Saturday, March 20, 2021

The Gospel, Our Mission, and the Crown Rights of Jesus

 In the Parable of the Great Banquet (Luke 14:12-24), we find this statement from the master of the house (representing Jesus): "Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled" (verse 23). This is a paraphrase of the Great Commission: "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" (Matthew 28:19).

Where Jesus said in the Commission that we, His people, are to disciple the nations, He adds the explanation in Luke that the goal is to fill His house. This is very different from the Commission, as it is defined by dispensationalists, that we are to be a witness to the nations (a misuse of the Matthew 24:14), that is, a failed witness. That is why most English translations of the Commission change "disciple the nations" to "make disciples from all nations." The dispensationalist expects to fail, doing no more than cherry-picking a few individual converts here and there. Or to use Luke's language, the dispensationalist expects the house of the Lord to be nearly empty

That assumption is blatant disobedience. 

In Isaiah 56:6-7, Jehovah, i. e., the preincarnate Jesus, declares, "And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to Him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be His servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast My covenant— these I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on My altar; for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples." "Peoples," not just "people." 

How could He claim this? Because it was the promise to Him in the intra-Trinitarian covenant: "Ask of Me, and I will make the nations Your heritage, and the ends of the earth Your possession" (Psalm 2:8).

Therefore, to deny that Jesus will return to a converted world (generally, not necessarily exhaustively) is to deny His word, His crown, and His right to what has been promised to Him. 



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