God's mission, or the Mission Dei, is to make Himself known from
Israel to the rest of the nations to offer His salvation. God consistently revealed
Himself to the world- its nations and people- so that humankind is drawn to
Himself sincere love that is expressed in worship, honor and obedience. God makes
this happen by sending forth workers or missionaries. In contemporary sense, we
call it “Missions”. And this did not just start in the New Testament period but
was already there from the time that the Triune God created everything in the
book of Genesis.
The Bible is the inspired Word of God that is unified, having major
concepts constant including missions. My initial personal view of missions is
that it starts with worship and will end with worship. That is from Genesis to
Revelation so to speak.
God making Himself known is about worship. And since perfect worship
was part of what was frustrated in the book of Genesis, God planned to have it fully
restored in the final consummation. The Missio Dei is right in the middle, the
interim period from Genesis to Revelation. Missions therefore is temporary and
while it is still happening, it means that there are still many areas and
people groups in the world that do not know about perfect Biblical worship yet.
And when the ends of the earth is finally reached out, missions will be over,
as the perfect worship that God plans to reclaim is lastly attained.[1]
In this paper
I will try to provide a linear exposition about how we can say that Missions is
not just in the New Testament as what most Christians today or even those from past
generations would think. This theme is traced from Genesis to Revelation,
giving us clarity in the gradual unfolding of God’s redemptive plan at least under
the missional lens from the seedbed of Genesis to the full blossoming in Christ
and the New Testament. I believe this will be of help in understanding the origin
and present status of missions and efficiently relate it to the fulfilment of
the eschatological hope that was initially frustrated when Adam failed the
probation. (click here to read more)
[1] John Piper, Let the Nations
Be Glad (Michigan: Grand Rapids, 2010), 15-16. I would agree to what J.Piper said that “Missions
is not the ultimate goal of the Church, worship is…” and that “worship is the
fuel and goal of missions…” Many
churches today will fall into the extreme point of being too missional,
forgetting that it is not all about the work but it is all about Jesus Christ,
who actually did the work Himself. Worship is the goal and missions is temporary.
Although missions is important, still the children of God should understand what
is the priority, and that is worship- the evidence of our Faith in Jesus
Christ.
