(20) All things whatsoever I have commanded you.--The words obviously point, in the first instance, to the teaching of our Lord recorded in the Gospels--the new laws of life, exceeding broad and deep, of the Sermon on the Mount, the new commandment of Love for the inner life (John 13:34), the new outward ordinances of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. But we may well believe that they went further than this, and that the words may cover much unrecorded teaching which they had heard in the darkness, and were to reproduce in light (Matthew 10:27). I am with you alway.--Literally, all the days, or, at all times; the words emphasising continuity more than the English adverb. The "days" that were coming might seem long and dark and dreary, but He, their Lord, would be with them, in each of those days, even to the far-off end. Even unto the end of the world.--Literally, of the age. The phrase is the same as that in Matthew 13:39-40; Matthew 13:49; Matthew 24:13. In Hebrews 9:26 it is used of the time of the appearance of Christ in the flesh, as the beginning of the last age of the world. Like all such words, its meaning widens or contracts according to our point of view. Here the context determines its significance as stretching forward to the end of the age, or aeon, which began with the first Advent of the Christ and shall last until the second. We ask, as we close the Gospel, why it ends thus? why there should be no record of a fact so momentous as the Ascension? The question is one which we cannot fully answer. There is an obvious abruptness in the close of the book as a book. It may be that it was left unfinished. It may be that the fact of the Ascension entered into the elementary instruction of every catechumen, and was therefore taken for granted; or that it was thought of as implied in the promise of Christ's perpetual presence; or, lastly, that that promise seemed, in its grandeur and its blessedness, to be the consummation of all that Christ had come to accomplish, and therefore as the fitting close of the record of His life and work. Verse 20. - Teaching (διδάσκοντες) them (i.e. all the nations) to observe all things, etc. The word for "teaching" is quite different from that used in ver. 19, and there wrongly translated. Instruction is the second necessary condition for discipleship. In the case of adults, as was said above, some teaching must precede the initiation; but this has to be supplemented subsequently in order to build up the convert in the faith and make him perfect; while infants must be taught "as soon as they are able to learn, what a solemn vow, promise, and profession they have here made." All must be taught the Christian faith and duty, and how to obtain God's help to enable them to please him, and to continue in the way of salvation, so that they may "die from sin, and rise again unto righteousness; continually mortifying all their evil and corrupt affections, and daily proceeding in all virtue and godliness of living" ('Public Baptism of Infants'). "He gives," says St. Chrysostom, "the one charge with a view to doctrine [i.e. the form of baptism], the other concerning commandments" ('Horn.,' 90.). All that Christ commanded, both in doctrine and morals, all that he had taught and enjoined during the three past years, they were henceforward to take as their textbook, and enforce on all who were admitted into the Church by baptism. As the Greek is, "I commanded," being aorist and not perfect, it may be rightly opined that Christ here alludes also to various details which he set forth and enjoined during these great forty days, between his resurrection and ascension, when he gave commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen, and spake to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God (Acts 1:2, 3). And, lo. "After that, because he had enjoined on them great things, to raise their courage, he says. Lo! "etc. (Chrysostom). I am with you alway (ἐγὼ μεθ ὑμῶν εἰμι πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας). Every word is emphatic. The Ascension was at hand; this implied an absence of his visible presence, to be replaced by a spiritual presence, more perfect, potent, effectual, infinite. It is I myself, I, God and Man,who am (not "will be") henceforward ever present among you, with you as Companion, Friend, Guide, Saviour, God. I am with you in all your ministrations, prayers public and private, baptisms, communions, exhortations, doctrine, discipline And this, not now and then, not at certain times only, but "all the days" of your pilgrimage, all the dark days of trial and persecution and affliction; all the days when you, my apostles, are gathered to your rest, and have committed your work to other hands; my presence shall never be withdrawn for a single moment. Often had God made an analogous promise to his servants under the old dispensation - to Moses (Exodus 3:12), to Joshua (Deuteronomy 31:23), to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:8); but this spiritual presence of Christ is something unknown to previous history, a nearness unspeakable, in the Church at large and in the Christian's heart. Even unto the end of the world; the consummation of the age, as Matthew 24:3 (where see note). When the new era is ushered in, evangelizing work will cease; God shall be all in all; all shall know him from the least unto the greatest. And they shall ever be with the Lord; "wherefore comfort one another with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:18). Amen. The word is here an interpolation, but it expresses what every pious reader must say in his heart, "So be it, O Lord; be with us unto the end; guide and strengthen us in life, and bring us safely through the valley of the shadow of death, to thy blessed presence, where is the fulness of joy forevermore!" whatsoever I have commanded you; every thing that Christ has commanded, be it what it will, and nothing else; for Christ's ministers are not to teach for doctrines the commandments of men; or enjoin that on the churches, which is of their own, or other men's devising, and was never ordered by Christ; and for their encouragement he adds, and lo! I am with you always, even unto the end of the world: meaning, not merely to the end of their lives, which would be the end of the world to them; nor to the end of the Jewish world, or state, which was not a great way off, though this is sometimes the sense of this phrase; but to the end of the world to come, the Gospel church state, which now took place; or to the end of the present world, the universe: not that the apostles should live to the end of it; but that whereas Christ would have a church and people to the end of the world, and the Gospel and the ordinances of it should be administered so long, and there should be Gospel ministers till that time; Christ's sense is, that he would grant his presence to them, his immediate disciples, and to all that should succeed them in future generations, to the end of time: and which is to be understood not of his corporeal presence, which they should not have till then, but of his spiritual presence; and that he would be with them, in a spiritual sense, to assist them in their work, to comfort them under all discouragements, to supply them with his grace, and to protect them from all enemies, and preserve from all evils; which is a great encouragement both to administer the word and ordinances, and attend on them. |