His witnesses unto the end of the world; yes, and in His strength shall bring on that end of the world at which its judgment and transformation takes place.

Mark gives us this promise of Christ in a more developed form. In the first place, their commission is expressed in stronger terms: ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.’

Conjoined with this commission is the announcement of the judgment of the world which will result from the message of redemption. ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.’

Then the signs are named by which the Lord will give evidence of His continual presence with His people, the signs of His power which accompany believers and show them to be His. And as the working of the disciples in the time of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, and the future demonstrations of the Spirit of Christ in believers unto the end of the world, are here spoken of, we may well assume that the promise of miraculous signs which the Lord here gives His disciples has a general, a symbolical sense.

In the first place, they shall victoriously approve themselves in the world of spiritual life as messengers bearing Christ’s salvation. They shall cast out devils; shall overcome devilish and sullen dispositions in the world, break demoniac powers, and cast demoniac influences out of the world. They shall gain these victories over spiritual diseases in the power of the new and blessed spiritual life, which shows itself in their speaking with new tongues. The power of their saving life shall also show itself in the realm of nature: they shall take up and cast out serpents,¹¹ and their own life shall be able to withstand the pernicious influence of the deadly poisons which shall be given them.¹² Finally, they shall prove themselves to be true messengers of Christ’s healing power in the sphere of bodily life. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

Thus in Christ’s name they shall, in the sphere of the spirits of men, of bodily life, and of outward nature, remove disorder and spread health, until the transformation of the world, and in the first place its birth-crisis, the judgment, has been prepared; and thereby they shall show the continued prevalence of the power of Christ in His people and His presence in their midst. With this promise the Lord took leave of the wider circle of His Galilean friends. He left with them the impression that He continued with them in the might of His life. But they saw how He in His individual personality retired into the hidden kingdom of His new existence. This departure of Christ was for them a kind of ascension of Christ, namely, the free return into His Father’s house.¹³

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Notes

‘There are thus found in the New Testament three different views of the imparting of the Spirit to Christ’s disciples, and they form a climax in a twofold respect. With respect to time, Matthew places it earliest,¹⁴ in the time of the natural life of Jesus; Luke latest, in the time after His entire departure from earth; John between these, in the days of the resurrection.’¹⁵ So Strauss, 647.

After what has been said above concerning the living progress of the impartation of the Spirit from its beginning until its completion, I need scarcely enter into closer consideration of this supposition of Strauss, which rests upon a quite mechanical apprehension of the passages in question. It is evident that the bestowal of the Holy Ghost (Mat 10:19) is represented as a thing to be expected and future. It is characteristic, that Dr David Michaelis, who is said to have once argued against the internal testimony of the Holy Ghost, remarking that he had never experienced such testimony, had much trouble reconciling Joh 20:22 with the narrative of Pentecost.¹⁶

1) His account of the Sermon on the Mount also shows that Matthew did not always describe exactly the circles surrounding our Lord.

2) Comp. Sepp, iii. 694.

3) I refer the οἱ δὲ ἐδίστασαν to what immediately precedes—the observation that the assembled disciples fell down before the Lord. Consequently it does not express doubt of the resurrection of Christ, or doubt of the identity of Him who appeared here with the Risen One, but doubt of the propriety of such unbounded reverence for Jesus.

4) It was very necessary that the Lord should now make this distinct announcement to the whole Church, that as many of the members as possible might make ready for returning to Jerusalem before Pentecost. This did not exclude later and more definite injunctions of the same kind.

5) Πορευθέντες μαθητεύσατε.

6) The construction is the following: πορευθέντες μαθητεύσατε, &c : 1. βαπτίζοντες, &c. 2. διδάσκοντες, &c. Compare Olshausen, iv. 296. Olshausen rightly remarks, that the construction does not permit the passage to be explained, 'first teach and then baptize them.' That is, so far as the higher Christian instruction is understood as signified by teaching. But when he maintains that it was the practice of the apostles never to teach before baptizing, he is one-sided and incorrect. Was not the naming the name of Christ, which mediated confession of His name, teaching?

7) For this reason Clement of Alexandria placed his λόγος προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς 'Έλληνας before the παιδαγωγός, and that again before the στρώματα.

8) Neander points out, that the doctrine of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost was contained in the parting address in John.

9) The definiteness of the formula for baptism must be traced to the word of Jesus Himself. This is plain from the very nature of baptism. The institution of baptism in a new form demanded that the name into which the baptism was to take place should be exactly designated. If in the New Testament baptism is likewise spoken of as baptism in the name of Christ Jesus, or similarly, this does not, as Strauss supposes, say anything against the fuller form already mentioned, but is rather to be considered as the shortest historical designation of Christian baptism, as distinguished from Jewish baptism.

10) As travelling preachers (ver. 19), which means more than 'preaching travellers.'

11) See Acts xxviii. 5.

12) This passage presents most strongly the more general and symbolical character of this promise.

13) Compare Section 10, The Ascension.

14) Probably he refers to Matt. x. 20.

15) This refers to John xx. 22.

16) [The following tabular view of the appearances may be found serviceable; a similar one is given by Robinson:—

     The first five appearances occurred on the day of the resurrection. ED.]