Make Disciples of All Nations

The trajectory of Isaiah 2:3 ties directly to the geography of Acts 1:8 ("in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth"). This is also the thread in Jesus’ mandate to “go, make disciples of all nations” in Matthew 28:18-20. This was God’s mandate for Adam and Eve in the garden in Genesis 1:26-28. We are to carry God’s glory to the ends of the earth. Only a King could have handed out dominion, So, right there in Genesis 1, we see God not just as Creator, but as King! We are comfortable seeing God as Creator but never saw Him as King in chapter 1 of Genesis.

So how are we to disciple a nation? As Christians, we are extremely comfortable “making disciples in nations” i.e.., evangelising to people; while people are important to reach, is that the entirety of what Jesus meant? What about “disciples of nations?” How does God view a nation and the people in a nation?

If we are honest, modern Christianity has been handed a certain “template” of reading and understanding the Bible. We have accepted some of these templates without thinking deeply or testing against Scripture to see if they hold good considering the bigger storyline of the Bible. How does Jesus commission fit in with the overall story that God has penned? What is my part in it? How can I train and raise others to do their part? These are some questions that ought to come to one’s mind when reading and studying the Bible.

We are grateful to the pioneers of faith who sacrificed much, including their lives and families to bring the truth of the kingdom of God to the Indian shores centuries ago. Through their pioneering vision and mission, Christian influence was visible in cities across India through schools, colleges, hospitals, and other forms of community rehabilitation and service. But honestly, we cannot say the same of much of the Christian influence or of the church today. Why? Have the benchmarks of truth changed? Why is it so hard to make a real case for transformation in our cities and nations?

My humble observation and submission is this: a fallacious reading of Scripture (over emphasis of one truth to the exclusion of other truths) has led to a fallacious mindset and a fallacious lifestyle of the church. Nations, for a large part, do not figure in the thinking or vocabulary of the church.

However, if you have a burden in your heart, it is time to reclaim the vision according to God’s heart and re-position the ekklesia for the days ahead.

The Bible paints a grand vision of God's heart for His people to exercise kingdom influence plainly from Genesis 1 and 2, through the prophets and inspired writings, through the Acts, the apostle Paul’s letters, and the apostle John’s revelation of Jesus Christ in the book of Revelation. Each of us must therefore grasp this grand vision, and do our part in this generation, if that vision is to be a reality someday. Like it is said of David in Acts 13:36, “For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep.” This is our time. What will be said of this generation as it pertains to fulfilling the mandate of Matthew 28:18-20?

Reclaiming kingdom vision for the nations, the way Jesus intended and passed on to His twelve disciples, and through them to the apostles and prophets and to the church requires a new lens to reading and understanding the Bible, the whole revealed will and counsel of God. New wineskins!

For far too long, believers have dissected the New Testament and epistles, with truly little understanding of where the story of the Bible began or how it ends. Never forget that the ekklesia Jesus said He is building (Matthew 16:18) is heaven's parliament on earth. Can it be ordinary?

When reading a novel, none of us would start reading in the middle. We would start from the first page to the last page to understand the main characters, the storyline, the context, the exchanges within those contexts and the ending. However, for some strange reason, when we read the Bible, we seem to gravitate to the gospels and epistles, or at the most a psalm a day. Most preaching is also centered around the gospels and epistles. As a result, the church is stuck not knowing how to move forward. Isn’t it the church’s responsibility to know what the Divine author had in mind? Didn’t God say categorically in Isaiah 46:8-10 “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.” Didn’t Jesus say of the Holy Spirit in John 16:13, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

We are familiar with individual stories in the Bible but unable to connect the dots of the main storyline from Genesis to Revelation. This shows in crumbling lives, families, marriages, children, workplaces, neighbourhoods, cities, and nations. God’s grand story began in Genesis 1 and 2, before consummating in Revelation 21 and 22. This is the overarching storyline of the Bible and something the church must recapture with urgency.

For many believers, the story starts with Genesis 3, the entry of sin and the fall of man. That erroneous start has informed how we view God, people, communities, cities, and nations. There is no connect to a city or a nation. For many Christians even today, the Old Testament = law and the New Testament = grace. We accept the grace card but dismiss the instructions Jesus gave us as a part of fulfilling the law. For others, Old Testament = Israel and New Testament = church. These traditional templates we hold to have informed our understanding of God’s great plan and purpose for every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. We struggle to understand the concept of nations and what it means to make disciples of all nations. We struggle to see beyond personal salvation, blessings, and breakthroughs. This is a pervasive problem, and it will not help by evading it or placing it at the church’s doorstep. It is a problem every believer must learn to face with all honesty by reading and re-reading the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation and allowing the Holy Spirit to teach, to illuminate with wisdom and revelation.

The end time church needs a revelation of Jesus Christ not just as Saviour, Lord, and King but also as the son of David and the son of Abraham. (Matthew 1:1, Revelation 5:5, 22:16). As son of David, to Israel, and as son of Abraham to Gentile peoples and nations.

Note: Reference to Israel is to biblical Israel, not political Israel.

In Christ, the son of David and the son of Abraham, the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile has been permanently removed (spiritually removed, but not yet in the natural), and in its place is one new man. Ephesians 2:13-16

To help us develop a biblical understanding of the storyline, I recommend a frame as follows.

The root- law or Torah, which simply means teaching, divine instruction- the first five books of the Bible.

The trunk- the Tanakh- includes the Torah, but also Nevi'im (lit. 'Prophets'), and the Ketuvim (lit. 'Writings')

The branches- the gospels

The fruit- the epistles

While reading, studying, and meditating on Scripture, we must be careful not to over emphasise any one part to the exclusion of the other. Because truth as it concerns God is one. The Bible must be seen as one single book, one single story, one beginning, about one God, one Holy Spirit, one people (Jew + Gentile) and one end, not multiple endings left to conjecture and personal interpretation.

The Hebrew word used in Isaiah 2:3 is Torah, which fundamentally means "instruction" or "teaching". When this prophecy begins its fulfilment, this "law" is transformed into the "law of Christ" or the message of the Gospel of the kingdom itself. As the apostle Paul teaches in Romans 10:4, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

The Mosaic law acted as a temporary custodian. In the New Covenant, Jesus serves as the "filter" for the law, rewriting its internal moral demands onto human hearts by His Spirit rather than maintaining nationalistic or ethnic civil boundaries.

The Reversal of the Flow: In Isaiah, the nations are pictured as physically "flowing up" to a stationary Jerusalem. In the New Testament, this is fulfilled when the presence of God flows outward from Jerusalem to the nations via the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the subsequent global missionary mandate.

The "law going forth from Jerusalem" is thus actively happening right now whenever the Gospel of the kingdom is preached and modelled to the nations, and it will reach its absolute physical consummation when the New Jerusalem completely fills the new creation.

Historically, we see King David and his son, Solomon using the law to disciple the nation of Israel. This is before Solomon fell into sin and the nation declined and lost its glory.

In the prophetic future, Jesus as the son of David will again rule and reign from Jerusalem (Jeremiah 3:17; Matthew 5:35) over the nations issuing righteous laws to govern the nations. We find the nations and kings of the earth walking in the light of these righteous laws in Revelation 21:24,26.

In the present, the ekklesia must be willing and open to reading and understanding the Bible not just as topics and subjects, but as a single story, with a single end, a God among His people, with His glory over the new creation. This is crucial to making disciples of all nations in the spheres and contexts each of us find ourselves in.