Philip P. Eapen
India Bible College
Nov 15 2024
I am grateful to the Chaplain of India Bible College for giving me this opportunity to speak to you. I am also grateful to Dr Laji Paul for inviting me to come over.
When I stand before you this morning, I am reminded of the days I spent in a Bible College—first, as a student, and later, as a teacher. It was more than twenty-four years ago that we moved to Bangalore so that I could pursue theological education. I remember the first session our batch attended. It was not a lecture. It was a special orientation session led by the founder’s wife, Mrs Graham Houghton. I am grateful to God for her words of wisdom. I treasure those words. I would like to share with you the gist of her message. She said,
In this Institute, you will be exposed to new ideas. You will hear many things that you never heard of in your respective denominations. I encourage you to have the intellectual honesty to examine each view, and to embrace the truth. Intellectual honesty is the willingness to be led by evidence. When a new view is presented to you, do not reject it. You should consider the evidence in favor of it and against it. If you think the evidence is in favor of the view, you must embrace it instead of resisting it. That is intellectual honesty.
I am forever grateful to Mrs. Houghton for that piece of advice.
I encourage you, students at India Bible College, to embrace intellectual honesty. Seminary is where you should be exposed to different schools of thought. Read as many books as you can. Do not limit yourself to just one set of voices. Listen to as many voices as you can. Keep an open mind. The purpose of education is not to fill empty minds. It is to turn closed minds into open minds.
The purpose of education is not to fill empty minds. It is to turn closed minds into open minds.
I have a message for teachers as well. As teachers, we often think that our job is to take knowledge from various sources and convey it to our students. This is why we try to inform our students. We tell our students what they should believe. Teaching is not telling. It’s much more than that. Good teachers ask questions. They help their students find answers. In the process, they themselves will learn new things.
The text I have selected for today’s meditation is the Great Commission of Jesus Christ. I read it from the Lexham Bible. The Gospel of Matthew 28:18-20.
18 And Jesus approached and spoke to them, saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the age.”1
This is a familiar passage. You may have heard several sermons from it already. You may wonder what new things can be learned from a fresh meditation of these verses. Before you switch off your mind, I urge you to pay close attention to what I have to say.
Did you notice the repetition of an idea in this passage?
The Great Commission begins with a emphatic statement. It is one one of the most powerful statements ever made by any one. I call it the Great Declaration or the Good News. Jesus declared to his apostles: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go …”
Did you notice the connecting word “Therefore” ? When Jesus says, “Go and make disciples,” we can ask Him, “Why should we go and make disciples?” Wherefore? Jesus will answer us: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go …”
The Great Commission to “go and make disciples” is founded on the Great Declaration. If this Great Declaration is untrue, then we don’t have to obey the Great Commission. Therefore, it is extremely important to know the meaning of the Great Declaration before we start obeying the Great Commission.
Have you understood the meaning of this Great Declaration? I just have to ask you a few questions to know whether you actually understand the meaning of this statement.
Is Jesus a King today or will he become a king in future?
Ask any pastor in Kerala: “Is Jesus the King over the whole world?” They will say, No. He is the High Priest. He will become King.
If Jesus is not King today, why do you call him the “Messiah”?
The word Messiah means, “anointed King.” If Jesus is not a King today, you cannot call Him “Messiah”!
This is the tragedy of our times: - We have Christians who call Jesus ‘the Christ’ but they don’t believe that He is already the King over all the earth. - We have Christians who confess “Jesus is Lord” — but they don’t believe that He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
How then will they obey the Great Commission?
Please pay attention to this:
Jesus’ Great Declaration is a declaration of kingship. When Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me,” he was saying, “I have been made the King over all universe.”
Jesus was a descendant of King David. Jesus was the rightful heir to David’s throne. When God raised Jesus from the dead, God exalted Jesus to the highest throne in heaven. Jesus was seated on the right hand of God’s throne. It just means that God made Jesus King of kings and Lord of lords.
What was the evidence of Jesus’ exaltation and coronation as King? He poured out the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost!
A few days before Jesus was taken up to heaven, the disciples asked him, “Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”
But on the Day of Pentecost, Peter claimed that the Gift of the Holy Spirit proved that Jesus was exalted and glorified as the King of Israel.2 Peter declared:
Therefore let all the house of Israel know beyond a doubt, that God has made him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified!” – Acts 2:36 LEB.
When Peter preached this Good News, 3000 Jews believed his message. This was the greatest news they had heard.
For centuries, the Jews wanted to see the Kingdom of David restored. They fought various wars. They fought against the Syrians and the Romans. But when they heard Peter’s sermon, they understood that God had made Jesus, the Son of David, the King over all Israel and over the whole world.
If Britain rules the whole world, we call the whole world British Empire. If Rome rules the whole world, the whole world will be called Roman Empire. If the Jewish Messiah is made the King of the whole earth, what do you call the whole world? The whole world is now Israel. The son of David is on His throne. The Messianic Kingdom is now a reality.
The 3000 Jews, who were baptised on the Day of Pentecost, surrendered before the King of Israel who was reigning from heaven. If the whole world has become Israel, there was no need to fight the Romans. There is no need to set up a small kingdom on earth called Israel. The Kingdom of Israel was restored in a heavenly way. Those Jews had not imagined in their wildest dreams that God would fulfil His promise to David in this supernatural, heavenly way.
Even today, there is no need to fight Palestine. There is no need to fight Lebanon or Iraq. The whole wold has become Israel under the Messiah. The Jewish Messiah is seated on David’s throne in heaven.
This is why the risen Jesus said to his apostles:
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” — Matthew 28:18 LEB
This was Jesus’ way of saying, I have been made the King over all the earth. I am telling you, the Kingdom has been restored. I am the King over Israel and over the whole world!
Do you know why the Jews of today do not believe our Gospel? It’s because the Gospel we preach does not sound like Good News to them. We preach a half-baked Gospel. We preach about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. But we don’t preach the exaltation of Jesus as the Messiah.
We tell the Jews: Jesus will become your King in the future. They don’t want to hear about the future. They want to know what has already been accomplished.
You may ask me: What’s wrong in preaching about crucifixion and resurrection? Didn’t Paul say that he preaches Christ crucified?
Yes, I agree with you. Apostle Paul said, We preach Christ crucified.
Please pay attention to all those words. CHRIST crucified. The emphasis is on the word Christ. As I said earlier, Christ means King. Paul preached the Messiah, the King who was crucified. We preach only about Jesus who was crucified.
Our failure in highlighting the Messianic rule of Jesus Christ led to our failure in evangelizing the Jews. Instead of preaching the gospel of the Kingdom to the Jews, Christians are supporting them in their pursuit of a little Jewish kingdom!
“Christian Zionism” is an oxymoron. You cannot support the heavenly King Jesus and his global kingdom if you are supporting a group of Jews who want to set up a small kingdom of Israel on earth.
Christian support to Zionism has an undesireable side-effect. One-fourth the world’s population (1.9 billion) follows Islam. Our unconditional support to all the unlawful things Zionists do, prevents Muslims from hearing the Gospel.
Christians in Kerala have set a very bad example. Most Malayali Christians hate Muslims. We do not share the Gospel with Muslims. Instead we spread stories about love jihad, land jihad, business jihad. We exchange videos that promote Islamophobia. We take great pride in being called Chri-Sanghis.
Let’s read the Great Commission once again.
18 And Jesus approached and spoke to them, saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the age.”3
This leads us to my next point: The Great Commission is about all nations.
I am sure, as Seminarians, you know the meaning of the phrase “all nations” (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη). Jesus wanted his apostles to take the Gospel of His Kingdom to every people group on earth.
Within a short time, all of you will graduate and leave this Bible College. May I ask you, Where are you heading out to? To which people group will you be a missionary? Have you ever considered this question seriously?
If you belong to a people group that needs the Gospel, you might very well go back to your people. But, if you belong to a people group that has heard the Gospel several times over, why don’t you consider reaching out to a people group that has never heard the Gospel?
Most of you are Malayalis from this state. Are you planning to become a pastor of a Malayali church? Or, are you planning to go an unreached group within Kerala. Have you thought of going elsewhere?
Some of you might be thinking of serving in northern India. Certainly, northern India is in need of the Gospel. If God leads you a people group in India, by all means, follow God’s direction.
But have you at any point in time thought of going beyond India? Most Indian Christians do not even consider that as a possibility. Why? There could be several reasons.
If you really wish to obey Jesus’ Great Commission to make disciples of ALL nations, you should start praying for unreached people groups today. There are many unreached people groups. There are apps available to help us pray every day for each of these people groups. As a family, we pray for an unreached group or a country every day.
How many of us seated here know of missionaries who went from India to serve unreached people groups in other countries?
How many of us seated here know of missionaries who went from India to serve unreached people groups in other countries? How many graduates of this College are working among needy people groups across the world?
I’m glad there are a few Indians who take this global mandate seriously. I personally know a few of these new generation of Indian Christians who took the global mission mandate seriously.
I am sure there are many more such missionaries who serve with OM, YWAM, etc. All these people went from India as missionaries.
[Varghese]
Through the Great Commission, the Lord Jesus commanded us to make disciples by baptizing new believers and by:
“… teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you …”
We preach the Gospel. We baptize those who believe. But are we actually teaching people to obey everything the Lord Jesus commanded?
Jesus promised to be with his apostles as they went about obeying His comamnd.
“… and behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the age.”
Then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.
And they went out and proclaimed everywhere, while the Lord was working together with them and confirming the message through the accompanying signs.4
NB: Sermon Notes
Philip Eapen, an environmental scientist by training, devoted his life to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ ever since he realized that the world needs Jesus Christ more than anyone or anything else. Apart from sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, Philip teaches Christians in order to equip them for service. He is supported by donations from readers. Philip is married to Dr. Jessimol and they are blessed with three sons and a daughter.
Date: Nov 15, 2025
