Matthew 10:5

III. THE FIRST COMMISSION.

5. These twelve Jesus sent forth.

The twelve had been "disciples" or learners, for. long period in order to fit them to be "sent forth," or to become "apostles." Their training was under the personal teaching and example of Christ. Immediately after their appointment as apostles, Christ uttered his wonderful Sermon on the Mount, the declaration of the principles of his new kingdom. It behooved him to select. number of men, in whom the riches of his life might be unfolded in every direction. For this end he needed, above all, men in whom the glory of his spirit and the peculiarity of his work might be distinctly identified; laymen, who would not chain his work to existing priestly habits; unlearned men, who would not mix up his wisdom with traditional schemes of philosophy; even comparatively uneducated men, in order that the dulled taste of. diseased worldly civilization might not disturb the culture which the spirit of the incarnate Word was to impart to them. It was through fishermen, country people, and publicans, that the word of God in the life and doings of Christ was to be declared in its purity.-- Lange.

Commanded.. Go not into the way of the Gentiles.

There are two commissions, one before and the other after the resurrection. In the first the apostles are forbidden to go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, and are confined to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. In the second they are commanded to go into "all the world" and to "preach the gospel to every creature;" to go "first to Jerusalem, and to Judea, and to Samaria, and to the uttermost part of the earth." The first commission is Jewish; the second is world-wide. Yet both are given by the same Lord; why this wide difference? Because the new dispensation was not ushered until after the resurrection. The Jewish law, national, exclusive,. wall of partition from Gentiles, was yet in force. Christ, "born under the law," and the apostles were debtors to it until it was removed. They could not keep it and yet become missionaries to the Gentiles. But when Christ died the old dispensation, the law, died with him. "The handwriting of ordinances was nailed to the cross." The old covenant passed away when the new came into force, sealed with the blood of Christ. After the death and resurrection, the law ceased to be binding upon the apostles. The distinctions of Jew and Gentile were destroyed. Hence, under the new covenant, the world-wide covenant, there was called for. new commission that would send the gospel to all the world.

Any city of the Samaritans enter ye not.

Religiously there were three divisions of the human race; Gentiles, embracing the whole heathen world, all not of the blood of Abraham; Jews, who were the direct descendants of Abraham; and the Samaritans,. mixed race, partly of Jewish and partly of Gentile blood. They inhabited the district between Judea and Galilee, and were the descendants of heathen tribes who were sent into the territory of the Kingdom of Israel when it was destroyed, who inter-married with Jews, and were partly instructed in the Jewish region. They received the law of Moses, had an altar on Mt. Gerizim, and expected the Messiah. The Jews regarded them as heretics, and had no dealings with them. They received the gospel with greater readiness than the Jews.. small remnant of the Samaritans still have. synagogue at Nablus (the ancient Shechem or Sychar), an ancient manuscript of the Pentateuch, and annually celebrate the passover on Mt. Gerizim.