After making a mockery of monarchy with His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, Jesus proceeds quite logically, as a follow-up, to offer an open critique of Israel’s supposed leadership:

They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, “Rabbi, Rabbi.” But you, do not be called “Rabbi”; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Matthew 23:6-12

Jesus is rather pointed about all of this above-and-below business that goes on among God’s people. The “leaders” of Israel had created a system in which they were generally perceived by the Jewish people as occupying positions of elevated status “over them,” just like the Gentiles operated. The structure was set up so that teachers and preachers would end up in “the best places” and in “the best seats.” Titles of prestige were employed, but more than employed, those titles were invested with hierarchical sentiments that are antithetical to God’s covenant purpose. A sharp dichotomy between clergy and laity was established. The people of God were led to imagine themselves to be under the authority of their religious leaders, rather than under their discipleship. According to God’s covenant system, spiritual leaders were supposed to teach the people to know God for themselves. But the system was designed to stunt the spiritual growth of the people and keep them dependent upon their leaders for access to God.

How does Christ deal with all this abuse of power?

He simply sweeps it aside as contrary to God’s covenant plan.

But Jesus goes a step further. He doesn’t merely condemn top-down power dynamics, nor does He just declare how He wants things to operate in His kingdom, as if He simply has a preferred leadership style among multiple legit options. Rather, He explains that the way He wants things to operate is grounded in a principle that undergirds reality itself: “whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” There is nothing arbitrary about this. Jesus isn’t saying, If you exalt yourself, I’m going to knock you down. If you behave as I say, I’ll give you a promotion and a pay raise.

Rather, Jesus is describing the intrinsic manner in which relational dynamics between free agents actually happen. We are rational, emotional, volitional creatures, created in the image of God, each equipped with the dignity of free will and granted the privilege of direct access to God. As such, there are laws that operate within social dynamics, just as there are laws that operate within the realm of physics. When one free agent senses in another free agent an effort to control others, trust shuts down. Conversely, when one free agent senses in another free agent a humble expenditure of self for the good of others, trust opens up. Selfishness leads to mistrust, isolation, and the disintegration of relationships. Self-giving service leads to trust, connection, and the strengthening of relationships. This is simply the way reality operates. And the reason reality operates this way is because it was designed by a God who, within the parameters of God’s own reality, operates like this. God is, by definition, three equals who operate as one. Love, not power, actuates the relationship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, God engineered humanity to operate in like manner. The image of God is most accurately reflected when human beings exist with one another in a state of egalitarian love.

Having rejected the Gentile way of “authority over” others, and having denounced the Jewish leaders for adopting that faulty system, Jesus proceeds to pronounce a series of “woes” against the religious establishment. The whole system, He declares, has been reduced to a religious scam. It will, therefore, implode on itself. He calls the religious leaders “hypocrites”—pretenders, actors, fakes—who have “shut up the kingdom of heaven against men.” They are in it for the money, Jesus says. They “devour widow’s houses.” While they pray long prayers and go through the temple rituals, really all they are in it for is “extortion and self-indulgence.” They have discovered that religion can be exploited as a lucrative business, and they are milking it for all it’s worth. They have manipulated themselves into exalted religious positions for the material gain that comes with the hypocritical act (Matthew 23:13-36).

After giving His scathing public denunciation of Israel’s leadership, Jesus then prophesies over Jerusalem:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate. Matthew 23:37-38

Israel is headed straight for disaster, but they are blind to their inevitable fate. From their perspective, the Roman Empire is the problem and what they need is a powerful messiah who can marshal an army against their oppressors. The truth is, this way of thinking is itself the problem. They have trained themselves to trust in brute strength. As the prophet Isaiah said regarding Israel’s pursuit of power, “The act of violence is in their hands . . . . The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths; whoever takes that way shall not know peace” (Isaiah 59:6, 8, NIV).

For generations, Israel had existed in the world under the rule of their own kings, until bigger, more powerful kingdoms came along. That’s how power works. There’s always a bigger, more brutal fish in the pond. “He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword” (Revelation 13:10). Monarchical power is, by its very nature, an endless cycle of violence. Everyone who operates by this system will suffer the losses the system exacts. It is an absolute impossibility for violence to produce peace. The powerful always want more power and the weak always want revenge. And so the cycle of violence and retaliatory vengeance goes on and on and on.

As Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, He warns the people that if they continue operating by the power dynamics of the Gentile nations, they will eventually be crushed by the superior power of their Roman rulers (Luke 19:41-44). And that’s exactly what happened. When Jesus did not become the military messiah Israel wanted, unrest under the Roman yoke finally boiled over in a series of violent Jewish revolts. Fed up with the puny muscle-flexing of the Jews, the Roman armies moved in and destroyed the city of Jerusalem in AD 70, just as Jesus predicted. In short, the power dynamics of the world do not work. Exercising power over others can never produce sustainable peace, for the simple reason that human nature is made for the dignity of freedom and self-governance. Those who try to control others can expect eventual rebellion. All coercive power structures inevitably come crashing down.

GOD IN AN APRON

After His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem as Israel’s parody king—with absolutely no intention of occupying a throne and raising an army—Jesus gives His disciples a demonstration of the kind of king He will be. Gathered with His disciples for the Passover meal, Christ proceeds to act out the essence of His kingdom. He “rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded” (John 13:4-5).

God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, wearing an apron and washing dirty feet!

A more disorienting and delightful picture of omnipotence is inconceivable.

Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “LORD, are You washing my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.” Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” Simon Peter said to Him, “LORD, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!” John 13:6-9

Peter finds it impossible to envision God in the position of a humble servant. He cannot accept that the person who occupies the highest position—the Master, the Messiah, God in the flesh—would occupy the lowest position. Jesus knows how distorted Peter’s thinking is regarding the character of God. “You do not understand now,” He tells Peter, “but you will know after this.” Clearly, Jesus anticipates that Peter’s mind will have to undergo a radical paradigm shift if Peter is to be a part of the eternal kingdom of God. What Jesus is doing here is so counterintuitive to the egocentric human heart that it challenges the very foundation of our being.

Peter imagines he is elevating Jesus and complimenting Him when he says, “You shall never wash my feet!” But, in fact, his refusal to be served by Christ is an insult to the character of God. Notice, Jesus doesn’t say, If you don’t serve Me, you can’t be a part of My kingdom. That would make total sense. Rather, He says, If you don’t let Me serve you, you can’t be a part of My kingdom. In other words, If you don’t want to be part of a governing system in which the king is the greatest servant, then My kingdom is not for you. If you don’t completely shift your perspective on what it looks like to be powerful, truly powerful with the power of down-going love, you can’t be part of My new kingdom. Of course, Peter yields and allows Jesus to wash his feet, not because he comprehends it, but because he cannot accept exclusion from the kingdom of Jesus.

So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and LORD, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your LORD and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. John 13:12-17

By girding Himself with an apron and performing the most menial task within that culture, Jesus was putting in place a general principle of conduct. Foot washing is simply indicative of the posture His followers are called upon to take in all relational dynamics. Jesus was not suggesting that we simply act the part of a humble servant by engaging in an occasional foot washing ritual, but, rather, that we allow the foot washing service to be a constant reminder of how we are to conduct ourselves all the time, in all relationships. Jesus was establishing a radically different way for human beings to exist in relation to one another, based, astonishingly, on how God exists.

Nor was Jesus merely playing a part in the moment in order to show them how they ought to be. He was showing them how He is, as God, in His own character. In Luke’s Gospel, we have a picture of Christ, the LORD and Master of all, wearing an apron and serving the redeemed in eternity future. Jesus tells the disciples, speaking in the third person of Himself, “Assuredly, I say to you that He will gird Himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them” (Luke 12:37). When the heavens and the earth shall be made new, we will find ourselves sitting down to eat while the Creator of the universe waits on us as our servant.

The Crucifixion of Coercive Power

Every step of the way throughout His ministry, Jesus has been baffling the expectations of the people. He clearly possesses a magnitude of power they have never encountered before. But strangely enough, He will not use it in the way they want. It is clear, as well, that He has taken upon Himself the title of king, and yet, He will not act out the position according to the prevailing script of kings. In fact, He takes the prevailing script of kings straight to the cross and crucifies it once and for all.

Now Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked Him, saying, “Are You the King of the Jews?” Jesus said to him, “It is as you say.” Matthew 27:11

And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Matthew 27:28-29

And they put up over His head the accusation written against Him: THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. Matthew 27:37

Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. Matthew 27:41-42

An irony of cosmic significance is on full display here. Jesus most certainly could have saved Himself, but He simply chose not to. On the cross, hanging naked, bleeding, and crowned with thorns, He is the king of the universe. And yet, He is a king of an entirely different order than the world has ever known. It is precisely because He refuses to save Himself by overpowering others, that He is qualified for the preeminent position. Unlike every other king before Him, He is infinitely worthy of our adoration for the profoundly confounding reason that He would rather love us to the point of His own demise, than save Himself to our demise.

In Christ, we witness the crucifixion of coercive power and the full exercise of the only power powerful enough to conquer evil—the power of self-sacrificing love. He voluntarily laid down His life in order to demonstrate that love alone is worthy to govern the world.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Having achieved this most monumental of all victories, Christ now entrusts His disciples with the task of building an alternative community, a new Israel, in which the principles of His covenantal love are to be put on display as a witness to the world.

The Covenant Community

When we come to the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus does something remarkable: He invokes the triune relationship between Himself, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, as the signature truth that defines the identity and mission of His church.

Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 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. Amen.” Matthew 28:18-20

First, Jesus makes an astounding claim that seems, at first glance, to be odd, considering the fact that He is God in the flesh. Jesus says that “all authority” is now in His possession?

What does this mean?

Did He not, as God, always possess “all authority”?

In what sense could God acquire more authority than He already has?

What is this authority that Christ has acquired?

And by what means did He acquire it?

Well, as usual, there is a backstory here, and Christ Himself is the climactic point of the story. Nothing in the New Testament—literally nothing—is happening that is not the outworking of the Old Testament narrative. Any interpretation of a New Testament passage that does not draw its meaning from the Old Testament is deficient at best and completely off-base at worst. So, as we might confidently expect, the backstory tells us exactly what this “authority” is that Jesus has now been “given.”

God created Adam in His “own image,” as the original “son of God,” to whom, along with Eve, God gave “dominion” over the earth, with the expectation that they would govern the world in God’s image (Genesis 1:27-28; Luke 3:38). But Adam forfeited his sonship position and with it his authority over the earth. By falling into sin, Adam transferred his earthly dominion to an invading enemy. Satan became “the ruler of this world” (Genesis 3:1-5; John 12:31). The fall of humanity was a moral fall resulting in a governmental fall. A transfer of authority took place. Once under Satan’s dominion, human beings began to govern the world in the image of their new ruler, or by his principles: self-exaltation and deception, force and violence, monarchy and military conquest. “All the nations” of the world became hierarchical domination structures, or covenant-breaking systems, bent on oppression and exploitation by means of power dynamics that are contrary to the covenantal character of God.

God then called a man out of the satanic world system in order to reestablish His original plan, which had been derailed by Adam and Eve. Through the lineage of Abraham, a new nation was founded. Through Moses, the nation of Israel was established under the stipulations of God’s covenantal law, covering all areas of life, summarized as love to God and neighbor. The nation of Israel repeatedly vowed to be faithful to the covenant and repeatedly rebelled, choosing rather to pander after the ways of the other nations. But throughout the history of Israel’s covenant failure, the prophets foretold the coming of a messiah who would accomplish God’s original plan, keep covenant, and reacquire the dominion lost by Adam.

Against this backstory, it is evident that the “authority” acquired by Christ is the very authority lost by Adam and subsequently refused by Israel. In the person of Christ—the Son of God, the second Adam, new Israel—dominion over the earth was regained. Precisely how He won back the earth from satanic dominion is equally clear. He did so by living and dying in complete covenantal faithfulness to God and to humanity. The moment He died on the cross without yielding to the impulse to save Himself to the demise of others, Satan’s kingdom was conquered, and the earth was secured as the eternal home of redeemed humanity. His voluntary death of self-sacrificing love constitutes His victory, in principle, over all systems of coercion and violence. Jesus conquered the sheer power of force by the sheer power of love. A new kind of king now occupies the throne.

This is the story into which we are inducted by baptism, according to Jesus!

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth,” He says. “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.” By invoking, as the premise of the gospel commission, the authority He has acquired by His life and death, Jesus is sending forth His followers to invite “all nations” into the essential substance of His victory. He won the war against evil by the superior power of love, and now He is inviting every human being to live out the implications of His love. The victory Jesus gained by His covenantally faithful life and death must now be gained within individual human lives, transcending all national borders and interests. It is with the authority of non-coercive love that Jesus has deployed His followers to make disciples of all nations. The gospel commission isn’t merely a quest to get people to accept Jesus as their personal Savior so they can go to heaven when He comes again. It also entails the task of composing a “kingdom” here and now, called the “church,” built on an entirely different foundation than the world has to offer—a foundation of love rather than power.

And it is precisely here, in this narrative context, that Jesus tells His disciples that all who embrace the gospel are to be baptized in the three-fold “name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

But why?

Why is the three-fold name the door of entrance to the new kingdom?

Well, the answer is obvious, isn’t it, now that we have contemplated the teachings of Jesus and the revolutionary nature of His kingdom?

The doctrine of the Trinity reveals God as a fellowship of self-giving love, not a top-down authority system. Each believer is baptized in the three-fold name in order that the church might be a fellowship of equals, not a political power structure married to any national identity. The church is not to be vassal to any state, but rather is to exist in the world as a transnational revolution of non-violence, enemy-love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. The love that defines God’s own covenantal reality within the Trinity is to define the fellowship of the church. It logically follows, then, that the gospel commission is to be executed on a trinitarian premise, which is precisely what Jesus says.

In Scripture, the word “name” refers to the character or function of a person, place, or thing. Father, Son, and Spirit compose a social circle of self-giving fellowship. The love that exists between them is “the name,” or the character, “of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” When we are baptized, we are baptized into their love, into the way they relate to one another. To be baptized is to be incorporated into the fellowship that exists between the members of the Heavenly Trio.

What, then, is the gospel commission?

When Jesus tells us to “go” and “make disciples of all the nations,” what is it, exactly, that we are discipling them into?

The answer, according to Jesus, is that we are calling people from all nations out of the world’s prevailing governing system into the governing system of Christ, out of one way of being human into another way of being human, out of power dynamics into love dynamics. Jesus died the covenant death of self-sacrificing love on the cross and rose from the grave to the right hand of the Father as the victorious Son of God in Adam’s place. We are baptized into His death and risen to new life in His victory, thus pledging ourselves to follow the way of love over the way of power. The way all the nations of the world operate is by the exertion of power over one another, by political maneuvering and machinations, by force and military conquest. The world dictates that the strong prevail over the weak. Survival of the fittest is the rule. Competition, one-upmanship, rule or ruin, backroom strategies, and backstabbing schemes—these are the ways of the world. All of this was precisely what God called Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Israel out of, in order to form a different people who operate by a different governing principle called “covenant.”

What is covenant?

Covenant is relational integrity based on loving God supremely and loving others as one’s self.

Covenant is the transformative principle that God sought to put on display through Israel, as a “kingdom of priests” to “all the nations.”

Covenant is the law of love that was to constitute Israel’s witness to the world.

The covenant God made with Israel constitutes the essence of the gospel commission Christ gave to His church. Jesus came to the world to fulfill Israel’s covenant calling, to be the “Son of God” that Israel was meant to be, and to establish His church as God’s new covenant community in the world, commissioned with the task of inviting “all the nations” into covenant fellowship with God. Christ and His church are God’s new covenant people, or Israel reconstituted on the premise of the victory Christ achieved over the world.

Once this single idea is understood, we understand the whole point of the Bible. But if this narrative plot line is not understood and is not held central to our theological endeavors, we will tend to interpret individual Bible verses in a vacuum of perspective. We will manufacture ideas that are foreign to the actual story of the book, isolating biblical language from its context and extracting “meaning” that is not there.

This is precisely what has happened down through church history with the various efforts to interpret the Sonship of Christ in ways that render Him a created or a birthed deity. Sabellius, Arius, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Oneness Pentecostalism, Unitarianism, some of the early Advent pioneers, and the current anti-trinitarian advocates pressing in around the edges of Adventism—all define the Sonship of Christ without regard for the Old Testament narrative from which the sonship language is actually derived. As a result, the misguided obsession with the ancient metaphysical origins of Jesus completely misses the grand narrative arc of Scripture and fails to grasp the whole point of the gospel commission.

The New Testament does not call Jesus “the Son of God” in an effort to inform us regarding His ancient metaphysical origins as a lesser god brought into existence by the one true God. No such story is told in Scripture. The Bible is not a Greek text probing Greek questions. It is a Hebrew text probing Hebrew questions. It is not a metaphysical philosophy, but rather a covenant narrative. We need not guess what the New Testament means when it introduces Jesus as the “Son of God,” because the Old Testament tells us exactly what it means. Jesus is the Son of God in the sense that He has come to the world to occupy Adam’s vacated position and give humanity a new beginning. Within that same narrative flow, He is the covenantal Son of God that Israel was called to be. In His messianic ministry,

Jesus fulfilled all the covenant promises and prophecies that had been articulated by Moses and the prophets,

He tore down every manmade system contrary to the covenant ideal,

and He established a new Israel called “the church.”

Within this rather specific narrative flow, the identity and mission of the church become crystal clear. The church is God’s covenant community on earth, charged with the task of preaching the covenant faithfulness of God to all of humanity in Christ. Pointing to Jesus as the fulfillment of all God’s promises to the world, the church is to preach the principles of covenantal love and invite all peoples—of whatever nation, ethnicity, or language—into God’s new Israel. God’s new covenant with His new Israel is more than a theological concept. It is an organizing principle that gives a specific shape to all relationships on all levels: family relations, economic relations, political relations, ecological relations. The church is the covenant community in which those principles are to be put into practice as a demonstration to the onlooking world. The way God’s church does marriage, child raising, education, business, financial stewardship, agriculture, conflict resolution, healthcare—literally every aspect of life—is to be a testimony to the power of God’s love to create flourishing and sustainable relational dynamics. This is what Jesus meant when He said:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:34-35

Ellen White understood the covenant calling of the church. Notice the following statements, in which I have bolded key points:

The church is the repository of the riches of the grace of Christ; and through the church will eventually be made manifest, even to “the principalities and powers in heavenly places,” the final and full display of the love of God. The Acts of the Apostles, p. 9

The church was to be a divine inclosure in the world. It was to be as a vineyard planted by the divine Husbandman, and brought under cultivation by Him. It was to be as a nursery planted with trees of righteousness, and although surrounded by evil trees of the world, which brought forth fruit unto death, yet all within the inclosure was designed to be the planting of the LORD, bearing fruit unto righteousness. The followers of Christ were to reveal the power of the transforming grace of Christ to change the corrupt hearts of men . . . .

They were to represent to the world the character of Christ, and keep before the world a representation of the eternal world; for among them was to be found the spirit, the character, that should be developed by coming under the control of the divine government. They were to be obedient to higher laws than the princes of this world originate, and yield submission to a greater power than kings can command . . . .

While all the world is under the care of God, and angels are commissioned to do service in all parts of it, yet the church is the special object of God’s love and care. In the church, He is making experiments of mercy and love, and drawing men to Himself. Through the grace of Christ an amazing transformation is taking place in the corrupt hearts of men. Review and Herald, December 19, 1893

Through the ages of moral darkness, through centuries of strife and persecution, the church of Christ has been as a city set on a hill. From age to age, through successive generations, to the present time, the pure doctrines of the Bible have been unfolding within her borders. The church of Christ, enfeebled and defective as she may appear, is the one object on earth on which he bestows in a special sense His love and regard. The church is the theater of His grace, in which he delights to make experiments of mercy on human hearts.

The church is God’s fortress, His city of refuge, which He holds in a revolted world. Any betrayal of her sacred trust is treachery to Him who has bought her with the precious blood of His only begotten Son. In the past, faithful souls have constituted the church on earth, and God has taken them into covenant relation with Himself, uniting the church on earth with the church in heaven. Review and Herald, December 4, 1900