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Mat_28:20 Διδάσκοντες αὐτούς , κ . τ . λ .] without being conjoined by καί , therefore not co-ordinate with, but subordinate to the βαπτίζοντες , intimating that a certain ethical teaching must necessarily accompany in every case the administration of baptism: while ye teach them to observe everything, etc. This moral instruction must not be omittedFN[44] when you baptize, but it must be regarded as an essential part of the ordinance. That being the case, infant baptism cannot possibly have been contemplated in βαπτίζ , nor, of course, in πάντα τ . ἔθνη either.
καὶ ἰδοὺ , κ . τ . λ .] Encouragement to execute the commission entrusted to them, Mat_28:19.
ἐγώ ] with strong emphasis: I who am invested with that high ἐξουσία to which I have just referred.
μεθʼ ὑμῶν εἰμι ] namely, through the working of that power which has been committed to me, Mat_28:18, and with which I will continue to protect, support, strengthen you, etc. Comp. Act_18:10; 2Co_12:9-10. The ὑμεῖς are the disciples to whom the Lord is speaking, not the church; the present tense (not ἔσομαι ) points to the fact of His having now entered, and that permanently, into His estate of exaltation. The promised help itself, however, is that vouchsafed by the glorified Redeemer in order to the carrying out of His own work (Php_3:21; Php_4:13; Col_1:29; 2Co_12:9), imparted through the medium of the Spirit (John 14-16), which is regarded as the Spirit of Christ (see on Rom_8:9), and sometimes manifesting itself also in signs and wonders (Mar_16:20; Rom_15:19; 2Co_12:12; Heb_2:14), in visions and revelations (2Co_12:1; Act_12:17). But in connection with this matter (comp. on Mat_18:20) we must discard entirely the unscriptural idea of a substantial ubiquity (in opposition to Luther, Calovius, Philippi). Beza well observes: “Ut qui corpore est absens, virtute tamen sit totus praesentissimus.”
πάσας τ . ἡμέρ .] all the days that were still to elapse ἕως τ . συντελ . τοῦ αἰῶνος , i.e. until the close of the current age (see on Mat_24:3), which would be coincident with the second advent, and after the gospel had been proclaimed throughout the whole world (Mat_24:14); “continua praesentia,” Bengel.
[44] N1 Οὐκ ἀρκεῖ υὰρ τὸ βάπτισμα καὶ τὰ δόυματα πρὸς σωτηρίαν , εἰ μὴ καὶ πολιτεία προσείη , Euthymius Zigabenus, who thus admirably points out that what is meant by διδάσκοντες , κ . τ . λ ., is not the teaching of the gospel with a view to conversion. The ἀκοὴ πίστεως (Gal_3:2) and the πίστις ἐξ ἀκοῆς (Rom_10:17) are understood, as a matter of course, to have preceded the baptism. Comp. Theodor Schott, who, however, without being justified by anything in the text, is disposed to restrict the ὅσα ἰνεσειλάμ . ὑμῖν , on the one hand, to the instructions contained in the farewell addresses (from the night before the crucifixion on to the ascension), and τηρεῖν , on the other, to a faithful observance on the part of the convert of what he already knew. Comp., on the contrary, Mat_19:17; Joh_14:15; Joh_14:21; Joh_15:10; 1Ti_6:14; 1Jn_2:3 f., 1Jn_3:22 f., 1Jn_5:2 f.; Rev_12:17; Rev_14:12; Sir_29:1, in all which passages τηρεῖν τὰς ἐντολάς means observe, i.e. to obey, the commandments. Admirable, however, is the comment of Bengel: “Ut baptizatis convenit, fidei virtute.”
REMARK 1.
According to Joh_21:14, the Lord’s appearance at the sea of Tiberias, John 21, which Matthew not only omits, but which he does not seem to have been aware of (see on Mat_28:10), must have preceded that referred to in our passage.
REMARK 2.
Matthew makes no mention of the return of Jesus and His disciples to Judaea, or of the ascension from the Mount of Olives; he follows a tradition in which those two facts had not yet found a place, just as they appear to have been likewise omitted in the lost conclusion of Mark; then it so happened that the apostolic λόγια terminated with our Lord's parting address, Mat_28:19 f. We must beware of imputing to the evangelist any subjective motive for making no mention of any other appearance but that which took place on the mountain in Galilee; for had he omitted and recorded events in this arbitrary fashion, and merely as he thought fit, and that, too, when dealing with the sublimest and most marvellous portion of the gospel narrative, he would have been acting a most unjustifiable part, and only ruining his own credit for historical fidelity. By the apostles the ascension, the actual bodily mounting up into heaven, was regarded as a fact about which there could not be any possible doubt, and without- which they would have felt the second advent to be simply inconceivable (Php_2:9; Php_3:20; Eph_4:10; 1Pe_3:22; Joh_20:17), and accordingly it is presupposed in the concluding words of our Gospel; but the embodying of it in an outward incident, supposed to have occurred in presence of the apostles, is to be attributed to a tradition which Luke, it is true, has adopted (as regards the author of the appendix to Mark, see on Mar_16:19 f.), but which has been rejected by our evangelist and John, notwithstanding that in any case this latter would have been an eyewitness. But yet the fact itself that the Lord, shortly after His resurrection, ascended into heaven, and that not merely in spirit (which, and that in entire opposition to Scripture, would either exclude the resurrection of the actual body, or presuppose a second death), but in the body as perfectly transformed and glorified at the moment of the ascension, is one of the truths of which we are also fully convinced, confirmed as it is by the whole New Testament, and furnishing, as it does, an indispensable basis for anything like certainty in regard to Christian eschatology. On the ascension, see Luk_24:51, Rem.