What does it mean to be a Disciple of Jesus?

Christians—those who believe in Jesus Christ—are called not only to be believers but disciples of Jesus. Jesus commanded:"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19, NIV). We have a responsibility not only to reach out to others, but to be discipled ourselves. The question is: What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?

To answer this, the first question is what is a "disciple"? A disciple who follows and lives by the teachings of another, a teacher. A disciple is someone who studies under another, who learns from another, and who seeks to live by the teachings of the one from whom they have learned. It should be emphasised that a disciple is more than a student who gains mental knowledge or insight. There is a practical element to being a disciple or follower. Our word "apprentice" is close to the meaning of disciple. Like an apprentice, the disciple seeks to learn in order to live according to the teacher's insights and wisdom. Yet beyond this, the disciple also has the aim of reaching a position where they can themselves pass on the teacher's knowledge and insights to others.

A Christian disciple, or follower of Jesus Christ, is therefore someone who seeks to get to know Jesus, learn from him, put his teaching into practice, and help spread his message others so that they too will become disciples.

The Bible teaches that this whole process is beyond the ability of human beings by nature. From beginning to end, becoming a Christian, obeying Christ, and spreading the good news about Christ is not something we can do for ourselves. Saving faith itself is a gift from God (Ephesisans 2:8-9) and every part of our lives as Christians depends on the Holy Spirit who comes to reside in us when we come to faith.

Yet the Bible also teaches that there are things God expects us to do as Christians and though we need the Holy Spirit to give us the power to do them, God does not do them for us. The tasks are still for us to do.

Some of the things expected of Christian disciples include the following, though a comprehensive list would require us to read the whole of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments (see Matthew 5:17-20, 2 Timothy 3:16).

1. Learning the truth about Jesus and His Work

We cannot be followers of Jesus Christ without getting to know the truth about who Jesus is and what he has accomplished for us.

2. Getting to Know Jesus

However, being a Christian is more than learning stuff about Jesus. It means getting to know Jesus personally for ourselves. We do this by reading the Bible, prayer, reflection on the Bible and meditation in which we spend time with Jesus.

3. Putting Jesus First—Jesus is Lord

A Christian confesses that Jesus is Lord, which means among other things, that Jesus comes first in life. The direction of our life is set with reference to Jesus Christ and the way he wants us to live.

4. Obeying Christ 

Jesus said to his disciples: "If you love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15). A key part of being a Christian disciple therefore consists in obeying Christ's teachings, living the way Jesus taught us to live. These teachings are found not only in the four Gospels of the New Testament, but in the letters of the New Testament where Christ's apostles continue Christ's teachings.

5. Doing Good

Christ calls on his disciples to do good works (see Ephesians 2:10), which he sometimes called "bearing good fruit" (John 15:5-8).

6. Being People of Love

Christ taught that the two greatest commandments are to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. We are, above all, to be people of love.

7. Prayer and Worship

Jesus prayed all the time and expects those who follow him to also be people of prayer. He lived in close communion with God. Christians must therefore be people devoted to the worship of God.

8. Evangelism

As we have already seen, Christ commands us to go and make more disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). Therefore, as well as living as Christ's followers ourselves, we are also called to seek to reach others with Christ's message so that they too can be saved and become disciples themselves. 

Women in Ministry - Prof. Craig Keener

I thought this was a good lecture by Craig Keener explaining why women should be permitted to hold offices in the Church.

The 'All Israel' of Romans 11:26

One of the more controversial texts in the New Testament, at least as far as the range of interpretations it has generated, is Romans 11:26. The verse reads: 'And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come from Zion, and he will remove ungodliness from Jacob".'

The disputed interpretation concerns the meaning of 'all Israel' in the verse.

There are essentially three interpretations as follows:

1. The first and most common interpretation is that 'all Israel' means that ethnic Israel as a whole (or the vast majority of the Jewish people) will be saved at some point in the future. This view envisages a future conversion of the mass of Jewish people. There is a minority view within this position that the Jews as a nation will be saved in the future, irrespective of turning and accepting Jesus as the Messiah. Yet most people who hold to this position believe in a future conversion of the Jewish people to faith in Christ. This view is common among premillennialists and postmillenialists and was the majority view of the Puritans and also of many commentators on Romans such as Charles Hodge, John Murray, and John Stott.

2. Another view,  held by William Hendriksen, Louis Berkhof, Antony Hoekema, R. C. H. Lenski, O. Palmer Robertson and others, agrees that there is no 'future conversion' of the Jewish nation in view, but rather 'All Israel' means all elect Jews—the sum of all the believing remnants down through history. This view points to the fact that there has always been a believing remnant within ethnic Israel and believes this will continue all through time. 'All Israel' is therefore the sum total of all the believing remnants both in New Testament times and right through to the end of time. This view seems most common among Dutch Reformed theologians and commentators.

3. A third view agrees with the second view in part, in that it agrees the passage does not point to a future mass conversion of the Jewish ethnic nation, but differs from the second view in that it sees in Romans 9-11 a Pauline redefinition of  'Israel' so that 'all Israel' means all the elect, both Jew and Gentile together. The third view therefore sees 'all Israel' as a reference to all of God's elect people, consisting both of Jews and Gentiles, throughout the ages. This view has been held historically by figures such as St Augustine and John Calvin, and in our day by the Pauline scholar, N. T. Wright.

For a number of reasons, my own view is that the third option is the correct interpretation, although it is definitely a minority view.

For a full discussion and argument why 'All Israel' means all the elect, both Jew and Gentile, I thoroughly recommend the commentaries by Calvin and N. T. Wright on this verse and passage. In addition, I recommend an essay by Lee Irons, "Paul’s Theology of Israel’s Future: A Non-Millennial Interpretation of Romans 11" which can be found here.

Calvin's comments on this verse are worth quoting: 

Many understand this of the Jewish people, as though Paul had said, that religion would be restored among them as before: but I extend the word Israel to all the people of God, according to this meaning, - "When all the Gentiles shall come in, the Jews also shall return from their defection to the obedience of faith; and thus shall be completed the salvation of the whole Israel of God, which must be gathered from both; and yet in such a way that the Jews shall obtain the first place, being as it were the first-born in God's family." This interpretation seems to me the most suitable, because Paul intended here to set forth the completion of the kingdom of Christ, which is by no means to be confined to the Jews, but is to include the whole world. The same manner of speaking we find in Gal. vi. 16. The Israel of God is what he calls the Church, gathered alike from Jews and Gentiles." (John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (translated and edited by John Owen; Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1955), p. 437.

My reasons for accepting Calvin's view (and N. T. Wright's) can be summarised as follows:

1. The verse says all Israel will be saved in this way. It does not say and then all Israel will be saved. The future national conversion view requires the verse to mean "and then" but this is not what the Greek means. There is nothing in this verse that points to this as being a future prophecy. The arguments of those who take the second interpretation such as Hendriksen and Robertson also support this, as do the arguments of Calvin and Wright.

2. If the verse does mean that all Israel will be saved in this way this must refer back to what verse 25 says - that a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the full number of the Gentiles comes in. The 'until' here should be viewed as a terminus ad quem and not a terminus a quo. Just as in Psalm 110:1 where we read that Christ must reign 'until' he has put all his enemies under his feet, this does not imply that Christ will cease to reign at that point, so here 'until' does not imply that the hardening will cease when the full number of Gentiles comes in, but rather that the hardening will continue right through to when Christ returns and this world ends.

3. Throughout the Bible, God only has one covenant people. In the Old Testament the covenant people are usually called Israel; in the New Testament the covenant people are usually called the Church, but they are one people - Israel is the Church and the Church is the true Israel. Paul makes this point throughout his writings.

4. Paul's argument in Romans 11 is that believing Jews and believing Gentiles are both branches - natural and grafted - into the ONE olive tree - which is a symbol of Israel or the covenant people. Verse 25 says this process will go on until the full number of Gentiles come into the covenant people and IN THIS WAY all (the true) Israel will be saved. This is entirely in line with Paul's arguments throughout Romans (and similarly in passages such as Ephesians 2:11-20). This view is also in line with Paul's key verse in Romans 9:6 where he begins to flesh out what he has already hinted at in Romans 2, that there is a "true Israel" of which not all ethnic Jews are a part: "For not all those who are descended from Israel truly belong to Israel."

5. One of the main arguments against this view that 'all Israel' means both the Jewish and Gentile elect is that it is hard to believe Paul could use 'Israel' meaning 'ethnic Israel' in verse 25, but in a different way in verse 26. However, this objection does not stand up to scrutiny. Paul clearly uses Israel in two different ways in Romans 9.6 which literally says 'not all Israel are Israel' meaning 'ethnic Israelites' in the first use and 'God's covenant people' in the second use.

These points are made more fully for those who want to probe deeper into these issues in the writings of Hendriksen, Robertson, Hoekema, Calvin, Wright and Irons' essay. Although not all of these scholars agree that 'all Israel' means all elect Jews and Gentiles, they do give reasons to reject the first view that the verse means 'and then [at some future point] all [ethnic] Israel will be saved'. Of the two remaining views, I think it makes most sense in Paul's argument - particularly since he describes this as a mystery - that he is not merely describing the salvation of all elect Jews throughout time - but that in God's purpose both Jews and Gentiles are brought together into God's covenant people (Israel) to bring about the salvation of both.

Modified Infralapsarianism

I have recently been thinking about the order of God's decrees and after much thought, I have decided that the correct view is probably what I would term a modified form of infralapsarianism. Infralapsarianism is certainly the view taught in the Reformed confessions, such as the Canons of Dort and the Westminster Confession, thought it is also true that these confessions, particularly the Westminster Confession, certainly leaves room for supralapsarianism as well.  

However, as we will consider, there are significant problems with aspects of both the standard infralapsarian presentation and the standard supralapsarian view. As a result, I propose a modified view, which we will now discuss and I regard as a modified form of infralapsarianism which builds on the best points of both infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism.

It was only after forming this view independently that I came to understand that something very like the view presented here was held historically by some who identify as supralapsarians such as the Dutch theologian, Peter van Mastricht (as explained here by Geerhardus Vos).

The differences between the two views should not be overemphasised anyway. Both infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism agree that the creation, fall, election and reprobation are all included within God's all-encompassing decree. The only differences concern the logical order of the elements within the eternal decree, not a chronology.

The standard infralapsarian order of the decrees (or of the logical moments with a all-encompassing decree) is as follows:

• Decree to create humanity 
• Decree to permit the fall 
• Decree to elect some of the fallen mass of humanity to salvation and decree to reprobate the remainder of humanity to condemnation 
• Decree to provide and accomplish salvation for the elect in Christ.
  

This order tracks the same order as the events play out in time and history beginning with creation then fall then election then salvation.

Though this is by far the most common presentation among Calvinists, it has significant problems, which we can list as follows:

1. The planning of God appears to follow exactly the same as the historical order plays out in time, but in planning a final goal the end point is decided first and then the steps to reach the end goal. A analogy would be a baker. He first decides to bake a cake and then assembles the ingredients, weighs them out, mixes them before putting the mixture in the overn to achieve the final aim. He does not take out ingredients and begin to mix them up and then finally decide to bake a cake!
   
2. What is the purpose of God in creation and permitting the fall if the decree of salvation only comes in after these two decisions have already been made? The normal infralapsarian order does not account for why God permitted the Fall to take place.
   
3. This order of decrees does not include the overarching purpose of all things being for the glory of the triune God in the display of his attributes of justice and grace.

The most common supralapsarian order of the decrees is as follows, and though this helps answer these questions, it is not without issues of its own difficulties: 

• Decree to provide and accomplish salvation for the elect in Christ.
• Decree to elect some for salvation and reprobate others to condemnation
• Decree to create the elect and the reprobate
• Decree to permit the fall

This answers the problems of infralapsarian. Here creation and fall serve a prior and higher purpose to have elect to save and reprobate to condemn which will bring God glory. Here the order is the reverse of the historical playing out of the decrees. This order ties in better with God’s primary concern to display his own glory and the final state of the elect and the non-elect is foremost in God’s mind. However, the supralapsarian scheme also has its own massive and significant problems.

1. If the decree to create comes after the decree of predestination of individuals, how can there be individuals to elect or reprobate if their creation has not even been contemplated. This would seem to be a significant problem. Yet if the separation of elect and non-elect only happens after contemplation of their creation, then their creation must have been contemplated with another purpose in mind which seems contrary to the spirit of supralapsarianism.
   
2. The supralapsarian view has more difficulty avoiding charges of God creating people and then predestining them for damnation without regarding them as sinful, indeed without any reference to sin, potentially making the purpose of God unjust, which cannot be.
3. The supralapsarian view tends to see creation merely as a means to an end, rather than having any independent divine purpose for the display of the divine glory in its own right.
   
4. The supralapsarian view posits a divide between elect and reprobate individuals that precedes and overrides any other consideration. This can make it difficult for supralapsarians to account for biblical passages that speak of God's love and goodness for all shown in common grace and mercy.
5. The supralapsarian view can sometimes be presented in a way that lacks nuance in presenting the elect as the recipients only of grace and the reprobate the recipients only of wrath and justice, when the reality of the divine decree is that the elect were children of wrath as much as the non-elect prior to their conversion and the non-elect remain recipients of divine benevolence and goodness despite their rejection for salvation.
   

A modfied infralapsarian position, which seeks to take the best of both traditional positions, could be set forth as follows: 

• Decree to glorify the triune God himself in the display of all his attributes and in the works of all persons of the Trinity in creaton, providence, the fall, salvation and condemnation.
• Decree to have two groups of people, one in covenant with him and receiving salvation and one outside of covenant with him and receiving condemnation and punishment (but without any individuals in either group). 
• Decree to create the world and humanity in God’s image – displaying God’s greatness, wisdom, glory, imagination, creativity, etc.
• Decree to elect some of the fallen mass of humanity to salvation and decree to reprobate the remainder of humanity to condemnation 
• Decree to provide and accomplish salvation for the elect in Christ.

It will be noted that the additional two points helps explain the purpose of the creation and the permission of the fall, while the remaining points follow the traditional infralapsarian order, all to God's primary purpose of glorifying himself and sharing the life of the Godhead with his image bearers in covenant with himself. 

  

The key distinction in this scheme lies between God decreeing to have a saved covenant people and a non-saved group outside the covenant and this distinction and part of the decree is made prior to contemplating the fall and God determining which individuals will be elected for salvation, leaving others to be reprobated and condemned (which occurs only after the individuals are considered as fallen and sinful individuals). We could call this scheme a kind of hybrid with a kind of supralapsarian corporate election and reprobation, but a logically subsequent infralapsarian individual election of individuals and the reprobation only of sinful individuals. For this reason, I believe this remains a modified form on infralapsarianism.

The fundamental objections to infralapsarianism are answered in this scheme without falling into the harshness and crassness of full-blown of supralapsarianism:

1. That creation and the fall do serve a prior purpose of God in glorifying himself, displaying certain of his attributes and bringing about individuals to be elected and reprobated.
   
2. The order of events in time occur to bring about prior determined aspects of the decree (to have a covenant people in Christ and a non-covenant remainder of humanity to God's own glory)
3. This view is clear that any individual is only elected to salvation or passed by and condemned when viewed as a sinner, not merely a creature.
4. This view makes it clear that although there is double predestination, there is no equal ultimacy between the choosing of the elect and the reprobation of the non-elect. Election is a positive act; reprobation is a passive passing by and only an active judicial condemnation for sin.
5. Although this view sees a distinction between two groups from the first, there is not reason to reject a universal love and common grace to all humanity under this scheme, nor does it affect the free offer of the gospel being made to all.
   

This view recognises that what the ultimate goal is first in order and then the steps to reach the goal follow in the plan in historical order. It recognises that in the planning, the planner must also consider what the correct historical order of events needs to be to reach the goal.

It will be interesting to see what other Reformed theologians have made of this issue where they are infralapsarian but seek to address some of the objections to this view. I know that the great Dutch Reformed theologian, Herman Bavinck, rejected both supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism, believing that God's decree is one organic whole. I would agree with this to a point, except that it seems necessary to account within the single decree for the logical decisions God must have made. As with the previous cake analogy, it is difficult to see how God would not first choose the ends he wants and then the means to achieve those ends (this is the essence of the supralapsarian view of course), yet the cake recipe also requires the steps to be ordered in the correct way that leads from assembling and weighting ingredients to the final cake. Most importantly, this view is clear that God elects and rejects actual fallen individual human beings, not just created human beings. Therefore, though sovereign, God cannot be regarded as unjust or arbitrary. His grace and mercy to the elect is truly grace and mercy shown to undeserving sinners and His justice and wrath to the reprobabte is truly justice and holy wrath shown to hell-deserving sinners.