The Great Commission and the Ascension of Christ

This article explores topics and excerpts from the newly released book Journey Through the Bible and Your Story, now available on Amazon.

After the resurrection, Jesus did not immediately return to the Father. Instead, for forty sacred days, He remained with His disciples—teaching, restoring, strengthening, and preparing them for the mission that would soon be placed in their hands. These were holy days filled with divine purpose. Jesus unfolded the truths of the kingdom of God, helping His disciples understand what His death and resurrection had accomplished and what their calling would now require.

Before He ascended into Heaven, Jesus gave His followers a commission that still echoes across history: “You will be My witnesses” (Acts 1:8). He promised them the power of the Holy Spirit—the same Spirit who had filled His own earthly ministry—so that their words, their lives, and even their suffering would testify to the reality of the risen King. In Matthew 28, Jesus grounded this mission in His own authority: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.” Every command that followed flowed from that divine authority: go, make disciples, baptize, teach.

We often call this the “Great Commission,” but before it stretched to the Gentile world, it began in the heart of Israel. Jesus’ first command was to start in Jerusalem—the very city that had rejected Him. The disciples were to call their own people back to God, echoing the prophets who came before them. The Gospel was not a departure from Israel’s story; it was the fulfillment of it. The restoration of God’s people began in the city where Jesus died and rose again.

Their obedience is unmistakable in the book of Acts. These once-fearful men stood boldly in Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, declaring that Jesus was alive and salvation had come. But in God’s timing, the mission widened. Around AD 40–42, Peter was sent to the home of Cornelius, a Roman centurion. When the Holy Spirit fell on that Gentile household, heaven declared what human custom had not yet understood—the Gospel was for all nations. Shortly after, unnamed believers from Cyprus and Cyrene took the message to Gentiles in Antioch, reminding us that God often uses ordinary people to spark extraordinary movements.

The floodgates opened even wider with the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. A fierce persecutor of the church, he met the risen Jesus on the Damascus road and was forever changed. Paul became the “apostle to the Gentiles,” traveling across the Roman Empire, planting churches, and proclaiming that salvation comes by faith in Christ alone—not by the works of the Law. This truth was affirmed at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, where the early church, guided by the Spirit, confirmed that Gentile believers were full members of God’s people without taking on Jewish customs.

Paul was not alone. Philip preached Christ in Samaria and shared the Gospel with an Ethiopian official. Silas, Timothy, and Titus—each with unique backgrounds and stories—carried the message into new regions and new cultures. Their ministries embodied the truth Paul later wrote: that Gentiles are “grafted in” by faith (Romans 11), welcomed into God’s covenant family through Jesus’ saving grace.

All of this flowed from one climactic moment: the ascension of Christ. As the disciples watched Jesus rise into the clouds, they were not witnessing His departure alone—they were witnessing His enthronement. Scripture tells us He sat down at the right hand of God, the place of highest authority (Mark 16:19; Psalm 110:1). Two angels assured the stunned disciples that He would one day return in the same way they saw Him go. His ascension was not the end of His ministry but the beginning of theirs.

And now, the Great Commission rests with us. Jew and Gentile alike, every believer is called to be a witness—to be Spirit-empowered, Gospel-centered, and kingdom-minded. Until the day He returns, we carry forward the mission He began. His authority sends us. His Spirit strengthens us. His promise sustains us.

The story continues in our generation, and the invitation is the same:
Go. Make disciples. Live as witnesses of the risen King to the ends of the earth.