Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

What Does Matthew Chapter 28 Mean?

After the darkness and agony of the previous chapter, Matthew 28 is filled with life and worship and dismay. It also sets the stage for the birth of the church and the mission to follow. Jesus had died on the cross and was buried before sundown in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. The chief priests and elders received permission from Pilate to post a guard of Roman soldiers at the tomb to keep the body from being stolen. They did not want Jesus’ followers to be able to claim He had been resurrected (Matthew 27:57–66).

Before dawn on Sunday, an amazing scene unfolds at the tomb. Accompanied by an earthquake, a mighty angel of the Lord descends from heaven right before the guards. He looks like lightning dressed in white. He breaks the seal on the tomb, rolls back the large stone, and sits on it. The guards shake in fear and then faint (Matthew 28:1–4).

Two women named Mary, faithful followers of Jesus, arrive on the scene around sunrise to find the angel present and the guards apparently unconscious on the ground. The angel shows them Jesus’ empty tomb and tells them Jesus, the one who was crucified, is risen. He gives them a specific message to take back to the disciples: Tell them Jesus is raised from the dead and that He is going before them to Galilee. They will see Jesus there (Matthew 28:1, 5–8).

The women quickly leave to do as the angel has said, but they are stopped along the way by Jesus Himself. They fall on the ground and take hold of His feet. They recognize that He is the Son of God, risen from the dead, and they worship Him. As the angel did, Jesus tells them not to be afraid and to go and tell His brothers to go to Galilee, where they will see Him (Matthew 28:9–10).

Meanwhile, the temple guards who had fainted regain consciousness. Some of them go and report to the chief priests what has happened. The chief priests and elders meet and decide to bribe the guards to tell a different story. They pay these Roman soldiers enough to say that they fell asleep on duty and Jesus’ followers came and took His body away. They promise to keep Pilate from executing them from sleeping on the job if he learns of their story. Already, from the moment the truth of Jesus’ resurrection began to spread, the lie that He remains dead is being distributed. Both stories continue to be told and believed today. (Matthew 28:11–15).

Matthew skips over appearances made by Jesus as described by the other gospel writers. He jumps straight to Jesus’ meeting with the eleven remaining disciples on a mountain in Galilee. Jesus tells them that He is using His authority, given to Him by God the Father, to send them out on their lifelong mission. In this “Great Commission,” Jesus commands His disciples to make more disciples of Him. This cooperative, mentoring, personal expansion of His kingdom is the primary mission of His followers. They must baptize these new followers and teach them to obey everything He has told them to do. Matthew ends with Jesus’ promise to be with His disciples always, into and through eternity (Matthew 28:16–20).

Chapter Context
Matthew 28 follows the dark events of the crucifixion in the previous chapter and brings Matthew’s story of Jesus to a close. An angel descends from heaven and rolls back the stone. The guards faint. The angel tells two women Jesus is risen and then Jesus meets them. The Jewish religious leaders bribe the guards to lie and distribute a story that His followers took the body. Jesus meets His disciples in Galilee and commissions them to make disciples of people from all nations on earth, baptizing them and teaching them to obey all of Jesus’ commands.

Verse By Verse

Verse 1 Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

We last saw these two women sitting opposite Jesus’ tomb. They watched as Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus (John 19:39–40) wrapped Jesus’ body, placed it in the tomb, and rolled a large stone in front of it (Matthew 27:59–61). They had followed Joseph from the cross to the grave, likely ready to assist with the body if needed. There was a hurry to get Jesus’ body into the tomb before the Sabbath began at sundown. It would have been a violation of the law to be handling the body and doing that work on the Sabbath. The women wanted to know where Jesus’ body was so they could return after the Sabbath and complete the preparations of Jesus’ body for burial.

In the meantime, on the Sabbath, Pilate had agreed to allow the chief priests and the Pharisees to post some of the temple guard of Roman soldiers to guard the tomb (Matthew 27:62–66). They wanted to prevent Jesus’ followers from stealing His body and claiming that He had been resurrected, as He said He would be (John 2:19–22).

Now it is around dawn on Sunday morning. The Sabbath would have ended at sundown the evening before, but the darkness would have prevented the women from coming to the tomb before sunrise. Matthew says that Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary” have gone to the see the tomb. The other Mary is described by Matthew as the mother of James and Joseph (Matthew 27:56). She might have been the “wife of Clopas” mentioned in John 19:25. Mark’s account reveals that a woman named Salome was with them (Mark 16:1) and they brought spices to anoint Jesus’ body. Salome is probably the mother of Jesus’ disciples James and John, the “sons of Zebedee” (Matthew 27:56).

Verse 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

By comparing Matthew’s telling of this event with the other Gospels, it seems clear that this earthquake and the appearance of the angel took place before the women arrived. Matthew’s emphasis in his writing is on what happened, mostly grouping his information by theme. He’s not as specific about when things happened, in minute order. He has mentioned the women coming to the tomb (Matthew 28:1), but then makes these comments as an aside: this is what had happened prior to women arriving. Likewise, it’s not clear if the arrival of the angel caused the great earthquake or if they just happened at the same time. The angel, though, is the one who rolls the stone away. He then sits on it.

It’s important to notice that Matthew does not say that the angel rolled the stone away so Jesus could get out. In His glorified body after the resurrection, physical objects will not be a barrier to Jesus (John 20:19). Rather, the stone is removed so that the women and the disciples can enter the tomb and see that Jesus’ body is gone.

Verse 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.

Matthew has described an angel descending from heaven and rolling back the large stone that was sealing Jesus’ tomb (Matthew 27:60, 66). The angel’s appearance is shocking. Matthew says that he looked like lightning, with clothes as white as snow. This kind of fiery white light seems to be the garb of heavenly beings. Matthew described Jesus in a similar fashion when He was revealed in His glory to Peter, James, and John: “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light” (Matthew 17:2).

The appearance of angels in the Old Testament often provoked great fear from the humans who saw them. An almost universal part of angels’ spoken messages to people is reassurance not to be afraid (Luke 1:11–13; 2:9–10; Acts 10:3–4). Terror was obviously the experience of the soldiers guarding the tomb, as the following verse reveals (Matthew 28:4).

Verse 4 And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.

A detachment of Roman soldiers stood guarding Jesus’ tomb (Matthew 27:62–66). Their job was to keep it sealed and to prevent anyone from stealing Jesus’ body. Suddenly, sometime in the early hours of Sunday morning, an angel appeared from heaven just as an earthquake took place. The angel rolled back the large stone covering Jesus’ now-empty tomb and sat on it.

Roman soldiers were among the toughest men of their era. These soldiers may have been hardened by battle in any number of places around the Roman Empire. Or, they might have been relatively inexperienced. We’re not sure, but we are certain that what they saw rendered them helpless. They have seen an angel from heaven, who looked like lightning dressed in the whitest of clothes.

The soldiers convulse in fear and collapse like dead men. They were not dead, merely passed out and thoroughly unconscious. Terror at seeing an angel is an almost universal response, as recorded in the Bible (Luke 1:11–13; 2:9–10; Acts 10:3–4).

Verse 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.

Matthew’s telling of this moment can be confusing if one forgets that he so often groups statements by theme, not in a strict order of time. Read in a modern style, this gives the impression the women who had come to anoint Jesus’ body with spices witnessed the arrival of the angel. Mark, Luke, and John, however, show that this action took place before the women arrived. The angel “had” appeared and rolled away the stone (Matthew 27:60, 66), and “then” later spoke to the women as they arrived.

When the women come to the tomb, they find the stone door open and the angel seated there. They are understandably frightened. After all, the appearance of the angel was enough to cause Roman soldiers to faint. Virtually everyone who sees an angel, in Scripture, reacts in fear (Luke 1:11–13; 2:9–10; Acts 10:3–4). The angel, though, urges them not to be afraid. He calms the women by revealing that he knows why they have come. They are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.

With these words, the angel reveals that he knows Jesus’ body occupied this tomb and is no longer present. What the angel says next are some of the most powerful words spoken in history.

Verse 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.

The angel at Jesus’ tomb is speaking to some women who have come to add burial spices to Jesus’ body (Matthew 28:1–5). They had wondered who would roll away the large stone for them. They were present when Jesus was initially buried (Matthew 27:61), so they know there is an extremely large stone closing the entrance. They may not have known that the tomb had been sealed and guarded (Matthew 27:62–66). Arriving, they find the stone already rolled away and a terrifying-looking angel present.

The angel has told the women not to be afraid, the kind of comment angels often need to make when first speaking to human beings (Luke 1:11–13; 2:9–10; Acts 10:3–4). He knows they are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. Then he adds these immortal words: “He is not here, for he has risen, as he said.” These words hold the hope of Christianity for the world. Jesus had defeated death. He had died for the sins of humanity, and He had been resurrected to eternal, immortal life.

The phrase “as he said” is crucial. That Jesus knew He would be resurrected and told His followers ahead of time was another confirmation that He was truly the Son of God. It was more evidence that He fully participated in the events that led to His terrible death and glorious resurrection.

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus declared on three occasions that He would be killed and then be raised “on the third day” (Matthew 16:21; 17:23; 20:18–19). Commentors often debate the minute details of how long Jesus was in the grave. Such debates miss the point of an obvious prophecy, and even more obvious miracle. Even on the shortest possible time scale, Christ would have died on Friday, the first day. His body would have lain in the tomb on Saturday, the second day. He was resurrected on Sunday, the third day.

The angel offers evidence to the women of Jesus’ resurrection. He points to the place where Jesus’ body had previously been. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, at least, witnessed Joseph of Arimathea placing Jesus’ body there (Matthew 27:61). Now it is clearly gone. The empty tomb is the hope of eternal life for all who believe in Jesus.

Verse 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.”

Angels often serve as messengers. The declaration given by this angel is perhaps the most powerful message ever given to humanity. Jesus had been dead, crucified, and buried in this tomb (Matthew 27:50–61). The women hearing the message had come to add burial spices to a corpse. Instead, the angel told them Jesus had risen from the dead. The tomb was empty because Jesus was alive. The door was open so people could see that this was true (Matthew 28:1–6).

Now the angel gives the women a message to deliver. He tells them to go quickly to tell the disciples this news. The women are to tell them that Jesus is alive and going before them to Galilee. They will see Jesus there, the angel says.

The disciples and the women were now in Jerusalem, where the Passover had been held and Jesus had been crucified and resurrected. The region of Galilee was in northern Israel. It was where most of Jesus’ ministry had taken place and where the disciples had spent most of their time with Him. Before He died, Jesus had told them He would go before them to Galilee (Matthew 26:32).

Verse 8 So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

This is verse includes one of the details that cause the Bible to “ring true” in human experience. These women (Matthew 28:1) have just had an encounter with an angelic being. These creatures are terrifying enough that they almost always have to assure any humans they encounter (Luke 1:11–13; 2:9–10; Acts 10:3–4). This angel appeared in such a fearsome form that a detachment of Roman soldiers fainted at the sight of him. This angel then rolled the large stone from in front of Jesus’ tomb.

The angel revealed to the women that Jesus is risen from the dead. The tomb is empty. He has given them a message to pass on to the disciples, and he has told them to do it quickly.

Matthew reports they did leave quickly with feelings of both fear and great joy. That’s exactly what you would expect to feel in this moment: fear about the angel and Jesus’ missing body, but great joy at the news that He is alive, raised from the dead. The women ran to report all of this to the disciples. They won’t arrive, though, before their joy is made whole.

Verse 9 And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.

The women are running from the tomb of Jesus back to where the disciples are hiding. They have been told by an angel that Jesus is alive and have been sent to tell the disciples that they will see Jesus in Galilee (Matthew 28:1–8).

Before they can reach the disciples, however, Jesus meets them, alive, walking, talking. They had last seen Him die on the cross after the great struggle and then watched as His lifeless body was wrapped and buried in a tomb (Matthew 27:50–61). Now He stands before them in person and says, “Greetings!” as if He were meeting anyone walking along the road. This is the equivalent of seeing someone in the modern world who casually says “Hi!”

The women cannot be casual in this moment. They fall, take hold of Jesus’ feet—perhaps to make sure He is truly there—and worship Him. Seeing Jesus alive after seeing Him dead has made concrete the reality that Jesus is truly the Son of God. Humble worship is the only proper response.

The differing gospel accounts emphasize different moments and encounters during this morning of Jesus’ resurrection. In each of them, though, Jesus appears alive first to one or more women. These women, especially, have been faithful servants to Him throughout His life and ministry. Even as the resurrected Son of God, Jesus continues to counter the culture of His generation by honoring women highly in a society that often treated them very poorly.

Verse 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

In Matthew’s telling of the events on the morning of the resurrection, Jesus has just revealed Himself, alive and in person, to a few women. He has greeted them first, before any of the 11 disciples or His other followers. They have fallen to the ground and have taken hold of Jesus’ feet. This is a sign of humility, but also perhaps a way of knowing that it is really Him in a real living, breathing body.

Now Jesus tells them the same basic message as the angel had spoken (Matthew 28:1–9). He urges them not to be afraid. He gives them the same message for the men He calls His brothers, which may mean the 11 disciples or others of His followers. They are to go to Galilee, and they will see Jesus there (Matthew 26:32).

In a very real sense, Jesus sends out these women as the first evangelists. They will carry the good news that Jesus has be raised from the dead before anyone else does.

Context Summary
Matthew 28:1–10 describes how two of Jesus’ women followers learn of Jesus’ resurrection. Before they arrive at the tomb on Sunday morning, an angel from heaven descends and rolls back the large stone. This is accompanied by an earthquake. The Roman soldiers faint. The angel tells the women Jesus is risen from the dead. Jesus meets the women, and they worship Him. He sends them to tell His brothers He has been resurrected from the dead and that they should go to Galilee. They will see Him there.

Verse 11 While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place.

Matthew has described how the women who came to treat Jesus’ corpse were instead sent away to deliver the message that Jesus was alive (Matthew 28:1–10). A different group will take a similar message to those who will not want to hear it.

The Roman soldiers who had been guarding the tomb (Matthew 27:62–66) awaken from their fear-induced unconsciousness. Some of them go into Jerusalem, to the temple, to tell the chief priests what they have seen happen at the tomb. It’s unlikely these soldiers saw Jesus alive. But they did experience the earthquake and see an angel from heaven roll a huge stone out from in front of Jesus’ tomb. They know that the body is gone, even if they can’t say for sure that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

The soldiers must have been worried about making this report. After all, they have failed in their duty to protect the body from being stolen. Their story of how it happened is bound to sound outlandish. Fortunately for them, the Jewish religious leaders will be eager to make use of them for their own ends.

Verse 12 And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers

The Roman soldiers have come to the chief priests to report what they saw at Jesus’ tomb (Matthew 28:2–4). It’s quite a report. The body had been undisturbed since the tomb was sealed (Matthew 27:62–66) until an angel from heaven arrived and rolled away the stone. In terror, the soldiers passed out at the sight of this spiritual being. There had been an earthquake. The body was gone.

Matthew does not reveal how much of the story the soldiers reported or what the Jewish religious leaders believed. All that mattered to them was that Jesus’ body was gone. They had to act fast to counter the report that He had been raised from the dead. The chief priests and elders came up with a plan. They would bribe the guards to distribute a better story for their cause.

Because of the cash and the later promise to protect them from Pilate (Matthew 28:13–14), the soldiers agreed to play along (Matthew 28:15).

Verse 13 and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’

From the first moments following Jesus’ resurrection, two competing stories started to circulate about what really happened. The truth came from lips of the women who had seen the angel, then encountered Jesus alive and even touched His feet. They were the first to report that Jesus had been raised from the dead (Matthew 28:1–10).

The other story begins here. The Roman soldiers, too, had seen the angel. They had seen him roll away the stone. They had felt the earthquake. They knew the body was gone and that something truly epic was going on. However, the Jewish religious leaders have bribed them to spread a different story. Their claim is to be that Jesus’ disciples came in the dead of night, while the soldiers were sleeping, and took the body away.

Of course, this story is itself hard to believe. Jesus’ body was not sitting on a piece of wood, in the open, waiting to be easily snatched away. It had been placed into a rocky cave, with a boulder for a door, sealed and guarded by Roman soldiers (Matthew 27:59–66).

Versions of these two stories still compete in our world today. Christians say Jesus, the Son of God, was raised from the dead on the third day. Unbelievers claim the body of Jesus, the imposter Messiah, died and never drew breath again.

The soldiers will agree to take the money to tell the false version of the story, but they will do so at some risk to themselves. Roman soldiers could be executed for falling asleep while on guard duty. These men will claim to have been so asleep that men could break a seal, move a boulder, and then escape with a dead man. The chief priests will have an answer for that.

Verse 14 And if this comes to the governor ‘s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”

The chief priests and elders want the temple guards, who are Roman soldiers, to lie about what happened to Jesus’ body. In truth, the soldiers probably don’t know exactly what happened to His body, yet. They knew it was in the sealed tomb. They knew a terrifying angel from heaven broke the seal and opened the tomb. They knew the body was gone. They probably never saw Jesus alive with their own eyes (Matthew 28:1–10).

As outrageous as the true story sounds, Jewish religious leaders want the soldiers to tell a tale which is even more dangerous, at least for the soldiers themselves. They want the soldiers to tell people that they fell asleep while on guard duty. They slept so deeply, in fact, that Jesus’ followers were able to come in the middle of the night, roll a large stone away, and take Jesus’ body. This story is dangerous because Roman soldiers could be executed for falling asleep while on duty, especially in foreign territory.

The chief priests have two answers for that. First, they will pay the guards to tell the lie. Bribery is an effective motivator (Matthew 26:14–16). Second, they promise to protect the guards from the governor, Pilate, if he hears the story about them sleeping. Specifically, they say they will satisfy Pilate and keep them from trouble. This likely means that the Jewish religious leaders plan to bribe Pilate, as well, to keep their plan intact.

Verse 15 So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.

The chief priests and elders began the first day after Jesus’ resurrection bribing Roman soldiers to lie (Matthew 28:1–14). The men are instructed to say Jesus was still dead. In truth, Messiah had come and died and come back to life, yet Israel’s religious leaders were working hard to keep people from believing it.

They bribed the Roman soldiers who saw the angel from heaven open the tomb to say that Jesus’ followers had caught them napping in the night and had stolen the body. They promised to bribe Pilate, as well, if the story of their sleeping on the job reached his ears so that he wouldn’t have them killed. The soldiers took the cash and started the story. It was still circulating when Matthew wrote this book, some decades later (Matthew 28:11–14).

The dividing line between hope of eternity and hopelessness of the grave lies in deciding between those two stories. Either Jesus was raised from the dead or Jesus never breathed again (1 Corinthians 15:14–20). Those who trust in Christ and those who refuse to believe are eternally and entirely separated by which they choose to believe (John 3:16–18).

Context Summary
Matthew 28:11–15 describes a plot by the Jewish religious leaders to distribute a false story about Jesus’ resurrection. The Roman soldiers report what really happened at the tomb. The chief priests and elders agree to bribe the soldiers to lie and say they fell asleep on the job so hard that Jesus’ followers were able to steal His dead body. They promise to protect the soldiers from Pilate, the Roman governor, if he hears they slept while on guard duty and wants to punish them. The lie begins to spread among the Jewish population, despite the idea being ludicrous (Matthew 27:66).

Verse 16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.

More than the other gospel writers, Matthew focuses on Jesus’ promise to His disciples to meet them in Galilee after His resurrection from the dead: “After I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee” (Matthew 26:32). After He is resurrected, the message Jesus gives to the women for the disciples is, “Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me” (Matthew 28:10).

Part of the appeal for the disciples may have been that Galilee was home. Not only would Jesus be raised from the dead, He would also meet them back at home in the region of Galilee, in the northern part of Israel, where they had all spent so much time and had done so much good together.

Matthew does not include Jesus’ interaction with the disciples in Jerusalem on the day of the resurrection (Luke 24:36–43). Nor does he mention other meetings with the resurrected Jesus as reported in the other Gospels. Matthew tends to condense the action and skip details to keep the story moving. In this case, he jumps forward to an encounter with the eleven remaining disciples, and maybe many others, at a prearranged meeting place on a mountain in Galilee.

Verse 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.

The eleven remaining disciples, and likely many other people, are meeting with Jesus on a mountain up in Galilee after His resurrection from the dead (Matthew 28:1–10). Matthew reports that the reaction of the disciples to Jesus when He appeared in His glorified body was the same as that of the women who saw Him immediately after the resurrection: worship (Matthew 28:9).

What does it mean that they worshiped Jesus? For the women, it involved getting low to the ground and taking hold of Jesus’ feet. Both groups recognized, because of the resurrection from the dead following the terrible crucifixion, that Jesus was truly the powerful Son of God. They understood Him to be God in the flesh, and they likely bowed before Him and expressed honor and praise for Him.

Matthew adds, though, with frustratingly little detail that “some doubted.” What did they doubt, exactly, and who did the doubting? We cannot know for sure, but Bible scholars speculate. Perhaps some doubted that this was really Jesus raised from the dead and not another being. Perhaps some doubted, still, that the resurrected Jesus was the Son of God and worthy of worship. Perhaps some simply doubted that what they were seeing with their own eyes, Jesus alive and breathing, could possibly be true.

Who doubted? Some say it must have been some among Jesus’ main eleven disciples. Some say it must have been others present at the appearance of Jesus in this moment. Thomas, famously, stubbornly refused to believe Jesus was alive even after hearing it from the other ten disciples (John 20:24–29). It’s possible that other followers of Christ were afraid to trust what seemed too good to be true.

Verse 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Jesus is appearing to His remaining disciples, who number eleven now that Judas is gone. They have come together on an unnamed mountain in the region of Galilee in the northern part of Israel, away from Jerusalem (Matthew 28:16–17). Jesus tells them what He has often talked about in their presence before His death and resurrection: absolute authority has been given to Him by God the Father. In other words, the source of all power has given all His authority to His Son Jesus.

Here’s what Jesus said in Matthew 11:27, long before His death and resurrection: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Jesus, the Son, has chosen to reveal the Father to His eleven disciples standing before Him. He will now give them the authority—and the responsibility—to represent Him and His salvation to the world. This verse and the two to follow at the end of Matthew’s gospel are often called together “The Great Commission.”

Verse 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,

In Matthew’s story of Jesus, these are His parting words to His eleven remaining disciples. Verses 18–20 are often called the “Great Commission” because Jesus is sending His hand-chosen disciples out into the world to accomplish a specific mission: Make more disciples. This comes with some noteworthy inclusions, but what is also crucial are things which Jesus does not say.

Specifically, the disciples are to make more disciples of all nations. This means people from every people group and ethnicity on earth. Through Jesus, God’s relationship with humanity has moved beyond Israel to include people from every corner of the world who come to the Father through the Son.

Jesus’ command is to make “disciples.” A disciple is someone who becomes like his or her master by living in a servant relationship to him. They learn from and submit to that person’s example. That’s what each of the eleven disciples hearing this for the first time had done in answer to Jesus’ call. It is now what they will invite others to participate in from around the world.

Discipleship to Jesus involves at least the two things Jesus mentions in this command: baptism and obedience. The disciples are commanded to baptize new disciples in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The choice to be publicly baptized is evidence that someone has believed in Jesus and made the commitment to follow Him. The disciples were given the authority to baptize that person in the name of God, declaring that person’s position in the eternal family of God.

Notable is that Jesus does not command His disciples to “print Bibles,” or anything similar. The written Word of God is our ultimate reference for matters of faith (1 Corinthians 4:6; Acts 17:11). It was intended for that purpose by God (2 Timothy 3:16–17). It is not meant to be the only means, or even the primary means, by which new Christians learn about faith (Acts 8:30–31). The primary work of the Great Commission is to “make disciples,” which means the cooperative, mentoring process we now refer to as “discipleship” (Acts 18:24–28; Hebrews 10:25; 13:7).

Verse 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The final verse of Matthew’s gospel is also the final verse of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–19). Before ascending to heaven to be reunited with His Father (Acts 1:6–11), Jesus is defining their mission on earth as His representatives and under His authority as the eternal king.

He has told the disciples to “make disciples.” This has been the primary outward mission of the Christian church ever since this day. Followers of Jesus are commanded to make more followers of Jesus. This means cooperatively teaching and training them in matters of faith. Written Scripture is an integral part of that process (2 Timothy 3:16), but it is not the entire process, itself. Jesus command was not to “make copies of the Bible,” but to create disciples.

As the disciples committed themselves to serving Jesus, being trained by Him for this mission, new disciples of Jesus commit themselves to serving Him while being trained by those under His authority (2 Timothy 4:1–2). This is a lifetime commitment to the king of the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus has identified two things expected of those who have trusted in Him and have committed to following Him as a disciple. The first is baptism by water. Jesus’ ministry began with His own baptism. Baptism is meant to be a public declaration that one who believes in Jesus now belongs to Him. Jesus has commanded the disciples to baptize believers in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Now Jesus adds that obedience is expected of those who call themselves His disciples, as well (John 14:15). The disciples are to teach new believers in Jesus to observe everything He has commanded them to do. Obedience to all of Jesus’ teaching is to become the standard practice of every Christian.

Finally, Jesus promises to be with His disciples always, until the end of the age. It will soon become clear that He does not mean this in a physical sense. He is about to ascend to heaven, in His physical form, to be at the right hand of God the Father. He will, however, be with His disciples in spirit, as the Holy Spirit comes to occupy all who trust in Christ on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2).

The word translated “always” in this verse comes from a special Greek phrase only used here in the New Testament: pasas tas hēmeras. It literally means “the whole of every day.” This is then extended to all eternity with the expression h󠅍eōs tēs synteleias tou aiōnos: “even to the end of the age.” Jesus’ promise is to be with His followers—in Spirit and in Truth (John 4:24) every minute of every day, until the very end of the present age, and the into eternal life beyond (John 3:16–18).

Context Summary
Matthew 28:16–20 describes Jesus’ commissioning the eleven remaining disciples on a mountain in Galilee. He had given them a message to meet Him there. Now He appears and commands them to make disciples from the people of all nations on the earth. He calls on them to baptize these disciples in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They must also teach these new believers to obey everything Jesus has commanded them to do. Matthew ends his book with Jesus’ promise to always be with those who believe in Him.

Chapter Summary
An angel of the Lord descends from heaven and rolls the stone from Jesus’ tomb. The guards faint. The angel sits on top of the stone and waits. Two women, followers of Jesus, arrive and are told that Jesus is risen from the dead. Jesus then meets them and tells them to give the news to His brothers. The chief priests bribe the guards to say Jesus’ followers stole His body. Jesus meets the disciples on a mountain in Galilee and commissions them to make disciples of people from all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey Jesus’ commands. Jesus promises to be with them always.

Book Summary
The Gospel of Matthew clearly shows the influence of its writer’s background, and his effort to reach a specific audience. Matthew was one of Jesus’ twelve disciples, a Jewish man, and a former tax collector. This profession would have required literacy, and Matthew may have transcribed some of Jesus’ words as they were spoken. This book is filled with references to the Old Testament, demonstrating to Israel that Jesus is the Promised One. Matthew also includes many references to coins, likely due to his former profession. Matthew records extensive accounts of Jesus’ teaching, more than the other three Gospels.