Lost Sheep and All Nations, the Jewishness of the Matthean Commision

Introduction: Religion and Evangelism

It bears repeating with each post: The gospel writers were “Jewish,” writing Jewish literature. I include the scare quotes only to signal the anachronistic term, Jewish, because Judaism, as a religion, is a modern innovation. For the majority of its tradition by ethno-religious identity and cultic practices, the tradition of Israel may be a more appropriate term than Jewish because the community and commandments of Torah observance defined the people of Israel and their daily practices—not merely their “religion.”

Religion, understood as a set of creeds or beliefs and worship practices, is a modern category that aligns with the rise of the modern nation state (late-18th and 19th centuries). That is not to suggest the tradition of Israel is somehow delegitimate. Rather, the opposite is true. The tradition and scriptures of Israel share a tradition dating back to the 12th century BCE or earlier.

The distinction here is not one of legitimacy; rather, modern religion, as those of us in the 20th and 21st centuries tend to think of it, is defined by something that someone believes. This view is undoubtedly influenced by Protestantism, which 16th century origins is coupled with 17th century Enlightenment thinking and the 18th century rise of the modern nation state. At least some modern Jews resisted the notion of defining its practices as religious because Judaism isn’t something that someone believes, it is a law that someone, a Jewish person, follows. (For a terrific book-level treatment of this history and debate, see Leora Batnitzky’s How Judaism Became a Religion.)

This digression is not mere table setting for today’s post; instead, the tradition of Israel and following the law is central to this Sunday’s assigned gospel reading from the Revised Common Lectionary: Matthew 28:16-20. The “Great Commission.”

It is (erroneously) assumed that the expansion of Jesus’s ministry to gentiles (i.e., “all nations”) is one of the breaking points of Christianity from its parent, Judaism. In this post, I’ll resist this interpretation by connecting Matthew’s author to his rhetorical goals of characterizing Jesus as a new Moses, and pointing to the post-Exilic trito-Isaiah prophetic pronouncement that all nations will be reconciled to the God of Israel in the end time.

Matthew 28:16-20

First, as is our tradition here, we begin with the text, following the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition:

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

In the following paragraphs I hope to reveal the significance of “the mountain” and “all nations.”

To the Mountain

The gospel writers are Jewish, writing Jewish literature. This is integral to understanding Jesus because it is through the gospel accounts that we have the most description of Jesus and his purported ministry. It’s all Jewish. And how does that literature characterize Jesus? As a strict, Torah observant Jew!

You may wonder why I emphasize this point? Simply because we must always hold in mind the history that the Jesus movement drew from the scriptures of Israel. The Hebrew Bible did not point toward Jesus; rather, the Hebrew Bible yearned for a messiah, and Jesus-as-messiah did not fulfill the Hebrew mashiach. This history is complicated and nuanced, but we must resist the notion that Jesus is the messiah for Jewish people and Jewish people must accept Jesus. This is incorrect. Indeed, some Jews did accept Jesus as messiah. Others did not, and this diversity of beliefs was one focus of an earlier post. Still, my writing here is to read the gospels through a Jewish lens to show how Jewish Jesus is, not to show that he is “Christian”!

By Markan priority, Mark was the earliest gospel account to be written in 70 CE, following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem at the hands of militarized Rome, the occupying force. Matthew and Luke, it is widely acknowledged, used Mark as a primary source for their accounts. I don’t want to rehearse theories of composition of the gospels, but in short, each anonymous author, or evangelist, held their own style, audience, and rhetorical aims. The Matthean author is especially interested in characterizing Jesus as a new Moses.

Moses, according to the scriptures of Israel, was a liberator, a law giver, a covenant maker, a leader of Israel, and a travel guide through the wilderness to lead Israel to their promised land. A trip to Egypt, a killing of the first born, a new Pharaoh (Herod), and mountain revelatory experiences are a handful of examples from the Matthean author’s description of Jesus that link to the scriptures of Israel and its portrayal of Moses.

For our purposes here, recall Matthew’s setting for today’s reading, “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.” The broader context is that the resurrected Jesus shares his final instruction before departing the disciples—in human form, at any rate.

Moses? Oh yeah, he has instructions to give, too, on a mountain, before he, guess what, departs from his followers—in human form, at any rate. Jesus’s instruction, in fact, is to encourage Torah observance! As we will soon see. But first, on Moses.

Deuteronomy 32:48-52

On that very day the Lord addressed Moses as follows: “Ascend this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites for a possession; you shall die there on the mountain that you ascend and shall be gathered to your kin, as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his kin, because both of you broke faith with me among the Israelites at the waters of Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, by failing to maintain my holiness among the Israelites. Although you may view the land from a distance, you shall not enter it, the land that I am giving to the Israelites.”

Numbers 27:12

The Lord said to Moses, “Go up this mountain of the Abarim range, and see the land that I have given to the Israelites.

Numbers 33:47

They set out from Almon-diblathaim and camped in the mountains of Abarim, before Nebo.

Moses liberated the Israelites from enslavement, he led them through the wilderness, and he showed to them the land promised to Israel, before Moses dies. Moses’s death, by the way, is because of a violation of God’s command to Moses—another long and complicated story!

Of All Nations

From Moses, to Jesus: This mountain scene in the Galilee has Jesus instructing his followers, to “make disciples of all nations.” Just what does this mean? Is the ministry to gentiles the point of departure for Christianity from Judaism? Not so fast.

The prophetic book of Isaiah was popular among Second Temple Period Judaism (approximately 515 BCE through the Temple’s destruction in 70 CE). Of particular relevance here is so-called trito Isaiah, the third division in a prophetic book of multiple authorship. I should say that these divisions are not within the text; instead, scholars have divided Isaiah into these sections post hoc to define authorship and composition. Trito Isaiah, its date of composition, is post-Exilic, meaning after the people of Israel returned from their diaspora, or exile, at the hands of the Babylonian Empire. (The Persian Empire allowed the return to Israel, but that’s an account for another time!)

Something to note here is that the return from exile created a tense and difficult time for the people of Israel. See, after defeat and exile, typically the ruling class and aristocracy are carried away to bring disorder and disorganization to the conquered people. In the case of the Babylonian diaspora, a remnant remained behind in Israel. Upon return, there was tension among those who remained in Israel and those returning from exile. The diaspora communities had inter-married and assimilated among the native communities in diaspora. A campaign of religious purity swept over Jerusalem during the time of return and building of the Second Temple. Ezrah-Nehemiah retells some of this tension, but from the perspective of those whose histories we are most familiar with! “History is written by the victors,” so the quote goes.

This confusion and tension over the membership and ethno-religious identity during a period five centuries before the common era was surely not dissimilar to the setting for the Matthean author in the late first century of the common era. In Matthew’s setting, the Temple had been recently destroyed, and Jesus, especially salient for those Jewish people who saw him as the messiah, had been executed on a Roman cross. Many Jewish sects and revolutionary leaders rose up (and were put down). There was division among Jews as who to follow. Plus, the gentiles were now joining the movement, maybe in greater number?

Paul was reaching out to gentiles by bracketing large portions of Torah law (e.g., kosher dietary practices and circumcision), while some evangelists, like Matthew (?), were maintaining a commitment to Torah observance, even (especially?) for gentile Christ followers.

(Aside: I am writing a blog post, not an academic paper for peer review, and I am not citing sources for all of these claims, but a nice dialogue for Christ-follower’s outreach to gentiles appears in these two papers that argue against one another. This paper situates Matthew’s claims as tacitly unPauline, but not explicitly so, The Eschatological Conversion of ‘All the Nations’ in Matthew 28.19-20: (Mis)reading Matthew through Paul, while this paper argues for an overt anti-Pauline nature in Matthew’s call for outreach: Matthew, Paul and the origin and nature of the gentile mission: The great commission in Matthew 28:16-20 as an anti-Pauline tradition.)

Back to text at hand, we must recognize that for the Matthean author, the outreach to all nations is an expansion from an earlier commissioning, restricted only to the disciples’ outreach to Israel. See the following from earlier in the Matthean gospel.

Matthew 10:5-6

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

So this helpfully returns us to the crux of the issue: If an expansion for recruitment among other Jewish people toward outreach to all nations, what may have happened and why? Is Matthew’s author departing with Jewish tradition? Is this now Christianity? Not exactly, and certainly not if we read one of the gospel writer’s favorite prophetic books, Isaiah.

In trito Isaiah, the post-Exilic division of the book of Isaiah, we see explicit evidence that the end time, or eschaton, includes a commitment to ensuring the God of Israel’s Temple will be a “house of prayer for all nations.” It seems worth saying here that the Temple in Jerusalem did include a “Court of the Gentiles,” and so, the tradition of Israel was not as exclusive as one may imagine. See the outer space of the Temple complex, the Court of the Gentiles, in this depiction of the Second Temple.

To understand the prophetic notion of all nations reconciled to the God of Israel, read this passage from Isaiah 56.

Isaiah 56:6-8

And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
    to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
    and to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath and do not profane it
    and hold fast my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain
    and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
    will be accepted on my altar,
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
    for all peoples.
Thus says the Lord God,
    who gathers the outcasts of Israel:
I will gather others to them
    besides those already gathered.

What does Isaiah instruct for “the foreigners” and “others” to be counted a member among God’s people? At least in this passage, it includes instruction to keep the Sabbath, hold fast to the covenant, and follow the Torah-dictated sacrificial system.

What does Matthew put into the mouth of Jesus when reaching out to all nations? He instructs the disciples, “teaching them [gentiles] to obey everything that I have commanded you.” By following Jesus’s purported activity in and around the Temple and what we learn about his commitment to Torah it follows rather naturally to think that Isaiah’s call to all nations and Jesus’s, both require adherence to Torah practices.

Conclusion: Evangelism and Torah Observance

Conversion to Judaism is possible today, as it was when the author of trito Isaiah proclaimed requirements for bringing “others” into the community of “those already gathered.” The requirement, in Jewish parlance, is to “keep Torah.” Jesus was a strict, Torah observant Jew. He is frequently found at the Temple, he instructs followers to bathe in the ritual bath and present their offerings at the altar. Jesus interprets Torah at the Sermon on the Mount, and he debates with Pharisees on the proper commandments to observe on the Sabbath. And Jesus’s parting instructions to the disciples include making disciples of all nations, teaching them everything that Jesus had taught.

For my purposes, this is not a call for Jewish conversion! But what I hope to have conveyed here is that the Great Commission is much more Jewish than you would have thought, and that’s consistent with my entire effort with this newsletter!

Do I want you to become Jewish? No. But how might you reconsider your faith when equipped with the history and development of Christianity through a Jewish lens? If it weren’t for Paul, your baptism may have included circumcision, and your Easter ham could’ve been lamb chops.

Jokes aside, if nothing else, I want Christians to better appreciate their distinct rituals and practices, owing to their ancestry, Judaism, and certainly with respect to how they understand the Great Commission. Jesus did instruct proto-Christians to make disciples of all nations, but the requirement for such discipleship includes requiring what Jesus taught, and Jesus taught a lot of Jewish Torah!