Faith and True Discipleship
Those who teach that obedience and submission are extraneous to saving faith are forced to make a firm but unbiblical distinction between salvation and discipleship. This dichotomy, like that of the carnal/spiritual Christian, sets up two classes of Christians: believers only and true disciples. Most who hold this position discard the evangelistic intent of virtually every recorded invitation of Jesus, saying those apply to discipleship, not to salvation. [7] One writer says of this view, “No distinction is more vital to theology, more basic to a correct understanding of the New Testament, or more relevant to every believer’s life and witness.” [8]
On the contrary, no distinction has done so much to undermine the authority of Jesus’ message. Are we to believe that when Jesus told the multitudes to deny themselves (Luke 14:26)?
James M. Boice, in his book Christ’s Call to Discipleship, writes with insight about the salvation/discipleship dichotomy, which he frankly describes as “defective theology”:
This theology separates faith from discipleship and grace from obedience. It teaches that Jesus can be received as one’s Savior without being received as one’s Lord.
This is a common defect in times of prosperity. In days of hardship, particularly persecution, those who are in the process of becoming Christians count the cost of discipleship carefully before taking up the cross of the Nazarene. Preachers do not beguile them with false promises of an easy life or indulgence of sins. But in good times, the cost does not seem so high, and people take the name of Christ without undergoing the radical transformation of life that true conversion implies. [9]
The call to Calvary must be recognized for what it is: a call to discipleship under the lordship of Jesus Christ. To respond to that call is to become a believer. Anything less is simply unbelief.
The gospel according to Jesus explicitly and unequivocally rules out easy-believism. To make all of our Lord’s difficult demands apply only to a higher class of Christians blunts the force of His entire message. It makes room for a cheap and meaningless faith—a faith that has absolutely no effect on the fleshly life of sin. That is not saving faith.
This article originally appeared here at Grace to You.
