The start of Jesus’ public ministry
Jesus saw the people who had gathered. Just before, in chapter 4:23-25, it says that He went about, “teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them. Great multitudes followed Him—from Galilee, and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.” This was an important part of His work.
God had sent His Son into the world so that the world might be saved through Him. John 3:17. He had an atonement to offer the whole world. But at the same time He knew that it would not be long before the people who thronged around Him when He spoke in parables and healed the sick would become His enemies and cry, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” That would not by any means alter His work of love—on the cross at Calvary He cried out to God and prayed for their atonement: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” Luke 23:34. But the gospel of the kingdom was so much more than just forgiveness—it was the offer to live here on earth as a citizen of heaven, to find our way back to the intimate fellowship with God that mankind had lost through the Fall.
The invitation to discipleship
This was the calling He invited them to, this was the life He offered to those who answered this calling and became His disciples, and who were not content merely to be healed and forgiven. It was to these ones that He explained the deeper meaning of His parables; it was these ones that He invited to follow Him, take up their cross daily, and deny themselves. The call sounded forth to all the people: “If anyone desires to come after Me . . .”
Before He ascended into heaven, it was to the disciples He wanted to say: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matt. 28:19-20. Jesus’ time on earth in His earthly body was short, but He wanted to give His disciples all the power of heaven so that this could continue, according to the law of the leaven: The kingdom of heaven “. . . is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.” Luke 13:21.
Then it was the disciples’ turn to make others disciples among all nations. They too would interact with the people, healing, helping, bringing them out of distress and into being reconciled with God. People would gather around them, but they also would hate them and persecute them. But first of all, they were to bring others to the life of discipleship, and teach them to observe all that Jesus had commanded His disciples.
The disciples, those who had been closest to Jesus, had things to learn from Him, so that they in turn could teach these to others. Mankind was, and is, ignorant when it comes to the kingdom of God; therefore much instruction is needed from spiritual people. Any other kind of instruction is worse than nothing.
Herein lies the core of the Great Commission, of the gospel that is to be preached to all nations: the calling to become a disciple of Jesus, and to learn all that He has commanded His disciples. There are two places in the Gospels where it is especially clearly and fully outlined what Jesus commanded His disciples: in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, and 7), and in His conversation with the disciples during the Last Supper (John 13 to 16).
Nils Peter Wetterlund and the Sermon on the Mount
Nils Peter Wetterlund was especially enthusiastic about the Sermon on the Mount, which he had called “The Little Bible”. He once stated that it was very regrettable and strange that many Christians retained only half a verse of the entire Sermon on the Mount, “forgive us our debts,” and regarded everything else as commandments that are impossible to keep, and which they label as being a “law” from which they are free. But the Sermon on the Mount is wholly and completely the gospel; it is the joyful message to disciples, to those Jesus could say: “Blessed are …”
English translation of Wetterlund’s text:
Original text in Swedish:
In this series of articles, we will go through what Jesus commanded His disciples in the Sermon on the Mount. In addition to the Bible studies by Johan Oscar Smith and Elias Aslaksen provided in the references below, we will also regularly draw inspiration from the book Nachfolge (The Cost of Discipleship), published in 1937 by the German Lutheran theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), which contains an in-depth study of the Sermon on the Mount.
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References
Johan Oscar Smith. Summary of a Bible Study Held in Oslo, December 28, 1921. Skj. Sk. Dec. 1922.
Elias Aslaksen. Bible Studies in the Gospel of Matthew. Published as a series in Skjulte Skatter between 1936 and 1941.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The Cost of Discipleship
