HE AROSE AND HE SENDS

JOHN 20:19-23

OCTOBER  5, 1997

 

The cause of missions, next to worship, must be the passion of the local church.  The worth and glory of our God must be our chief desire and priority.  But following close at hand is the work of missions which our God has given to us.  

 

The problem is that missions is considered someone else's job, but not that of the average church member.  It has become all too easy in our day to relegate missions to a denominational mission board or to those invisible faces called "missionaries" that come from who knows where.  While most of the world lies outside the borders of our nation, the vast majority of the financial and personnel resources remain at home.  Typically, the only time most people give even cursory thought to missions is when their church is having a special promotion for missions giving.  But in light of our text, should it not be that missions burns in our hearts each day?

 

The sequence of our text is no accident.  The Apostle John carefully lays out for us the week of our Lord's passion as He drank the cup of God's wrath on our behalf.  The death of Christ was affirmed in His burial.  The successful completion of the redemptive work of Christ was confirmed in His resurrection.  John records that in the first encounter that the risen Lord had with His disciples, He commissions them as representative of the church for the work of missions.  The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ became the triumphant launching pad of His commissioning the church in missions.  I believe we can readily say that the work of missions is a resurrection gift of Christ to His church!  Apart from the resurrection there is no mission.  But now that Jesus Christ has finished the work, the church has the most important business in the world as her agenda.  Seeing missions as everyone's responsibility can help to bring the church in line with the purpose established for her by our Lord.

 

I know that preachers get accused of trying to hype missions from time to time as part of their duty, though it is thought to have little relevancy to day-to-day living.  However, I see this as something that must be at the heart of our daily lives.  As long as the glory of God and the souls of men are relevant, then missions must head the agenda of the local church.   Because we are the recipients of the work of Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, then we too are part of the commission for missions which Christ gave to the apostles.

 

With all of the excuses and other interests that can detract us, we must think through on what it is to be involved in missions as the redeemed of the Lord.  Tom Stellar, in an epilogue to John Piper's Let the Nations Be Glad!, offers a striking explanation of every Christian being involved in missions:

The precise nature of your engagement in the cause of missions will be different from that of any other person.  Whether you go as a missionary or stay as a sender is a secondary issue.  The primary issue is that whatever you do, you do it for the glory of God (I Corinthians 10:31) and for the advance of his kingdom (Matthew 6:33) and with a view to its consummation which will embrace every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Matthew 24:14; Revelation 7:9).

 

David Bryant calls one who has this mindset a "world Christian."  Not every Christian is called to be a missionary.  But every follower of Christ is called to be a world Christian.  A world Christian is someone who is so gripped by the glory of God and the glory of His global purpose that he chooses to align himself with God's mission to fill the earth with the knowledge of His glory as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).  Everything a world Christian does he does with a view to the hallowing of God's name and the coming of God's kingdom among all peoples of the earth.  The burning prayer of the world Christian is "let the peoples praise Thee, O God. Let all the peoples praise Thee" (Psalm 67:3).  So whether we are those who send or those who go, let us glory in the supremacy of God in missions and let us link arms together as we join the refrain of old, "Let the nations be glad!" [Let the Nations Be Glad!, 228].


Let's consider this resurrection day commissioning for missions and see what it means for us to be involved in the work of being sent by Christ to the world.

 

I.  Authority for missions

 

If we have no authority for going, then we will have no confidence when difficulties arise nor will others recognize the validity of our message.  If I walk into the Russian "White House" where Boris Yeltsin has his office and attempt to make policies with him regarding the relationship of the United States and Russia, he will not give me the time of day.  It would not be for lack of seeking to be articulate or stating something of importance.  He will not listen because I have not been appointed by our President for such a task.  My lack of authority will invalidate my message.  It will also bring me cause of fear that I might be shipped off to Siberia for misrepresenting my nation.  But if I received an appointment by the President for such a task, Mr. Yeltsin would be all ears.  The new found authority would be in the commission given to me by the one responsible for the policies of our nation.  I would have the confidence that all of the authority of my nation stood with me in the discharge of my duties.

 

I remind you that we have One greater than all the kings, presidents, and emperors of the world in our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is none other than our Lord Himself who has appointed and commissioned His church with the responsibility of extending His kingdom through the proclamation of the gospel to the ends of the earth!

 

How do we know that this authority for missions is ours?

 

1.  Peace of reconciliation

 

Though Jesus had been the target of the Jewish political system, the disciples were afraid that the same fate of Christ might be theirs.  So they quietly hid themselves behind closed doors.  In that security, Jesus Christ appeared in their midst on the evening of the Resurrection Day.  His first words, "Peace be with you," could be viewed simply as a typical greeting in the first century.  Jews still greet one another quite often with the word "shalom" or "peace."  

 

The significance in this greeting is found in its repetition.  Again, after "He showed them both His hands and His side," Jesus told them "Peace be with you."  How could they have peace when they faced such grave danger?  Because the peace that Christ gives transcends all temporal danger and gives a person confidence to face eternity.  It was after they saw that the One who had died for them, giving evidence of the imprint of the nails in His hands and the thrust of the spear in His side, that they could have the peace of reconciliation.  All of the enmity between them and God had been removed by the atoning wounds of Christ in His sacrificial death.  "Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:1).

 

It is when we have the knowledge of having been reconciled to God through Christ that we have authority for missions.  Those who are yet to be reconciled have no authority of having experienced the redemptive work of Christ.  They stand in need of the gospel message and the grace of repentance and faith.  The peace of reconciliation to God gives you authority for missions.

 

2.  Reality of participation

 

After declaring "peace" to the disciples, the Lord delivers to them and to us a commission which stands to the end of the ages.  "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you."  It is similar to the prayer which He prayed in John 17:18, "As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world."  

 

There is a slight play on words in our text, for the words for "send" are two different words in the Greek language.  John often does this without necessarily adding theological distinctions.  However, in this case I believe there is an interesting emphasis.  The first word "sent" (apostello) refers to one who is sent as an authoritative representative.  This is the word that is used in both instances in John 17:18 and in many places in John's Gospel in reference to Christ being sent from heaven.  Here it seems to have a reference to our Lord being the solitary representative of the Godhead to humanity, having been sent to effect our redemption by the sacrifice of His own life before the judgment of God.  The second word, "send" (pempo), indicates one being sent to participate in the work of another.  While we are not marking extreme theological differences in these words, it is a wonderful truth that the Mediator has given us the privilege of participating in His ongoing work.  Do we mediate as He did?  Absolutely not!  For there is "one mediator ...between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus" (I Tim. 2:5).  But we do serve as a "kingdom of priests" (Rev. 1:5) who are seeking to offer the saving truth of the gospel to sinners throughout the world.

 

When we consider that Jesus sends us as He was sent, we must think of this primarily in terms of the work of redemption.  Again, He is the only One who can redeem sinners.  However, He has given to us the word of reconciliation, as though God were entreating through us for others to be reconciled to God (II Cor. 5:18-20).  Jesus came "to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10).  If our sense of mission is authentic in identifying with the work of Christ, then it must have a redemptive element to it.  Though Christians should lead the world in relieving the many social distresses facing humanity, that is still not our mission in the sense of what Christ has commissioned us to do.  Our mission relates to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.  As He was sent to accomplish the redemption of sinners, we are sent to declare the reality and necessity of redemption.  We are to proclaim the gospel,  calling upon sinners to turn to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith.

 

How far does this "participation" go?  In other references to the Great Commission, a further clarifying of the duty of the church was given as our Lord prepared to ascend back to the Father.  There is an important word that shows the extent of our participation.  "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations" (Matt. 28:19).  The word "nations" is not to be thought of as a geo-political term.  Obviously, when we hear the word "nations" that is what comes to mind.  But the Greek word, ethne, refers instead to groups of people.  It is often translated as "Gentiles" as distinct from the Jews.  The Gentiles were not simply one group of people, but multitudes of people in a multitude of different people groups, that is natural groupings by which people are joined together by a common affinity of language, culture, religion, race, etc.  One missiologist estimates that there are "as many as 25,000 to 40,000 distinct people groups" in the world [Charles Robb, Focus! The Power of People Group Thinking, 24], while David Barrett suggests there are 60,000 different people groups [Our Globe and How to Reach It, 26].

 

According to John in Revelation 5:9-10, as he records the new song sung before the throne of God, we have a grasp of the extent of our mission when we know the extent of the atoning work of Christ.  "Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.  And Thou hast made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth."  The language of the New Testament never speaks of the atoning death of Christ in indefinite terms, rather it speaks of an actual work taking place on behalf of actual sinners.  So the work of missions is to reach into every people group on the face of the earth, for Christ has died to effectually save people from every segment of the world's society, i.e., "every tribe and tongue and people and nation."  John Piper states this idea clearly in relation to Revelation 5:9-10.

The missionary vision behind this scene is that the task of the church is to gather the ransomed from all peoples, tongues, tribes and nations.  All peoples [by this he refers to people groups] must be reached because God has appointed people to believe the gospel whom he has ransomed through the death of his Son.  The design of the atonement prescribes the design of mission strategy.  And the design of the atonement (Christ's ransom, verse 9) is universal in the sense that it extends to all peoples [i.e., people groups] and definite in that it effectually ransoms some from each of those peoples.  Therefore the missionary task is to gather the ransomed from all the peoples through preaching the gospel [Let the Nations be Glad!, 196-197].


So, our authority for mission comes in the peace of being reconciled to God through Christ and the reality that He has commissioned us to participate with Him in His redemptive mission.  We see that the extent of our mission demands that we not just look at getting the gospel to the 250+ countries in the world, but communicating the gospel in some fashion to the multiplied thousands of people groups in the world.

 

II. Power for missions

 

How can we even begin to think about such a massive task?  If this seems like an impossible task to us with all of our technology and rapid transportation available for Christian use, just imagine how the ten disciples behind locked doors felt upon receiving this commission.  They had no money, no power, no technology, no formal education, no means of rapid transportation, no multiple mediums of communication.  But they were given what was necessary to accomplish the task!  After commissioning them, John adds, "He breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'"  

 

1.  Source of power

 

In many ways our technology and transportation have become hindrances to us in effectively proclaiming the gospel.  Don't misunderstand.  These are wonderful tools that the Lord has made available to us.  But they are merely tools, not our power as Christians in the work of missions.  Instead we are to see that our power comes from on high!  Our power for mission is given by the Lord Himself.

 

When Christ "breathed on them," it was not an individual walking about the room breathing upon each one.  Instead, as this group represented the church throughout the ages, Christ breathed on them.  He had already told them that He must ascend back to the Father to give to them the gift of the Paraclete (John 16:7).  Of course, in Johanine language, this return to the Father implied going by way of the cross, burial, and resurrection.  Now the same Holy Spirit "whom the Son has in common with the Father" is now given to us who represent Him before the world [Calvin's NT Commentaries, 205].

 

As God breathed into Adam the breath of life, so the Holy Spirit breathes life and power in us as Christ's witnesses.  As the "wind" breathed life into Ezekiel's valley of dry bones, so the Spirit of God comes into our inability and clothes us with God-given adequacy for the work of missions.  Our trust is not to be in our "tools."  We should avail ourselves of the wonderful tools God has provided, but no tool can regenerate even one sinner.  Only the Spirit of God can give life to our message of proclamation and life to those who hear.

 

Later, in Acts one, we find the disciples "waiting" in Jerusalem for the power of the Spirit to clothe them.  They waited until the Holy Spirit endued them with an enablement beyond their own abilities.  Then they saw God accomplish things through them which they could not have even imagined.  My brethren, let us avail ourselves of divine power which belongs to the church in her missionary enterprise.  And let us plead with God the Holy Spirit to come in ever enlarging portions in our midst!

 

2.  Necessity of power

 

The whole issue of spiritual power is not an option for missionary labor.  A neglect of spiritual power in our day has led to a proliferation of man-centered techniques to accomplish what only the Spirit of God can do.  So we see the use of psychological manipulation of the masses into a religious response so that man can parade what he has done.  But what has that done for the saving of hopeless sinners?

 

When Jesus told the disciples, "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you," He was implying that as He needed the Holy Spirit to accomplish His work, so do we.  At His baptism, we recall how the Spirit descended upon our Lord in bodily fashion as a dove from heaven.  The Holy Spirit empowered our Lord for His work and ministry.  Later, as the multitudes listened to Him preach, they exclaimed, "Never a man spake as this man spake!"  Was it His use of language?  Certainly He spoke with great wisdom in every word.  But that was not it.  Was it His use of stories?  Other teachers of that era used stories to communicate as well, though none as our Lord did.  So what was the difference in Jesus Christ as He spoke to the multitudes?  He spoke with the fullness of God's power by the Holy Spirit.  Every word He uttered, He did so in the power of the Spirit.  Now He has sent us as He was sent.  If He depended upon the Holy Spirit in His work, should we not do the same who follow after Him?

 

When we consider the hardness of men's hearts and their stubbornness to the gospel, we realize that we need the power of the Holy Spirit in proclaiming the gospel to them.  When we realize the fact of our own weakness, fear, and inabilities, it should cause us to cry out for the power of the Holy Spirit for the work of the gospel.  Are we doing a temporal work?  Are we simply trying to improve people's lives for a few years, then they die?  No, ours is an eternal work so that "forever" is at stake in the proclamation of the gospel.  Can we proclaim it, whether from pulpit or one-on-one without the power of the Spirit?  We can try, but we will only accomplish what man can accomplish, which is never anything eternal.

 

When Jesus breathed upon the disciples, He was visibly demonstrating the reality of the Spirit's fullness for every Christian.  The Holy Spirit dwells in every Christian (Rom. 8:9).  We are commanded to be filled with the Spirit, that is, to live under the control of the Holy Spirit moment by moment (Eph. 5:18).  We are told to walk in the Spirit rather than walking in the flesh (Gal. 5:16).  We are commanded to take to ourselves for the stand of the gospel, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph. 6:17).  Let us yield wholly to the Spirit's control and trust Him to enable us as messengers of the gospel of Christ!  Whatever part we have in the work of missions, whether praying, planning, giving, or going, let us seek to do so in the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

III. Aim in Missions

 

Many things pass for missions in our day.  While there are plenty of good things that can be done to help people, and we must be involved in many of these kinds of things, missions has a particular aim.  The heart of it is found in the words of our Lord in this resurrection evening commission.  "If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained."  While this passage has been abused by some groups who claim some kind of unique power to forgive sins, we must not be side-tracked by such talk so that we fail to understand the heart of missions.  The fact is, only God Himself can forgive sins in relation to God.  And only God knows the heart of a person as to whether or not they have truly repented and believed the gospel of Christ.  Keeping this in mind, our text teaches us at least three particulars concerning the aim in missions.

 

1.  The aim chiefly involves reconciliation to God

 

We can engage in many worthwhile endeavors throughout the world.  There are incredible needs in the vast majority of the world for hunger relief, medical assistance, orphan relief, agricultural assistance, financial help and counseling, building shelters, installing water wells, providing jobs by industrial development, teaching literacy, et. al.  I believe that all of these endeavors are worthy of the time of Christians and worthy of our involvement.  But in saying this, I must hasten to point out that we can do all of these things without reference to reconciliation to God.  The United Nations is involved in all of these areas, but they have no interest in seeing men reconciled to God.  Various social agencies in our nation are involved in these kinds of endeavors which do help to relieve some of the world's suffering, but they offer no hope for eternity.

 

I realize that I tread a thin line when discussing these things.  As Christians, we cannot just turn a blind eye to the suffering of the world.  We must be involved to some degree in helping with these very worthwhile needs.  But even more so, we must be involved in declaring to peoples the wonders of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

In each of the four Gospels, the commission of Christ to the disciples says nothing about the issue of social relief.  There are certainly other passages in the teachings of Christ that point to these things.  But in reference to the Great Commission, the focal point is upon the man as a sinner receiving forgiveness for his sins and being reconciled to God.  I do believe that one of the most effective means of being able to declare the gospel to the masses of the world is through assisting them in some of the social distresses which I've already mentioned.  Some of our most effective missionaries use the tool of agriculture as a base of providing opportunities to proclaim Christ as Lord.  Others use the vehicle of medical assistance to open doors for explaining eternal matters.  William Carey used medicine, agriculture, and industry to help in the work of missions.  Hudson Taylor used his medical skills to open doors for the furtherance of the gospel.

 

What I believe we need to see is that whether we are helping people by building shelters or providing food or giving medical assistance, our ultimate goal should be the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ so that sinners might be reconciled to God.

 

This is where modern-day "tentmakers" are making an impact in so many countries for the gospel of Christ.  One man and his family who has visited our church in the past, presently serves somewhere in an Asian country where career missionaries cannot go.  He is raising chickens and teaching the people in his area about how to raise chickens.  But in the process, he is planting the seeds of the gospel of Jesus Christ!  His great interest in life is not chickens, but seeing people brought to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ!  

 

2.  The aim involves declaring justification and redemption in Christ

 

The message of this passage points to the work of Christ having already been accomplished.  If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them...."  The believer is not granting forgiveness, for that is not in his power to grant.  Instead, he is declaring forgiveness which has already been provided through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.  The Greek tenses bring this out in a strong fashion.  The first "forgive" involves a declaration of what has already taken place in the council of heaven.  It is important to realize that Jesus was giving this message of redemption in light of His accomplished death, burial and resurrection.  

 

When a person comes to faith in Christ, Jesus is not re-doing His saving work in that instant.  His work is already completed.  He had declared, "It is finished!"  The resurrection affirmed that the work of the cross fulfilled all that was necessary for sinners to be declared righteous before God (justification) and to be delivered from the guilt, power, and bondage of sin (redemption).  The gospel messenger explains the work of Christ then appeals for sinners to respond in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  He can declare without hesitation that all who will come to Christ in repentance and faith, Jesus Christ Himself will save.  For in reality, the work necessary for saving the sinner was already done at the cross.  The sinner is simply entering into what Christ has provided for him.  The fact that Jesus atoned for his sins at the cross is demonstrated when the sinner comes to Christ in faith (John 6:37).

 

Just as the gospel messenger or missionary declares the gospel and invites men to Christ, he also declares the judgment of God upon those who refuse to repent and believe the gospel of Christ:  "...if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained."  Calvin explains, "Christ adds this second clause to terrify despisers of His Gospel, that they may know that they will not escape punishment for this pride" [NT Commentaries, 208].  Don Carson quotes another New Testament scholar who writes, 

There is no doubt from the context that the reference is to forgiving sins, or withholding forgiveness.  But though this sounds stern and harsh, it is simply the result of the preaching of the gospel, which either brings men to repent as they hear of the ready and costly forgiveness of God, or leaves them unresponsive to the offer of forgiveness which is the gospel, and so they are left in their sins.  [The Gospel According to John, 655-656].


3.  The aim insists upon the certainty of Christ's finished work and promise of salvation

 

We are "proclaimers" as Christians.  We cannot save anyone, but we certainly can proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and His finished work for the salvation of sinners!  We have a message unlike any which the world offers fainting hearts.  While multitudes line up for psychological pep-talks or emotional massages or philosophical mind-games to find relief for their guilt due to sin, "we preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified."  

 

The "forgiving" and "retaining" of our text are both in the passive voice, implying that it is God alone who does the forgiving and God alone who applies judgment due to men for their sin.  We are merely messengers sent by the risen Lord to declare His salvation to the peoples of the world.  We insist that only the gospel of Christ has the power to save a sinner.  We are unapologetic about this.  Some will argue with us or perhaps call us too narrow.  But we must never shrink back from the privilege that is ours to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

 

Conclusion

 

We must all be involved in missions as the people of God, for our risen Lord has "sent" us into the world with the saving message of His finished work.  Some will go personally into foreign lands.  Others will be involved in sending them on their way, supporting them in the work, and holding their ministry before the Lord in prayer.  Others of us may sense a compulsion from the Lord to yield up some of our sons and daughters for the work of missions to the people groups of the world.  Some of us may sense from the Lord that we need to aim our careers and retirements toward going to another country to carry the good news of Christ.  

 

My dear brethren,  we are on mission in this world wherever we are.  Let us be conscious of speaking the truth of the gospel to those about us in eternal need.  And let us never shrink back from the task of missions, for the Holy Spirit has come to enable us to do what our Lord has sent us to do.

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