Matthew 28:16-20
16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 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 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
Matthew 28:16-20 is the story of the appearance of the risen Lord to the disciples in Galilee. The material is unique to Matthew. Jesus comes to the followers of Jesus. They do not look for him.[1] The account is brief. It inspires me to discuss the significance of doubt in Christian experience as well as an Augustinian approach to the Trinity.
16 Now the eleven disciples (minus Judas, whom Matthew 27:3-5 says killed himself) went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. Although Jesus told them to go to Galilee in 26:32, he does not specify a mountain. The appearance in Galilee fulfills the second half of the prediction found in 16:21. We have here the final of several Matthean references to mountains in the life and ministry of Jesus (e.g., 4:8, 5:1, 8:1, 15:29, 17:1, 9, etc.). The references cumulatively function to draw a parallel between Moses as the original law-giver associated with mountains and Jesus the new law-giver, likewise associated with mountains. In 28:7 and 10, the risen Lord told them he would meet them in Galilee. Galilee has a central place in Matthew, so as readers we find it fitting that the final setting of the Gospel is there. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him, even as did the magi in 2:2, 11 and the disciples in 14:22-33. The custom involves prostrating oneself before the one honored and kissing their feet. But some doubted. We find the same response on the Sea of Galilee, when Jesus stilled the storm. They seem to approach this event with reverence and reservation. The mixed reaction suggests some unresolved inner conflict. Such experiences are not unique. Martin Luther had his doubts. In August of 1527 Luther wrote to a friend, "For more than a week, I was close to the gates of death and hell...Christ was wholly lost." In the 1530's Luther questioned the very existence of God. "The devil assails me that I do not know whether there is any God or not." For Luther, faith was the object of an agonizing search. The risen Lord distinguishes between doubt and unbelief. One is honest, looking for light, the other is content with darkness.[2] Yet, Jesus does not rebuke them. Jesus came to them. He spoke to them. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. The saying is an echo of the devil's final tempting words to Jesus at the start of his ministry, "All these I will give you" (4:9). The evangelist's final words on the life and meaning of Jesus indicate that God has given supreme authority to Jesus the Christ, but only through the way of suffering, death and resurrection. Such authority is consistent with the designation of Jesus as the Son of Man, which we find in Matthew often. Barth stresses that this passage ascribes to the risen Lord the dignity, position, and power of the creator.[3] The royal rule of the Father is present in and through Jesus; therefore, the Son as exalted Lord has the power of the Father imparted to him.[4] We can also relate this saying to I Corinthians 15:28, in which Paul says that the Son will hand back to the Father this authority, so that God may be all in all. This notion relates to the sending of the Son, and not to intra-Trinitarian life.[5] 19 Go therefore, based on this authority that the exalted Lord now has, and make disciples of all nations, making disciples underlies all baptism, connected to teaching for this reason,[6] baptizing them, baptizing being an act of transfer, the baptized belonging to God,[7] in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the most literal translation of this text comes from a contemporary translation of the New Testament that reads, "So wherever you go, make disciples of all nations: Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to do everything I have commanded you."[8] Next, the authoritative one commissions his entourage to recruit followers through the door of baptism into the newly established messianic community. These last words from the risen Lord define the apostolic mission of the church. Such a formulation of the baptismal formula only suggests later Trinitarian theology, for the formula says nothing about the inner relations of the Trinity.[9] Interestingly, in Acts, baptism is often in the name of Jesus. Matthew clearly connects baptism to the Trinitarian formula, but the historical basis for baptism is the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.[10] It is difficult, in light of the total witness of the New Testament, to say that baptism with a Trinitarian formula is something that the risen Lord commanded the church to do. Baptism may well have been in the name of Jesus in the early Christian community.[11] The Easter message follows the Easter event, rather than constituting it, as some scholars would suggest. The Easter event constitutes the Easter message through the self-declaration of the risen Lord.[12] The Easter message, along with the conviction that the Father has already exalted the risen Lord to messianic dominion as the Lord at the right hand of the Father, we find the task of taking the news of this to the nations formulated here.[13]
Let us pause for a moment in order to reflect upon the significance of the Trinitarian baptism formula in the formation of the Christian view of God.[14]
Augustine, one of the greatest minds of the Western world, put his head to thinking about the Trinity. Augustine, a master of words, took 15 books to talk about the Trinity, 15 books that took him over a decade to write. Augustine's On the Trinity continues to be helpful in thinking through that which is difficult to think about, and talking about that which is difficult to describe, namely the nature of God who comes to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Early on in his massive treatise, Augustine had seven statements about God: The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. The Son is not the Father. The Father is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the Son. And then, after these six statements, Augustine adds one more. There is only one God. This is the thinking that is tough to get into our brains. We have experienced three rather distinctive modes of God's presence. God is the Father, the creator of us and the world. God is the Son, the one who comes to us as Jesus, living, suffering, dying, and rising among us. We experience God as Holy Spirit, that power that has intruded into our world as the near presence and power of God. And yet, we are not tri-theists, we do not believe in three gods. We know, with Israel, that is only one God. These names, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three names for the same thing. They are three names of one God. And how to make sense of that? You can certainly understand our sisters and brothers the Jews who hear talk of this kind and who may think to themselves, "Christians are no longer monotheist. They no longer believe in one God but in three gods." No, what we are attempting to do in the Trinity is make sense of how there can be one God, and yet that one God being experienced by us in three special ways.
In the Council of Nicaea, they spoke of God's "three persons." In our language, that sounds like we are talking about three different people. No, Nicaea was building upon the Greek experience, from Greek drama of the way in which one character in a Greek play portrayed a number of different people in the play by simply moving off stage, putting on another mask which was called a persona, and returning to the stage as a different actor. One actor could play three different roles. I am one person, but I play the roles of father, husband, and son. In a similar way, though there is one God, we experience that God working in three different ways in the world. And yet, like most analogies about God, this analogy helped, but not completely.
In Book 7 of On the Trinity, Augustine tried this. Rather than looking specifically in Scripture, or in the world, for analogies to speak about God, he looked within himself. In looking within himself, Augustine noted how the human soul itself is Triadic, Trinitarian. There is a kind of triune way in which we experience ourselves, as if the Trinity is built right into the structure of our reality. We say, for instance, "I love myself." According to Jesus, it is all right to love ourselves, for we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. So, we can say, "I love myself." When we do so, we are speaking in a triune way. When I say, "I love myself," there is a lover that is doing the loving; namely, me loving myself. There is also the beloved, the object of my love, which is also me; then, there is the loving, the act and energy of the lover upon the beloved. So even with the one, there is the lover, the beloved, and the loving. Thus, within our own hearts, in our own experience, Augustine said that there is the vestigia trinitatis. Reality is trinitarian. It is as if the Trinity, God's dynamic, effusive nature, appears to be built right into the structure of who I am and what the world is. There is a modern word for talking about this dynamic structure synergy. Within the Trinity, there is constant movement, interaction, as the Father gives to the Son, and the Son is constantly returning praise and glory to the Father, and the Father and the Son give to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit constantly draws everything back to the Father and the Son. There is the beloved, the lover, and the love.
I saw the blessed Trinity working. I saw that there were these three attributes: fatherhood, motherhood, and lordship - all in one God. In the almighty Father we have been sustained and blessed with regard to our created natural being from before all time. By the skill and wisdom of the Second Person we are sustained, restored, and saved with regard to our sensual nature, for he is our Mother, Brother, and Savior. In our good Lord the Holy Spirit we have, after our life and hardship is over, that reward and rest which surpasses forever any and everything we can possibly desire - such is his abounding grace and magnificent courtesy. Our life too is threefold. In the first stage we have our being, in the second our growth, and in the third our perfection. The first is nature, the second mercy, and the third grace. For the first I realized that the great power of the Trinity is our Father, the deep wisdom our Mother, and the great love our Lord.[15]
Newer talk about the Trinity tends to stress, not substance, as we find in the classic statement from Nicaea, but relationship. The Trinity expresses relationship as being of the very nature of God. The Son is constantly relating to the Father, who is constantly relating to the Son, who is constantly relating to the Holy Spirit, who is constantly relating to the Father, and so on for eternity.
Furthermore, the Trinity shows that God is relationship, relationship not only with the inner life of God, but relationship with the whole world. As in the Trinity, God is constantly reaching out and embracing all the aspects of God, so God is also constantly reaching out to us. We know this through the historical narratives of God's relating to us, which we call Holy Scripture. There is no need to trip up in poetry logic of the Trinity. There is only need to read the biblical story that constantly speaks of a God who is constantly reaching out to us. Therefore, symbols of the Trinity, such as three interlocking circles, or as a triangle, or other symbolic pictures are often more effective for expressing this dynamic life of the Trinity than our words about the Trinity. In the Trinity, we find that the nature of God is relationship, communion, communion of coequals characterized by relationally and mutuality. If Augustine is right in believing that the Trinity is built into the very structure of the universe, this implies that God wills that the whole creation moves toward communion in relationship. Therefore, the very worship is that sharing of food in Jesus - a name that we call Holy Communion.
20 And teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. Matthew organized his gospel around five blocks of teaching, separated by deeds of healing and exorcism. The commission we have just explored is not one that relies upon the strength and resources of the disciples, nor can their inadequacy thwart it. The one thing required of the disciples is that they help all nations become disciples of Jesus, conducting them into membership of the one people of God. The rest of the statement is an elaboration as to how they are to do that. In this going, the church takes an important step outside itself and into the ambiguous world of humanity.[16] And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." An end of this time envisioned,[17] a possible fulfillment of his birth in 1:23 of Emmanuel, God with us. The notion of the risen Lord being with us is more than simply as an interested spectator who occasionally gives friendly advice. Rather, it means that as they make disciples, the risen Lord is present to guide, sustain, and protect. The risen Lord is there to accompany followers of Jesus in this journey and mission.[18] This promise is the basis for Catholic and Orthodox affirmation of the binding nature of ecumenical councils.[19] The final word of the gospel of Matthew is one of reassurance and hope.
In one moment, the disciples worship him. In another moment, they doubted. Even after they saw him alive after his crucifixion, some doubted. Yet, Jesus takes the worshipping and doubting band of followers and commissions them for a ministry to the nations. He wants them to make disciples in all nations. It was not enough for them to acknowledge the validity of their experience of the risen Lord. The Lord commissioned them to share the good news, for what God had done in Jesus of Nazareth has significance for all time and for all nations. Of course, baptism was the sign of initiation into the body of believers. Further, teaching people to be followers of Jesus would form the content of their ministry. Further still, they would have the assurance of the presence of the risen Lord in their community.
[1] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.2] 144.
[2] Emphasis May-June 1993.
[3] Barth Church Dogmatics III.1 [41.1] 51.
[4] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 391.
[5] Pannenberg Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 312.
[6] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 242.
[7] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 239-40
[8] God's Word: Today's Bible Translation that Says What It Means (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Word Publishing, 1995).
[9] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 301.
[10] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 276-7.
[11] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 340-1.
[12] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 288.
[13] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 494.
[14] Inspired by William Willimon, Pulpit Resources, 2002.
[15] - Julian of Norwich, 1342-ca.
[16] Barth Church Dogmatics III.2 [47.1] 449; 1V.3 [72.4] 860-1, 874.
[17] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 95.
[18] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.2 [67.2] 658.
[19] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 423.
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