The Great Commission, together with the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, engenders confidence that “the Kingdom of God increases, stage upon stage, to the end of the world.” But neither Matthew 28:18–20 nor any other Scripture stipulates the degree to which “the universal circumference of the Gospel’s triumph,” fully inscribed by the apostles, must be filled in before Jesus can return.

In Matthew 28:19, Jesus commands his followers to “disciple all the nations” (μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη). The mission’s success is guaranteed both because the one giving the commission possesses all authority in heaven and on earth (28:18) and because he promises to be with his church to the end as she carries out her marching orders (28:20). King Jesus did not give his people an assignment they will fail to accomplish.

Success According to Postmillennialism

While every eschatological view concurs with the previous paragraph, postmillennialists insist that their eschatology alone does justice to the Great Commission’s greatness. Greg Bahnsen writes, “The thing that distinguishes the biblical postmillennialist, then, from amillennialism and premillennialism is his belief that Scripture teaches the success of the great commission.”[1]

Postmillennialists hold that the Great Commission (hereafter, GC) would have proved unsuccessful if Christ had returned at any point during the last two millennia. They contend that the success of the GC necessitates the Christianization of all nations before the second coming. To bolster this assumption, they conflate the GC with the Dominion Mandate (Gen 1:26–28; 9:1–2, 7) and closely identify it with the Canaan Conquest Mandate (Deut 7:1–2; 9:1–3; Josh 1:1–11), both of which envision maximally comprehensive success. Postmillennialists believe that Scripture teaches the success of the GC only insofar as it upholds the postmillennial vision.

Success According to the New Testament

The New Testament authors, however, indicate that the GC was already successful during the apostolic age. Naturally, they never suggest that the church’s mission to the world has reached its conclusion; they understand that the task of taking the gospel to the nations will not end until the Lord returns. Nevertheless, if the Father had determined to send Jesus back to earth at any point after the first generation of Christians, no one could have reasonably claimed that the GC had been unfulfilled or unsuccessful. Paul affirms, as I argue here,

that the gospel had “gone out to all the earth … to the ends of the world” (Rom 10:18; cf. Acts 1:8) and had “been made known to all the nations,” where it was producing “the obedience of faith” (Rom 16:26; cf. 1:5), in fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise in Genesis 12:3 to bless all the nations (cf. Rev 5:9; 7:9).

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