The meaning and the corruption of the Great Commission

One claim amongst those who embrace "Christian Nationalism" that is currently quite prominent is the claim that the Great Commission is the marching orders of their programme.

I've talked about this before, here. But earlier this week, missionary Bible translator Nathan Wells has written a brief and very helpful summary of why this equation perverts God's word. He amply demonstrates that the apostles would not have recognised the programme that is claimed by "Christian Nationalists" to be the one which they received and passed on to us, and that it is not recognisable in their actual activities or teachings. 

Rather, doing this to the church's marching orders, since they are so fundamental, is to pervert the Scriptures to our own harm, and the harm of those who hear such teaching. Nathan Wells distinguishes clearly, as orthodox explanations of the Great Commission throughout church history has, between believing, as we do, that "Christians today may rightly work for justice, integrity, and reform in the public square", and the novel and counterfeit Commission being pushed by "Christian Nationalism". I commend his article to you.

As this seems a suitable place, I'll add one final thought that occurred to me during the last year. Historically, orthodox Christians have generally recognised that the Great Commission is the New Covenant form of the "Dominion Mandate", the Genesis command to man to fulfil the earth and subdue it, filling it with God's glory, as man's great task. This mandate was given in new, covenantally-appropriate forms to Noah, Abraham, and Israel, during the Old Testament. It reaches its climax and fulfilment in the call to disciple amongst all the nations and establish obedient communities of believers in them all.

"Christian Nationalism" subverts this, and reads things as if the Great Commission does not fulfil the Dominion Mandate, but as if it actually were the Dominion Mandate. Instead of the New Testament showing us how, now, after Christ's Resurrection and before his return we are go out and glorify God throughout all domains of life as we await for the day when he'll be revealed to renew all creation and reign visibly, as the fulfilment of all that went before, instead it is re-read as if it were what went before. The precise same goal remains, to be achieved before the Eschaton, and the gospel only edits the means of how to get there. The victory of Christ is re-interpreted, such that having a redeemed people throughout the nations who overcome the trials of the world, flesh and devil is not itself a victory: it is only a preliminary step along the way towards dominating this present age at all levels, with political domination over all other ideologies being the crowning glory which we consciously aim for in order to fulfil the Commission. As such, the disciples in the gospels didn't, until Christ's resurrection, lack understanding of how the ages would unfold and overlap: they actually understood things just right, and just got the timings wrong. (And when they explicitly and repeatedly taught the churches about the overlap of the ages, we're supposed to just bracket that out as still having no real meaning in the end). Once you identify the significance of this mis-reading, it helps to make sense of "Christian Nationalists". It's not that they don't want to arbitrarily stop discipling people after teaching what obedience means personally and within families, but progress also to community life. That would still remain an entirely orthodox position. The problem is that their claims about the Great Commission subvert and change it fundamentally.