Israel, the people of God, and the nations

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Mar 2002 by Schnabel, Eckard J

Equally significant is the content of the call extended to the Twelve: they were called and prepared by Jesus for a future missionary task. They are called in order "to be with Jesus" and "to be sent" to preach the gospel (Mark 3:14); they are called to be "fishers of men" (Mark 1:17).43 The Twelve spend three years with Jesus who prepares them for an extensive ministry that intensified and extended Jesus' preaching of the dawn of God's kingdom.44 By mentioning Jesus' calling of two sets of brothers as disciples in the context of Mark 1:17 (cf. v. 16, 19-20), Mark "anticipates the fulfillment of this prediction in Jesus' sending them and the rest of the twelve disciples two by two for preaching, healing, and exorcism (3:13-19; 6:7-13, 30)."45 The disciples had witnessed Jesus' itinerant ministry of proclamation and healing in Galilee and Judea. They were prepared for an itinerant ministry both among the "lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt 10:6) in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and-in the context of the eschatological expectations of an influx of pagan nations who would worship YHWH-among Gentiles as well.

The classic texts of the "great commission" extend the mission of the Twelve to regions beyond the Jewish homeland (Matt 28:19-20; Acts 1:8).46 We note the following points: (1) Jesus asserts that he possesses the universal authority of the Son of Man of Dan 7:13-14: the phrase (...) (...) highlights Jesus' participation in God's authority over creation as a new dimension of his mission that is about to become the mission of the disciples; (2) Jesus commands the disciples to go and preach and make new disciples because he now possesses this authority. The new era of messianic authority changes the conditions of their ministry: the universality of his claims as Son of Man, recognizable only sporadically during his ministry in Galilee and in Judaea, can and must be preached as the disciples embark on their universal mission as "fishers of men" and founders of communities of new disciples whom they "teach"; (3) Jesus commands the disciples to reach "all nations" with the gospel. The phrase (...) clearly refers to all nations including Israel. When Jesus had sent the disciples on their first mission he specifically restricted them to Jewish audiences (Matt 10:5); now there are no restrictions. The rejection of Jesus' message by the Jewish leaders does not mean that the good news of the dawn of God's kingdom can no longer be preached in Israel: the error of the Sanhedrin does not exclude Israel from salvation. The evangelistic ministry of the early Christian missionaries among Jews demonstrates how they understood the great commission: they preached in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and beyond the borders of Palestine.

In Jesus' charge to the disciples to go to all the nations "until the ends of the earth," the prophetic vision of nations coming to Jerusalem (Isa 2:2-5, Mic 4:1-5; Zech 8:20-23) is replaced by the reality of Jewish missionaries going to the nations. The anticipated movement from the periphery to the center is redirected in terms of a mission from the center (Jerusalem, where Jesus had died and was raised from the dead) towards the periphery (the ends of the earth).