LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1998, Page 91

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CONVENTION ESSAYS AND BIBLE STUDIES
Christ’s kingdom will triumph because “the one who hears
you hears Me” (Luke 10:16). They should not fear, for even
though Satan will assault them for their proclamation,
Jesus guarantees that Satan will not hurt them (Luke
10:19).

II. Jesus Gives His Disciples the Content
of the Mission Proclamation
After Jesus rose from the dead, He stood among His 11
startled and frightened disciples, and He gave them the
new greeting of the kingdom:
“Peace to you!” (Luke 24:36).
As Jesus enters this household and announces His peace
upon it, He is following the pattern He first gave the seventy (-two) in their mission of proclaiming peace. And after
His troubling greeting of peace, Jesus also shares food at
their table to show that His resurrected body is a body of
flesh and bones.
Luke 24:41–43
“And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered,
He said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They
gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and He took it and ate before them.”
This combination of peace-greeting, proclamation of the
Kingdom, and hospitality at the table will be the pattern of
mission as the disciples, by Jesus’ Spirit, extend the church
from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the end of the
earth.
Before Jesus ascends into heaven, He gives one final
teaching to the Eleven and those with them. The beauty of
Luke's structure is more evident if Jesus’ words are organized in the following manner, and with a highly literal
translation:
24:44:

24:45:
24:46:

24:47:

Jesus said to them,
“These My word which I spoke to you while I
was still with you
that is necessary
to be fulfilled all the things that have
been written in the
Law of Moses and the Prophets and
the Psalms concerning Me”
Then He opened their minds to understand the
Scriptures;
and He said to them
“Thus it is written,
to suffer the Christ and
to rise out of the dead on the third day, and
to be preached in His name repentance
to forgiveness of sins
to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

For the emerging church, Jesus prepares the Gospel
proclamation in this compact formula that includes both
the divine necessity of His death and resurrection in fulfillment of the Scriptures and the preaching of repentance and
forgiveness to all nations. What Christ has done for the
world—His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension as
portrayed in the Old Testament—these are the objective
facts of the Gospel. Jesus is also teaching His disciples here

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about the application of the Gospel, the fact that Jesus’ suffering and resurrection are for you, the hearer, for the forgiveness of your sins. What the disciples will preach is the
same message John the Baptist and Jesus preached, and
this proclamation will be the foundation for all Gospel
preaching in the sermons in Acts. What is new here is that
now the disciples will be the ministers, and their proclamation will be based on the accomplished work of Christ.
In Jesus’ final teaching to His disciples in the Gospel,
He commissions them for the mission in Acts. The disciples
must now take the very same journey Jesus took, for
through them there will “be preached in His name repentance into the forgiveness of sins to all nations, beginning
from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47) The seventy (-two) disciples
already exorcised demons in Jesus’ name (Luke 10:17; cf.
9:49). Jesus’ name will be instrumental in the baptizing,
teaching, and healing done in Acts (Acts 2:21, 38; 3:16; 4:10,
17ff.; 5:28, 40; 10:43, 48). But there is another aspect to
doing these things “in His name”: the disciples must also
participate in Jesus’ rejection and suffering. To witness to
Jesus is suffer for Him. They will be “dishonored for the
sake of the Name” (Acts 5:41) and even die for Him as
Stephen (Acts 7:55–60) and James the brother of John do
(Acts 12:1–2). The preaching of repentance leading to the
forgiveness of sins must begin in Jerusalem, for that is the
place where the Old Testament prophets suffered on behalf
of the kingdom (Luke 13:31–35), and where Jesus, the final
endtime prophet suffered, and from where that preaching
will go out to the ends of the earth through the apostles.
Jesus concludes his teaching by showing how the disciples’ mission is trinitarian (Luke 24:48–49), and how they
are incorporated into this mission bodily as witnesses to
“these things,” that is, the passion and resurrection facts:
Luke 24:48–49
a
1

a

“You are witnesses of these things”
b And behold I am sending the promise
of My Father upon you;
as for you—sit in the city until you are clothed
with power from on high”

Standing at the center of Jesus’ final instructions is a
reference to the Trinity as the source of the mission of the
church: “I (Jesus) am sending the promise (Holy Spirit) of
My Father upon you.” The Spirit, promised by the Father
and the Son (Luke 12:12) and sent by the Father and the
Son, is to guarantee to the disciples the abiding presence of
Christ for their mission in the world, for the Spirit is the
Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ is the means by which
the Christ’s presence will attend the disciples and bestow
all the gifts made possible by Christ’s incarnation, suffering, death, and bodily resurrection. The mission of the
church as announced by Jesus depends on His promise that
He will be present among His people through the Spirit.
Jesus is the Apostle sent from the Father to preach release to the captives and the oppressed (Luke 4:18), and to
proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God (Luke 4:43).
From now on, the disciples will represent Him. Jesus, the
Apostle, sent out the Twelve and then the seventy (-two) to
preach the kingdom of God and to heal (Luke 9:2; 10:1, 3).
This placed them at risk to receive the rejection that char-