Matthew 28:18-20 and the World Mission Society Church of God
Short answer: Matthew 28:18-20 records the risen Jesus declaring that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him, and commissioning his disciples to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all he commanded. That authority belongs to Jesus himself, not to any founder, prophet, or later restoration movement. The World Mission Society Church of God, which originated in Korea in the twentieth century and teaches that a man named Ahnsahnghong and a figure it calls God the Mother complete what Jesus began, is therefore judged by this text like every other movement: does it preach the Jesus of the Gospels, baptize in the triune name, and teach obedience to what Christ commanded, or does it add a new mediator and a new revelation? This study sets out the passage plainly and applies that test carefully.
What Matthew 28:18-20 actually says
The setting matters. These are the closing words of Matthew's Gospel, spoken on a mountain in Galilee after the resurrection, to eleven disciples who had followed Jesus through his ministry, his death, and the reports of an empty tomb. Matthew introduces the scene by telling us that Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, as Matthew 28:18-20 says, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.” That opening sentence is the foundation for everything that follows. The commission is not issued by a distant teacher but by the one who now claims universal jurisdiction, over heaven and over earth, over every nation the disciples are about to be sent into.
The grammar of the commission is worth slowing down for. The main command is not baptizing and not teaching; those are participles that describe how disciples are made. The one controlling imperative is to make disciples. That means the church's central task is not merely to attract a crowd, run programs, or even to baptize people as an end in itself, but to see people become learners and followers of Jesus. Baptism marks the entrance into that discipleship, and teaching sustains it. A movement can be very busy and still fail this command if the disciples it produces are disciples of someone other than Jesus.
Notice also the scope: all nations. The Greek phrase behind this reaches beyond Israel to the Gentiles, and it prepares for the rest of the New Testament. Acts 1:8 says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.” The risen Christ's authority is not a local or tribal claim. It is a claim over every people, language, and culture. Any group that narrows the mission back down to one nation, one lineage, or one hidden insider teaching has already turned against the direction of the commission.
Finally, the promise at the close: Jesus says he is with his disciples always, to the end of the age. That presence is not mediated through a new prophet who must be found in a distant country. It is the presence of the risen Lord with his gathered people as they do what he commanded. The commission is therefore self-sufficient. It does not await a later restoration of lost truths, because the one who gave it promised to remain with those who keep it until the age ends. That promise is the quiet answer to every movement that claims the church lost its way and needed a fresh founder.
Who the World Mission Society Church of God is
The World Mission Society Church of God is a religious movement that began in South Korea in the 1960s, associated with a man named Ahnsahnghong, whom the movement regards as the second coming of Christ. It has since spread internationally and is known for energetic evangelism, community service, and a strong emphasis on keeping the Passover and the seventh-day Sabbath. It also teaches that God exists not only as Father but as Mother, and that this Heavenly Mother is the source of eternal life. These are not minor organizational distinctives but central claims about who God is and who has authority to speak for him.
Members of the movement would describe themselves as restoring what the early church practiced and what mainstream Christianity supposedly abandoned, especially the Passover and the Sabbath. That kind of claim has a long history; many restorationist groups have made it in some form. The question this study asks is not whether a group is earnest or whether its members are sincere. It is whether the group's central claims match the apostolic gospel recorded in the New Testament. Sincerity is not the test; Scripture is. A movement can be sincere, disciplined, and growing while still teaching a different Jesus than the one Matthew presents.
It is important to be fair here. The World Mission Society Church of God is not the same as every Sabbath-keeping or Passover-observing Christian group, and many Christians in various traditions honor the Sabbath or observe Old Testament festivals without making the claims this movement makes. The decisive issues are narrower: the identity of Christ, the identity of God, the sufficiency of Scripture, and the basis of salvation. On those points the movement takes positions that historic Christianity, across Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant lines, has regarded as outside the faith once delivered to the saints. That is a serious claim, and it should be made carefully, not with slogans.
Because the movement is active and its members often approach people with genuine warmth and real Bible knowledge, the discussion needs to be grounded in the text rather than in caricature. Matthew 28:18-20 is an especially useful passage because it is not obscure. It states who has authority, what the mission is, how disciples are made, and who remains with the church. Any movement that claims to supply something Jesus left unfinished must be measured against this plain commission. That measurement, not hostility, is the purpose of what follows.
Does any later founder complete the Great Commission?
Matthew 28:18-20 closes with Jesus promising his presence to the end of the age. The World Mission Society Church of God teaches that this promise was not enough, that the church drifted into apostasy and needed a second coming figure to restore lost truth. But if the risen Christ is with his people always, then the apostolic church was not abandoned to total darkness for nineteen centuries. There were certainly periods of corruption, ignorance, and reform, and faithful Christians have always insisted the church needs continual renewal. But renewal is not the same as replacement. A new founder who supplies what Jesus supposedly failed to provide is a different category altogether.
The New Testament consistently treats the apostolic witness as complete and sufficient. The faith was once for all delivered to the saints, and the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. That foundation was not waiting to be relaid in Korea in the twentieth century. When a movement claims to restore a lost truth that no one else has had for centuries, it is effectively saying the foundation was defective. Matthew 28 does not permit that conclusion, because the authority it announces is total and the presence it promises is unbroken.
Consider also the wording of the commission: teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. The content of discipleship is what Jesus commanded, delivered through the apostles he appointed. A movement that adds further commands as necessary for salvation, whether about a Passover date, a founder's identity, or a Mother God, has moved beyond the commission. It is no longer teaching what Jesus commanded; it is teaching what a later teacher commanded and attributing it to Jesus. That is the recurring pattern of every movement that claims a new authoritative revelation.
None of this means Christians should be smug. Historic churches have sometimes been careless with Scripture, and the World Mission Society's emphasis on serious Bible study and holy living is a rebuke where it lands. But a rebuke is not a replacement. The right response to a movement that claims to complete the Great Commission is to return to the Great Commission itself, to read it carefully, to teach it faithfully, and to trust the presence Jesus promised rather than the authority of a new founder who claims to supply what Jesus left undone.
The name of God and the triune baptism
The Great Commission says to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Matthew's wording is singular: one name, three persons. This is one of the clearest trinitarian statements in the Gospels, and it comes from the risen Jesus himself. Any teaching that adds a fourth figure, or that recasts the Holy Spirit as a female deity alongside the Father, is not simply a variation on Christian language. It changes the name into which believers are baptized, and therefore it changes the God they are being joined to.
The World Mission Society Church of God teaches that God the Mother is the source of eternal life, and appeals to passages that speak of Jerusalem above as our mother, or to the creation of male and female in God's image. But the New Testament never commands prayer to a Mother God, never names her in baptism, and never presents her as a person of the Godhead. The apostolic church baptized in the triune name. 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all given to drink into one Spirit.” The Spirit is personal, divine, and one, not a maternal counterpart to the Father.
There is a real pastoral cost to getting this wrong. If a person is baptized into a God who is not the God of the apostles, then the comfort they receive is not the comfort of the gospel. Assurance is tied to the object of faith, not to the intensity of faith. A sincere member of any group can feel deeply assured and still be trusting a different mediator. That is why the church has always insisted on the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as the boundary of Christian baptism, not as a formula to be tinkered with.
Christians who engage members of the World Mission Society should therefore be gentle and clear about this point. It is not that the movement denies God exists or that its members lack devotion. It is that they have placed a mother deity alongside the Father and the Son, and have tied salvation to her. On the plain reading of Matthew 28:18-20, and of the whole New Testament, that is a different faith. Love for the people involved requires saying so plainly, and it also requires listening to the passages they raise and answering from Scripture rather than from suspicion.
The Spirit's power and the spread of the gospel
Before Jesus gave the commission in its final form, he told the disciples to wait for the Spirit. Acts 1:8 says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.” The mission advances by the Spirit's power, not by organizational genius or by the discovery of hidden truths. When the day of Pentecost came, they were all with one accord in one place, and the Spirit filled them and they spoke as the Spirit gave them utterance. The church was born in dependence on God, not in recovery of a lost secret.
The book of Acts shows how the Spirit pushed the mission outward. When Samaria received the word of God, the apostles in Jerusalem sent Peter and John, and they prayed and laid hands on the Samaritans, who received the Holy Spirit. Later, while Peter was still speaking these words to Cornelius and his household, the Holy Spirit fell on all those who heard the word, and they were baptized. The pattern is consistent: the Spirit falls on those who hear the gospel, whether Jew, Samaritan, or Gentile, and they are incorporated into one body. No hidden lineage, no special city, no founder's approval governs who receives the Spirit.
This matters for evaluating any movement that ties the Spirit's work to a particular organization. The New Testament never makes the Holy Spirit a possession of one group. He blows where he wills, and he confirms the apostolic gospel wherever it is preached. The World Mission Society Church of God, like every other movement, cannot make itself the gatekeeper of the Spirit. If it teaches that only its members have the Spirit because only they have the true Passover or the true Mother, it has confused the Spirit's freedom with institutional control, and the book of Acts will not support that.
At the same time, the Spirit's freedom is no excuse for doctrinal vagueness. The same Spirit who fell at Pentecost is the Spirit who inspired the Scriptures and who leads the church into the truth once delivered. Where a movement's teaching contradicts the apostolic writings, claims of spiritual power do not settle the question. The Bereans searched the Scriptures daily to see whether the apostles' own preaching was true, and they were commended for it. That is the posture every Christian should take toward every teacher, including those of the World Mission Society Church of God.
Discipleship, teaching, and the test of fruit
The commission's final clause is about teaching obedience. Jesus did not say to make converts who recite a formula; he said to make disciples who observe all that he commanded. That standard cuts in two directions. It exposes movements that add commands Jesus never gave, such as the demand to receive a founder as the second coming or to honor a Mother God as necessary for salvation. And it also exposes comfortable Christians who claim to follow Jesus while ignoring his clear commands about love, holiness, and mercy. The Great Commission is a searching word for everyone who reads it.
Jesus also warned that false prophets would come and that we would know them by their fruits. That test is not about personality or polish; it is about the shape of a life and a teaching over time. A group can show impressive devotion, and yet if its central teaching directs people away from the Jesus of the Gospels, the fruit is not good, whatever else may be true. Conversely, a group can be small and unimpressive, and yet faithful to the apostolic gospel. Fruit is measured by conformity to Christ, not by numbers or zeal.
This is where patience is required. Individual members of the World Mission Society Church of God are often sincere, moral, and serious about Scripture, and some of their criticisms of nominal Christianity are fair. The right response is not to mock them but to open Matthew 28 with them and ask honest questions. Who has all authority? Into whose name are we baptized? What did Jesus command his apostles to teach? Does any later figure have the right to add to that? Those questions are not tricks; they are the path to clarity for anyone willing to follow the text.
The church's own calling is to keep doing what the commission says, in every nation, by the Spirit's power, until Jesus returns. That means local churches that teach the whole counsel of God, missionaries who plant churches rather than personalities, and believers who can give a reason for the hope within them. When the church does this faithfully, movements that claim to restore what was lost lose their appeal, because the thing they claim was lost is being lived out in plain sight. The best answer to a counterfeit is the real thing, faithfully practiced.
Biblical fidelity check
Matthew 28:18-20 establishes several things plainly: Jesus possesses all authority in heaven and on earth; he commands his disciples to make disciples of all nations; baptism is into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; disciples are taught to observe all that Jesus commanded; and Jesus promises his presence to the end of the age. It does not establish that Jesus will return as a man named Ahnsahnghong, that a Mother God is a person of the Godhead, that the Passover must be kept for salvation, or that a particular twentieth-century movement is the true church. Those are claims brought to the text, not drawn from it.
A common misreading treats the Great Commission as a general inspiration to be nice and spread good values, detached from its content. That reading is wrong because the commission is explicitly about baptizing into a specific name and teaching specific commands. Another misreading treats the passage as authorization for any teacher who claims a fresh revelation. That is also wrong, because the authority it announces belongs to Jesus and is exercised through the apostles he appointed. The text does not create space for a later founder to complete what Jesus left unfinished; it announces a finished authority and an enduring presence.
Other passages that speak to Matthew 28:18-20
Several related studies help fill out the picture. For the setting of early Christian gatherings, see House churches in the first-century Roman world: A Biblical Guide. For a closer walkthrough of the commission itself, see Matthew 28 Bible Study: The Great Commission and Teaching Obedience. For the broader question of what the church is for, see What is the biblical mission of the church?. And for the unity the gospel creates across the very divisions the commission crosses, see What Does 1 Corinthians 1:10 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application. Together these passages show that the mission Jesus gave is carried on by his Spirit through ordinary churches, not by a new founder.
Frequently asked questions
Is the World Mission Society Church of God Christian?
It calls itself Christian and uses the Bible heavily, but its central claims go beyond historic Christianity. It treats a twentieth-century Korean man, Ahnsahnghong, as the second coming of Christ and teaches a Mother God as the source of eternal life. Historic Christianity, across Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions, has confessed one God in three persons and one Christ who will return visibly. On those points the movement's teaching differs from the apostolic faith. Whether that makes it non-Christian is a judgment Christians have historically answered by comparing teaching to Scripture.
Does Matthew 28:18-20 require keeping the Passover?
No. The passage commands making disciples, baptizing them in the triune name, and teaching them to observe what Jesus commanded. Jesus did institute a memorial meal, but the New Testament never makes Passover observance a condition of salvation for Gentiles. The Jerusalem council in Acts 15 specifically declined to impose such requirements. The World Mission Society's claim that the Passover is necessary for eternal life is an addition to the commission, not a requirement drawn from it.
Can any later leader complete the Great Commission?
No. The risen Jesus declared that all authority in heaven and on earth had already been given to him, and he promised to be with his disciples to the end of the age. The apostolic church was built on a foundation that did not need relaying. There have been real periods of corruption and needed reform, and Christians should welcome renewal. But renewal is not replacement. A new founder who claims to supply what Jesus supposedly left unfinished contradicts the plain sense of this passage.
