Meditations in Matthew Ten: The Jewish Mission

Jesus commissioned at least three distinct evangelical missions. We mentioned one in our last post (here). The Lord commanded his servants to “make disciples of all the nations” (Matt 28:19). John Gill says this means to “make them disciples by teaching them; or, as the Persic version, by way of explanation, adds, bring them to my religion and faith.”¹ This is our messianic-age mission. The results of it will fulfill many Old Testament prophecies (e.g., Psa 2:8; 22:27; 46:10; 86:9).

Two other commissions were for the “last days” (Heb 1:2) of the Mosaic age. One was to preach the gospel as a witness to the nations. Jesus mentioned this one in the Olivet Discourse. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end [of the Mosaic age] come” (Matt 24:14). This witness-preaching would occur in his generation (Matt 24:34).

Paul later reported the fulfillment of this mission. He said his gospel “now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith” (Rom 16:26; emphasis added; cp. Rom 1:8; 10:18; Col 1:5-6, 23). The disciples completed this mission as Jesus had predicted.

The other “last days”² mission was to Israel. Matthew describes it in Matthew 10. Here Jesus calls his twelve apostles (Matt 10:1–4). He then gives them their first preaching assignment. The apostles must preach the gospel to Israel (Matt 10:5–6). Jesus later reiterated this Jewish mission. After his resurrection, he said, “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47; emphasis added).

This commission established the context for apostolic preaching. This post will discuss four aspects of it from an inmillennial perspective.

The Fulfillment of the Jewish Mission

The book of Acts shows how the apostles carried out this mission. The first seven chapters describe events in Jerusalem. After Stephen’s death, “there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles” (Acts 8:1; emphasis added). The apostles remained in Jerusalem to continue their mission to Israel.

We see a Jews-first orientation as the gospel spread outside the land of Israel. Christians who fled persecution “went every where preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). Philip preached to the Samaritans, a people part Jewish and part Gentile (Acts 8:5–25). He also preached to an Ethiopian who was a Jewish proselyte (Acts 8:26–40).

God directed Peter to preach to Cornelius, a Gentile with no Jewish affiliation. On that occasion, he mentioned that the gospel had gone to the Jews first. He said, “that word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judaea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached” (Acts 10:37; emphasis added).

The Jews-first orientation continued after Cornelius’s conversion. The apostles began their missionary efforts to the nations. The church in Antioch served as their home base (Acts 13:1–3). When they went to a new city, they preached to the Jews first. For example, “when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews” (Acts 13:5; emphasis added).

Paul saw himself as “the apostle of the Gentiles” (Rom 11:13). He was “a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles” (2 Tim 1:11). But, he turned to the Gentiles in a particular location only after the Jews rejected the gospel. In Antioch of Pisidia, for example, he told the Jews, “It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46; emphasis added). So, the Jewish mission influenced apostolic preaching even outside the land of Israel.

But, even as the Gentile mission began, the apostles to whom Jesus spoke in Matthew 10 remained in Jerusalem. They knew Paul “should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision” (Gal 2:9).

We will discuss the reason for this Jews-first emphasis below. Here we want to emphasize that Jesus’s commission in Matthew 10 continued after his death. It governed the apostles’ preaching through the “last days” of the Mosaic age.

The Message of the Jewish Mission

Jesus commissioned the apostles to preach the message he and John the Baptist had preached earlier. The Lord said, “And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 10:7, emphasis added; cp. Matt 3:1; 4:17). Their message was “the gospel of the kingdom” (Matt 4:23; 9:35; 24:14; Mark 1:14). Jesus called it “the word of the kingdom” (Matt 13:19).

Luke gives the history of the apostolic generation in the book of Acts. He shows how the apostles obeyed Jesus’s commission. They began by talking to Jesus, “speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3; emphasis added). At Ephesus, Paul “went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God” (Acts 19:8; emphasis added).

At the end of Acts, Paul was in prison in Rome. He “called the chief of the Jews together” (Acts 28:17) to explain his gospel. His message comprised “the hope of Israel” (Acts 28:20). To make them understand, Paul “expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets” (Acts 28:23; emphasis added).

All parts of the Jewish Scriptures—the law and prophets—foretold the kingdom of God. The apostles told the Jews that God had now established that kingdom under Christ’s reign. By doing so, they were obeying Jesus’s commission.

The Purpose of the Jewish Mission

The Jewish mission would achieve two primary objectives. First, kingdom-preaching would show a division among the Jews. God would bear witness to the apostles’ ministry (Matt 10:8–10). Some Jews would respond positively. They would be “worthy.” Apostolic peace would abide on them (Matt 10:11–13).

Charles Spurgeon said, “The same sun which melts wax hardens clay; and the same gospel which melts some persons to repentance hardens others in their sins.”³ And so it was in the cities of Israel. The gospel of the kingdom hardened some of the Jews. They did not receive the apostles nor hear their words (Matt 10:14). Jesus said, “Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city” (Matt 10:15).⁴

The judgment of these kingdom-rejecting Jewish cities was soon to come as we shall see in the next section.

The second aim for the Jewish mission was to fill up the measure of Israel’s sins. Jesus referred to apostate Jews as wolves and serpents (Matt 10:16). He warned the apostles about them. “They will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues” (Matt 10:17).

Near the end of his ministry on earth, Jesus spoke to the Jews.

Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. (Matt 23:31–36; emphasis added)

The Jewish mission would allow Israel to complete her iniquity (cp. Gen 15:16). Then God would judge her.

The Timing of the Jewish Mission

Jesus provided a clear time marker for the Jewish mission. He said, “when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come” (Matt 10:23; emphasis added).

The Jewish mission would still be underway when Jesus returned.

The apostles wrote the entire New Testament during the time of the Jewish mission.⁵ Their writings everywhere reflect the time orientation Jesus placed on it. For example, Paul mentioned it when he told the Corinthians about Israel’s typological role. He said, “all these things happened to them as examples (Gk tupos, or “type”), and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor 10:11, NKJV; emphasis added). The Jewish mission was bringing Israel’s role to an end.

As we saw earlier (e.g., here and here), Paul expected to live to see “the day of the Lord” (1 Thess 4:15; 5:2). He showed what this day would mean for apostate Israel. “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape” (1 Thess 5:3). The coming (Gk parousia) of Christ would bring this judgment (1 Thess 4:15; 5:23).

The apostles’ writings conform to Jesus’s time orientation for the Jewish mission. It would continue for one generation (Matt 23:34–36; 24:34). Then, Jesus would return in his kingdom to execute judgment on apostate Israel (Matt 10:23; 16:27–28; et al.).

Conclusion

Inmillennialism accounts for Jesus’s teaching about the Jewish mission in Matthew 10. The apostles knew the timeframe in which they were working. They would still be engaged in this mission when Jesus returned. Because of this, their writings contain many this-generation time stamps. Our prophetic model accounts for these markers with ease.

Inmillennialism also stresses the role of the gospel in this mission. God meant for it to accomplish specific goals in the “last days” of the Mosaic age. In Israel, it would bring the “remnant according to the election of grace” (Rom 11:5) to Christ. But it would also bring condemnation to most of the Jews (Rom 11:6–10).

The content of the gospel in this mission is important. It is the gospel of the kingdom. Jesus said, “preach (Gk kērussō), saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 10:7). C. H. Dodd makes a keen observation about our proclamation of the gospel.

The verb [kērussō⁶] properly means “to proclaim.” . . . Much of our preaching in Church at the present day would not have been recognized by the early Christians as kerygma.⁷ It is teaching, or exhortation (paraklesis), or it is what they called homilia, that is, the more or less informal discussion of various aspects of Christian life and thought, addressed to a congregation already established in the faith.⁸

God has ordained the conversion of the nations through the preaching of the kingdom. He will not use discussions of Christian ethics and doctrine as the primary instruments to achieve this goal.

The “last days” preaching of the kingdom is finished. The apostles preached it as a witness to the nations (Matt 24:14). They also preached it to Israel so the apostates among them could fill up their sins (Matt 23:31–36). All this happened in their generation. Then Jesus came in judgment in AD 70. The Temple fell, the Mosaic age ended. The parousia (presence) of Christ continues with his churches during the messianic age.

Now, we are to make disciples of the nations by preaching the gospel of the kingdom.

1. John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, in The Baptist Commentary Series (Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 7:376.
2. For a discussion of the “last days” see our post The Last Days in Hebrews.
3. C. H. Spurgeon, “The Lesson of the Almond Tree,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 46 (Pasadena, TX: Pilgrim Publications, 1977), 271.
4. The image in this post is The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by Pieter Schoubroeck (circa 1570 –1607). This file (here) is in the public domain (PD-US).
5. Many scholars debate this point. For a defense of it, see works like John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Pub, 2000).
6. The original has the infinitive form, keryssein.
7. That is, the thing preached.
8. C. H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), 7–8.