The Great Commission Was Fulfilled Before AD 70
Stevie DxYz
12/30/20253 min read
A Controlled Historical & Textual Investigation
Opening Statement
This is not a sermon.
It is a claim test.
The New Testament repeatedly states that the gospel had already reached “all nations,” “the whole world,” and “all creation under heaven.”
Either those statements were true when written, or the authors were mistaken.
This investigation tests whether the New Testament itself presents the Great Commission as completed before the destruction of Jerusalem.
Rule of the Case: Definitions Decide the Verdict
Before testimony is heard, terms must be defined.
First-century writers did not use words the way modern readers assume they did.
“The whole world” (oikoumenē) meant the inhabited, known world, commonly the Roman Empire.
“All nations” (panta ta ethnē) often meant the Gentiles, not modern nation-states.
“All creation under heaven” was standard rhetorical totality, not a literal census.
These meanings are shown in Scripture and contemporary usage, and modern definitions are inadmissible unless the text demands them.
It does not.
Exhibit A: Matthew 24:14
“This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
The word translated “world” is oikoumenē, the inhabited world.
Luke uses the same word when he writes:
“A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.”
No reader imagines Augustus taxed the Amazon rainforest.
The scope is the Roman world's reach, not the entire planet.
The timing matters even more.
In the same discourse, Jesus says:
“This generation will not pass away until all these things take place.”
The chapter proceeds directly to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
Reading Matthew 24:14 as referring to a distant future makes it the sole verse in the passage removed from the timeline, without textual support.
The simpler reading is the stronger one:
Gospel preached throughout the known world
Testimony delivered to the nations, the Gentiles
Then the end came, the end Jesus had just described, the judgment that culminated in Jerusalem’s destruction in AD 70
Exhibit B: Colossians 1:6 and 1:23
Paul writes that the gospel “is bearing fruit in all the world” and “has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven.”
This is present-tense language.
Not aspiration.
Not prophecy.
Statement of fact.
No first-century reader would interpret “all creation under heaven” as meaning every human being alive. The phrase appears elsewhere in Jewish literature to indicate full reach, not that every individual was counted.
Luke uses the same idiom in Acts 2:
“Jews from every nation under heaven.”
No one argues that every nation on earth was physically present in Jerusalem that day.
Paul’s claim in Romans 15:19 is explicit:
The gospel had already gone everywhere it was expected to go.
Exhibit C: Romans 16:26 Interprets Itself
Paul concludes Romans by saying the gospel has been made known:
“to all nations.”
At the beginning of the same letter, he defines his mission as bringing faith:
“among all the Gentiles.”
Same phrase.
Same scope.
“All nations” equals the Gentile world.
This is covenantal language, not a map of the world.
Paul adds a crucial detail in Romans 15:
“From Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel… I no longer have any place for work in these regions.”
That is not the language of an unfinished task.
Mechanism: How This Could Actually Happen
This was not mystical.
It was logistical.
The Roman Empire maintained tens of thousands of miles of roads
Mediterranean sea lanes connected major cities in weeks
Diaspora synagogues existed in virtually every city
Mission strategy focused on urban hubs, not villages
Acts 19 records that from Ephesus:
“All who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord.”
“Asia” here is a Roman province. Luke uses “all” to describe a region being thoroughly reached, not every individual personally.
This is how the New Testament itself teaches us to read “all” language.
Verdict
The evidence shows:
The language fits a first-century known-world scope
The infrastructure made rapid spread plausible
The apostles believed it had happened
History does not contradict them
No theology needs to be defended here.
Only the text needs to be read honestly.
The argument continues because the text is ignored.
Closing Statement
The debate survives by redefining words after the fact.
Read as written, the New Testament presents the Great Commission not as an unfulfilled hope, but as a completed witness that preceded the end Jesus said would come.
The text says what it says.
History agrees.
The rest is silence.