This church based mythological teaching is so far reaching and so firmly established in modern times that simply mentioning the phrase, The Great Commission, immediately focuses the thoughts of almost everyone who reads it. Most people can readily tell you what The Great Commission entails. And yet, this phrase in not found in the Bible. The only time that the New Covenant Scriptures use the word “commission” is when Paul was recounting his conversion to the Faith to King Agrippa. He told him that he was on his persecuting mission, with the “authority and commission of the chief priests”, when Jesus met him and converted him.
The so-called Great Commission first received this designation around the mid-17th century and was not popularized until late in 19th century. Statistically and conservatively speaking, currently there are approximately 5000 organizations that function under The Great Commission as their sole purpose. Additionally, there are approximately 9500 denominations that function under The Great Commission as a primary objective. Of the approximately 4.5 million people in those two groups, a little over 1 million are actively participating in upholding The Great Commission. As you can see, these are all significantly large numbers.
How do they understand The Great Commission? Generally, they teach that after Jesus rose from the dead He met more than 500 brethren on a mountain in Galilee. At that time He commissioned them to take the gospel to all the world and to make disciples of all people teaching them to observe everything that He had instructed His followers, and that they were to persist in the mission in fellowship with Him until the end of the world. In order to attain the goal “until the end”, it is inferred that the commission is a mandate of perpetuity, being passed from generation to generation. All of this is in order that the world believe in Jesus and be saved from their sins. Thus, The Great Commission is seen as the perpetual heart and thrust of the Gospel. This understanding of the event as recorded only by Matthew is actually a fundamental misunderstanding of what occurred and of what Jesus said.
What happened and what did Jesus command? After Jesus rose from the dead, His eleven disciples, whom He had designated as His apostles, went to Galilee to the mountain where He told them they would see Him. He met them and they saw Him and worshiped Him. He then told them that they were to go and make disciples of all nations according to all of His instructions to them. He assured them that He would be with them exercising His authority until the very end or completion of the Age of the Law of Moses. This was the scope and terminus of His commands to them. Jesus had taught His hearers, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” He taught that He was fulfilling and would fulfill all of the Law and the Prophets in Himself. He taught that He would, within the lifetime of His hearers, bring to fruition the Kingdom of God in power and glory. He taught to those who heard Him that He would gather God’s chosen from the four corners of the earth to recline with Abraham, Issac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of God. His eleven disciples were with Him as His disciples while He taught these truths. He also elaborated with them more deeply on other occasions. Matthew makes clear that there were only eleven disciples present with Jesus on the mountain in Galilee. It is likewise very plain, that they were those only to whom He spoke these words.
What do we know about the outcome among them? We only have hard evidence witness regarding two of the eleven. Matthew wrote the narrative that has been rightly attributed to him by the church world; known as the Gospel of Matthew. Andrew wrote the narrative that has been wrongly attributed to John Mark by the church world; known as the Gospel of Mark. That is all of the evidence we have. Anything and everything else regarding their writing is conjecture, church tradition, and myth. I confidently say that the other nine disciples obeyed Jesus and carried out His instruction to see the ministry of the Spirit fulfilled in the last days of the Law of Moses ushering in the fullness of the Kingdom of God. Besides the words of command of Jesus – and that really is enough – we have no documents of evidence from the remaining nine disciples.
This is the so-called Great Commission properly interpreted.