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Between Two Worlds
JUSTIN TAYLOR
What Does the Great Commission Mean When It Says to Disciple a Nation?
JUSTIN TAYLOR
In Matthew 28:19, Jesus commands the church to “disciple all the nations” (μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη). He has the authority to give the command (28:18) and he will enable and empower the mission with his presence (28:20). King Jesus did not give his people an assignment they will fail to complete.
Jeremy Sexton, a pastor of Christ the King Church in Springfield, Missouri, writes that every eschatological view agrees with this, but “Postmillennialists hold that this phrase envisages the conversion of entire people groups, the Christianization of all nations as nations.”
And at first glance, this seems like it could be plausible:
After all, “the nations” (τὰ ἔθνη) describes people groups.
Moreover, “all the nations” (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη) follows the verb “disciple” (μαθητεύσατε) as its direct object.
So, infer postmillennialists, Jesus does not merely command his church to disciple individuals within the nations; he more specifically directs us to disciple the nations qua nations.
Exegesis, however, is the Achilles’ heel of postmillennialism, and the claim does not hold up to scrutiny.
Sexton offers four arguments against their reading. I want to reproduce one of them, since it alone seems sufficient to establish the case:
The clause “disciple all the nations” implicitly contains a reference to individuals; it means “disciple individuals from all the nations.” . . .
And the rest of the Great Commission confirms that the church’s disciple-making mission, like the one described in Isaiah 66:19–20, targets persons rather than political units.
Immediately after our Lord issues his directive to “disciple all the nations,” he expands on what he means: “baptizing them … teaching them” (Matt 28:19–20).
“Them” (αὐτούς) is a masculine personal pronoun that refers not to the nations as such, since ἔθνη (“nations”) is a neuter noun, but to individuals from the nations.
If the author had wanted to describe “the collective conversion of national groups,” then “αὐτά, the neuter plural pronoun, would be expected rather than αὐτούς.”
The antecedent of “them,” persons, is contained implicitly in the clause “disciple all the nations.”
Indeed, the objects of the discipling that Jesus has in mind are persons qua persons, those who can be baptized into the Triune name and be taught to obey, for “baptism and instruction in obedience belong to discipleship.”
A nation qua nation cannot experience the personal discipleship in view any more than it can receive Trinitarian baptism.
The point is not that there can be no such thing as a genuinely Christian nation in this age. The point is that Matthew 28:18–20 envisions no such thing. The aim of the Great Commission, concludes Carson, “is to make disciples of all men everywhere, without distinction.”
David Schrock—pastor for preaching and theology at Occoquan Bible Church in Woodbridge, Virginia—addresses the same issue in his essay on Postmillennialism and Theonomy.
He points out that when Jesus uses that word “nation” in Matthew 28:19, he could be using it in one of two ways:
He could be using it as a collective singular, such that he’s really referring to the members of all nations. Matthew does this, for instance, when he writes, “Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him” (3:5). Matthew doesn’t mean the entire city of Jerusalem, or everyone in the region of Judea, was going out to be baptized by John. Rather, a large number of people from the city and the state were seeking baptism.
Conversely, Jesus could be treating the word more as a proper singular, as when one says, “Germany declared war on America.” Many postmillennials seem to treat “nation” in the latter way, declaring that the whole country can or should seek baptism. . . .
Like Sexton, Schrock shows that Jesus must have been referring to a collective singular, rather than a proper singular, because of the switch from the neuter “nation” (ethnē) to the masculine “them” (autous). “Them”—that is, the member of the nation—is personal.
This part-of-the-whole rendering interpretation fits with Revelation 5:9, which refers to a final heavenly people “from” all nations.
Moreover, it fits with the way disciples are made in the book of Acts. Individuals, not city-states, are converted—even as city-states are impacted by the gospel.
Schrock also probes some of the assumptions behind their idiosyncratic interpretive move:
Postmillennialism . . . sacralizes the temporary nations of this world—in large part because many postmillennialists see nations as intrinsic to creation and not a result of the fall. Space does not permit that discussion here, but suffice it to say, I am less optimistic that nations should derive their origin story from creation. I would place that story in Genesis 3–11, not Genesis 1–2.
If God is making one new man (Eph. 2:15), one household of faith (1 Tim. 3:15), one chosen race, and one holy nation (1 Pet. 2:9–10), then it follows that from all the nations (Rev. 5:9) God is creating one eternal people. The new creation restores to nature what was lost by the fall—namely, the unity of humanity.
For more details, and for a wider discussion, all three pieces are worth consulting:
Jeremy Sexton, Postmillennialism: A Biblical Critique.
Jeremy Sexton, Postmillennialism: A Reply to Doug Wilson.
David Schrock, Postmillennialism and Theonomy.
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