“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
Luke 14:26-27
“As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him.”
Matthew 4:18-20
I remembered the day I accepted Jesus to be my Lord and Saviour. It was in during the last night of a church camp in December 2010. But if you asked me whether I became a disciple of Jesus that day, I would have my reservations. What does it mean to be Jesus’s disciple? His commands were clear enough: “Come, follow me.” Shortly after I accepted Christ, I found myself lacking the wisdom to comprehend many Bible verses. The most significant one was from Matthew 8:22, when Jesus told his disciple, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” On one hand, I was baffled by how the dead can move, much less bury themselves. On the other hand, I was struck by how cold Jesus’s reply felt. A nurturing mentor told me that Jesus wanted his disciple to place his faith in him. At that point of time, I was happy to have received some wisdom to make sense of that verse. Yet, I have now found greater wisdom when contemplating the cost of following Jesus through Jesus’s teaching from that verse. According to Rev. Lam Kuo Yung, moderator of Katong Presbyterian Church, “discipleship is the holistic process of transforming a Christian to greater Christ-likeness, guided by the word of God, for godly living in every arena of life.”[1] This resonated with other STEP speakers who mentioned the concept of a “holistic salvation.”[2] Just as our salvation needs to be complete, the teachings of the Gospel need to be complete before it can be preached.
[1] Lam Kuo Yung, Total Discipleship: Experiencing Jesus and His Abundance (Singapore: Katong Presbyterian Church, 2017), p.4.
[2] Dr Maggie Low from Trinity Theological College mentioned that salvation as understood in the original Hebrew and Greek texts referred to practical needs of God’s people. She refers “holistic salvation” to both the regeneration of God’s creation and the saving of souls through missionary work. Significantly, she saw sin as the root problem of people not accepting “holistic salvation.”
I believe that the current generation of Christians need to emphasise the cost of being Jesus’s disciple in order for the complete gospel to be preached by his current disciples and received by his new disciples. Two major teachings that are lacking in our understanding of the cost of following Jesus include experiencing the Holy Spirit’s sanctification and the understanding of Christian death.
Process of Sanctification
While it is costly to be Jesus’s disciple, his rewards are eternal. While the latter is attractive to anyone who has ears to hear, the former is inseperable from God’s covenant with us. As Luke had recorded in his gospel, Jesus’s last words to his disciples on preaching the Gospel was that “repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”[1] Likewise, “The Great Commission” in the Gospel of Matthew highlighted that we should “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching to obey everything I have commanded you.”[2] The emphasis of the good news is not on the riches of rewards but on repentance of sins and obedience to God. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus began his public ministry by calling out to his first disciples that “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.”[3] When Jesus sent out his twelve closest disciples, “they went out and preached that people should repent.”[4] The message of repentance is not limited to John the Baptist. Jesus clearly wants his followers to see themselves as who they were: sinners. In a hardly subtle criticism of many local Christians who were unconsciously subscribing to the beliefs of “antinomianism”[5], Rev. Lam Kuo Yung was aghast that some Christians were taught not to be occupied with their own sinful tendencies but should “focus on enjoying God and His blessings.”[6] It would do the good news a great disservice if the Presbyterian church, which prides itself in being Scripture-centric, does not counter the influence of “antinomianism.”
[6] Lam Kuo Yung, Total Discipleship: Experiencing Jesus and His Abundance (Singapore: Katong Presbyterian Church, 2017), p.14.
Apart from peeking beyond the fences of our Presbyterian churches to disparage more liberal denominations, we could also glean from the teachings of complex theological concepts and understand their implications on our ministries. Presbyterian pastors in Singapore today pay great homage to the theologian John Calvin.[1] In one of the occasional paper series by the Asian Institute of Calvin Studies, Rev. Dr. Bernard Koh wrote on how Calvin understood faith. Calvin utilised the example of King Saul to illustrate how “[he] may experience the love of God and taste the goodness of the Lord, but he is a person without that love of a son that binds him to the heavenly Father.”[2] In his footnotes, Rev. Dr. Koh quoted several reformed scholars’ exegesis of the parable of the sower and their implications on the church. Klyne R. Snodgrass was quoted to have said that “churches should not be complicit in allowing people to think an initial response unaccompanied by productive living is saving faith.”[3] Indeed, only the seed on good soil hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. As Calvin had taught us, “temporary faith may experience the power of the World [but] it will not sustain and endure.”[4] The younger generation cannot be swayed by liberal teachings on faith. It risks cheapening God’s grace if we merely accept that our sins have been remitted without committing to being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Reformed theologian R.C. Sproul argued that “a loving God who has no wrath is no God. He is an idol of our own making as much as if we carved Him out of stone.”[5] While 1 John 1:9 brings us great comfort (“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”), it is not a complete picture of Christian confession and holy living. I remember being instructed to teach this verse to my Sunday school students and encouraging them to confess their sins in order that they may be purified. Though this might spur young believers to be more forthcoming to share their sinful habits, we must not ignore John the Apostle’s teachings from the same epistle. He wrote “the man who says, ‘I know
[1] Almost every speaker in the STEP programme mentions John Calvin’s contributions in great detail. Rev. Tan Tiong Ann took great pains to differentiate his respect for John Calvin’s original teachings from subsequent Calvinist polemical scholars. Indeed, Calvin and Calvinism’s influence on the Singaporean Presbyterian churches need further research.
[2] Bernard Koh, John Calvin on King Saul: A Quest of Faith (Singapore: Asian Institute of Calvin Studies, 2016), p.15.
him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”[1] This has great theological implications on the congregation. However, this should not compel us to judge certain members in our congregations. Instead, we should pray for the Holy Spirit to regenerate our bodies to be more like Christ. In his classic handbook of Christian Living ‘The Fight’, John White describes our fight against sin to be “God’s fight and yet it is [our] fight. And the more it is his, the more truly it is [ours].”[2] Likewise, Rev. Tan Tiong Ann reminded us that “Holy Christian living should be motivated by grace and activated by grace.”[3] A disciple of Jesus is expected to bear good fruits but this ability does not come by works. Instead, it is a gift from God.
Yet this gift is not purchased without a price. From the epistle to church in Philippi, the apostle Paul not only affirmed that Jesus Christ was both God and Man, but also emphasised that Jesus humbled himself by dying on the cross and was exalted in the highest place.[4] However, he continued to encourage his readers by writing “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” God works in His people through the Holy Spirit so that we may obtain our daily providence of grace, in spite of our sinfulness. The disciple fears and trembles in face of God’s holiness in order that they may be more like Christ. Just as the disciple has hope in Christ because he has risen from the dead, the disciple also has hope that his body may be regenerated into its original holy state. When we realise that God is angry when we do not obey his commands, we would see that the doctrine of sanctification is integral for knowing the cost of discipleship.
The current generation of Singaporeans have to build a church that emphasises the need for Jesus’s disciples to have their “old [selves] crucified with [Christ] so that
[4] Philippians 2:6-9 “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name”
they body of sin might be done away with.”[1] Several years ago, I attended a mega-church’s service and was excited to hear the pastor preach about how Christians no longer have to focus on their sins because Christ has already set them free. Upon returning to my conservative Presbyterian church, I felt irked by the mere mention of repentance as I thought it would only make us trapped by sin. How gullible I was. The facticity of sin living in our flesh before Christ’s return is undeniable. Yet, the kingdom of heaven does not allow for sin to enter. That must be why Jesus called for his disciples to repent – to move away from sin. Isaiah cried, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”[2] Job humbly replied to God, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”[3] Their experiences reflect the cost of discipleship: confronting our sinfulness and humbly seeking the Lord to sanctify our lowly estate, just as Christ had been buried into the depths with out sins, he resurrected from the dead so that we may have hope in this trying journey. Though Jesus instructed us to calculate the cost of following him, I believe we are led to see the immense price that Jesus paid in order that we may live out God’s will with blessed assurance.
Furthermore, there would be implications on our churches’ missions. The Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible reminds us that “Christians…must preach and teach the gospel message in order not only to evangelize unsaved visitors but also to save its members who have not yet come to faith. Further, Christians…must earnestly pursue holiness and fidelity to Christ in order to prove their faith and persevere to the end.”[4] While we should be cautious about “proving our faith” and not think that we can attain salvation by works, we do have to realize that many of our own church members do not know what it means to follow Jesus. If that were to be really true, it would follow that they are not yet Jesus’s disciples. The urgency is for the church leaders to preach the complete gospel so that more brothers and sisters may respond positively to Christ’s sacrifice for his beloved creation. We must direct the multitude of complex personalities in our church back to Jesus’s call for disciples.
[4] Richard L. Pratt Jr., Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), p.2022.
Jesus’s command is not as simple as it seems. It requires us to give up nearly everything that we have grown attached to. A.W.Tozer spurred on his readers to receive “the blessedness of possessing nothing.” He claimed that “the Christian who is alive enough to know himself even slightly will recognise the symptoms of this possession malady, and will grieve to find them in his own heart.”[1] In a similar vein, Jesus tested the Rich Young Man by having him to sell all he possessed and give to the poor before he was allowed to follow Jesus. In our sinful nature, we have become complex individuals that find Jesus’s call for disciples very difficult to comply. But that is precisely how God had engineered his redemptive plan. God has called us to calculate the cost of following him not to deter us from entering His kingdom but for us to enter whole-heartedly.
The Christian Death
I shall conclude by suggesting that Christians of the current generation have to become more comfortable with the notion of dying for Christ. The German Christian martyr during the Second World War, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, famously said that “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”[2] Bonhoeffer eventually died at the hands of the Nazis during the World War Two period. Likewise, we might be used by God in the most harrowing predicaments during wartime. There is an unfortunate omission in the mentioning of death on the tongues of many younger Singaporean Christians. The peaceful and prosperous times have made many of us too comfortable. We dispel any notions of impending turmoil because we believe that our wise diplomats and politicians can avert diplomatic adversities. To think so is to place too much trust on our civil authorities. I do believe that this issue is brought about by a gap in our understanding of following Jesus. John White reminded us that we “will not be the first to tread so dark a valley, to feel so alone, so alienated from God. There is someone who has trodden it before you. And the valley will end. Calvary was followed by a tearing aside of all that hid God, by a bursting from the tomb and by ascension to glory.”[3] Christ has already died so that we may not “taste death.”[4]
Thus, may we be emboldened to follow Christ even to the point of death, just as he had died on the cross for us.
A brother in seventeenth-century Puritan New England composed this poetic prayer as a form of encouragement for his brethren:
“All these sins I mourn, lament, and for them cry pardon.
Work in me more profound and abiding repentance;
Give me the fullness of a godly grief that trembles and fears,
yet ever trusts and loves,
which is ever powerful, and ever confident;
Grant that through the tears of repentance I may see more clearly
the brightness and glories of the saving cross.”
Since there is no glory of the saving cross if we do not put off our old selves, may we be willing to allow Christ sanctify our bodies for God’s purpose before proclaiming that we are Jesus’s disciples. The current generation of Christians need to uphold this part of the Gospel as it becomes obscured by those who are blinded by the possessions of this world. The Lord desires for his people to follow Him in the manner that He had willed Jesus to be obedient on the cross. Thus, may we look upon Jesus’s simple command and follow him just as he had hoped.
