Christology and Discipleship in the Gospels and Acts, Part 1
Foundations
(avg. read time: 4–9 mins.)
The series I begin today is based on work that I did for my Discipleship in the New Testament class for Dr. W. Hulitt Gloer at Truett Seminary. The class focused on the Gospels and Acts, thus this series will also focus on the Gospels and Acts. But before I get into those texts, I want to start here with some groundwork for this series.
It seems appropriate to begin with the meaning of “discipleship” in general. To be a disciple means to be a follower of someone. The disciple relationship could be teacher-learner or a more general leader-follower one. In the case of the former, the disciple finds a teacher from whom to learn information or skills or becomes a committed adherent of a teacher (usually philosophical). In the case of the latter, the disciple follows the leader, adopting the leader’s character in imitation. In some ways, discipleship to Jesus involves elements and modifications of both kinds of disciple relationships. Disciples learn to live as Jesus lived because they have committed themselves to sharing in his way of life, the way of life that belongs to the kingdom of God because it acknowledges God as King. Disciples also abandon all other attachments, when necessary, to follow Jesus in imitation of his character, which implies that they must spend substantial time in getting to know him and what it means to be like him. The books under consideration here have their own implicit and explicit ways of showing that disciples learn from Jesus what it means for God to be God and what it means to be truly human; since Jesus is the true image of God, he is the true human.1 Hence, again, why there is a strong link between the indicatives of theology and the imperatives of ethics. In the words of Ben Witherington:
The goal [of New Testament theological ethics or discipleship] is that the indelible and perfect character of God be indelibly stamped on his creatures such that God’s image is perfectly reflected in those creatures. Just as when one looks on the Son, one sees the spitting image of the Father, the very character of the Father, so too when one looks on the spiritual brothers and sisters of Jesus, one ought to be able to see the image of the Son.2
The Gospels and Acts tell the story of Jesus and his disciples in such ways as to continue echoing the call to follow Jesus and to contribute to this purpose. It is only in the process of following Jesus in obedience that disciples can truly learn what obedience is. One can only know by living.3
It is too common today to proclaim the gospel in order to influence people to make a one-time decision, which means that the message conveys that a life of discipleship to the Jesus who saves within a community of fellow disciples is optional at best or unnecessary at worst.4 The proclamation of the gospel has often lost its narrative quality (being reduced to abstract propositions that are incomplete without expression in a story), its communal call (being reduced to only an individual problem and individual solution of an individual contract of salvation with God), and its eschatological and holistic character (being misconstrued to attaining a place in an immaterial heaven after death in which only the vaguely understood “soul” can reside). These dimensions of loss inevitably lead to the loss of biblical discipleship from the gospel, which Dallas Willard often called the Great Omission from the Great Commission. While conversions and decisions are important, they are only important in a larger scheme of loyalty to Jesus (the words for “faith,” “belief,” and “believing”—πίστις and πιστεύω—are in their fullest Christian sense about “faithfulness,” “loyalty,” or “allegiance” based on trust).5 The gospel is more than the “hook” that brings people in and initiates salvation; it is the story that defines the entirety of Christian existence.
While I will save looking at specific texts for the rest of the series, it is crucial to grasp more generally what the four articulations of the gospel and the records of the gospel proclamations in Acts illustrate about the character of the gospel and its relationship to discipleship. First, the gospel has the form of a story that takes place in and for the world, which can be synopsized in propositions, rather than of simply abstract propositions designed to lead us out of the world. There is a meaningful history, a meaningful consummation/climax, meaningful plot development in between, and—through it all—meaningful character development (or, perhaps more properly, character transformation).
Second, the gospel is part and parcel of several interlocking narratives, such as the story of God and the world brought to further focus in the story of God and humanity, which further comes to greater focus in the story of God and Israel until it comes to its most specific focus in the story of Jesus. Disciples—by dedication to following Jesus, who is the climax of all the interlocking stories—have their place in a much larger story that gives definition to who they are and to where they are going; thus, it is essential for them to articulate their gospel and self-understanding in light of that larger story, not simply in light of its most recent chapters.6 Jesus reshapes the way they read the OT and derive their identity from it, but not whether they read it. Of course, the story of disciples in the present includes the NT and disciples must immerse themselves in the narrative of both Testaments. Furthermore, disciples today must acknowledge the larger stories of history that shape them as well, though such stories are not at the normative level of the canonical story.
Third, involvement in this story places disciples in community with each other and gives them a common story to live out. Once the story comes to a focal point in Jesus, it opens up again to incorporate a new community of God’s people to live out a new chapter in the story together. It is with reference to this story that individuals derive their identity and the community to which they belong derives the communal identity.
Fourth, disciples participate in the gospel story of Jesus by living according to how he lived on earth, a life which bore the marks of the kingdom of God that he was proclaiming. It was this same message, this same kingdom, this same life that he expected his disciples to proclaim.7 After all, his life was the unification of the divine life with human life.
Fifth, the cross, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus are not only the literal means and icons of salvation in its many dimensions; they represent the paradigm for discipleship. Disciples crystallize their devotion to this paradigm in baptism by taking on the death to self and sin, followed by rising to walk in newness of life that anticipates the bodily resurrection at the eschaton—both aspects of which attain their shape from the death and resurrection of Jesus—and in the Eucharist by taking in the life and body of Jesus that have gone ahead into the new creation. Disciples also shape their lives and activities in the world by this paradigm because it represents new life for humanity and new creation for the whole world.
Sixth, the resurrection of Jesus—and later of those people who participate in his life through discipleship—functions, among many other capacities, as the divine confirmation and vindication leading to exaltation of Jesus’s life and of the ones who share in this same climax. As Jesus himself had brought the future into the present through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, the life of discipleship similarly brings the life of the future kingdom into the present in the work of the Holy Spirit, the primary identifying mark of the kingdom that is present now.
Seventh, among the earliest Christians the proclamation of the coming kingdom of God primarily took the form of proclaiming that Jesus is Lord and Messiah, which gave rise to the holistic belief that he is the one who embodied God’s delivering love and carried out that love in the reconciliation of creation and by delivering it into a new community under his direction defining the shape of this community and kingdom. The statement that Jesus is Lord is programmatic in the sense that it calls for people to “get with the program.”8 The fundamental problems that the gospel as the declaration of Jesus’s Lordship and Messiahship address are the usurpation of worshipping anyone/anything else in the place of God and the consequent death stemming from separation from the living God.
Eighth, the definition of the gospel and of Christian identity emerges from the identity of Jesus. Jesus is the center and substance of the gospel as the Son of God, Son of Man, Messiah/Son of David, Lord, Word/Wisdom of God, and so on. But these identity statements are not isolated, abstract data; they belong and have meaning in a story. He is the King who defines the kingdom and through whom it comes; thus, his story defines our story.
Ninth, in the proclamation of the gospel in word and deed, disciples participate in the work of God at the center of the gospel by bearing witness to the story. They participate supremely when they are agents of reproduction in others of what God has done in them, namely in being disciples making disciples who will in turn follow the teachings of Jesus.
Tenth, in line with the universal scope of the kingdom of God, disciples proclaim the gospel to all people, reach across all barriers, and call all to belong to a community of every tribe, nation, people, and tongue that must learn to live in harmony under one Lord. Discipleship to the triune God is not fully possible outside of some form of community, and Jesus himself demonstrated as much in his call of his original circle of disciples.
These elements of the gospel and their implications for discipleship can be expressed in many creative ways, as you can observe from the Gospels and Acts. I encourage you to explore these creative ways for yourselves in your quest to tell the story of our faith continuously as the ground of discipleship. With this groundwork begun, it is appropriate to consider how each of the Gospels (and Acts) articulates the character of discipleship in light of the person of Jesus.
The theological notion of humans as the image-bearers of God is a fundamental and deep identification of humanity that involves many facets that cannot receive adequate expression here. At its most basic level, this statement of theological anthropology refers not to any specific aspect of humanity but refers to how humans are representative of God, especially in their “royal” and “priestly” capacities. Humans, as the image-bearers of God, are to rule over creation as stewards in a way that represents the character of the God whose image they bear. Similarly, as image-bearers, humans are to serve in a capacity reflected in the pagan idols of serving as meeting points between heaven and earth by representing God to creation in rule and representing the creation to God in worship. For more on the basic concept, see Edward M. Curtis, “Image of God, Old Testament,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 3, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 389–90; Ben Witherington III, The Indelible Image: The Theological And Ethical Thought World of the New Testament, 2 vols. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009–2010), 1:21–22; N. T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 74–76, 80–81.
Witherington, Indelible Image, 1:22–23.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959), 78; Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 18.
Scot McKnight, The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited, Nook ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 15, 26; Dallas Willard, The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’ Essential Teachings on Discipleship, Nook ed. (New York: HarperOne, 2006), 8–9; N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 227–30.
For more on faith terminology, see Matthew W. Bates, Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017).
For an approach to Scripture from this narrative understanding, see N. T. Wright, “How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?”, Vox Evangelica 21 (1991): 7–32 (available online at http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Bible_Authoritative.htm).
All of the Gospels, especially Luke and John, describe the Holy Spirit—the same Spirit who indwells, guides, teaches, and empowers disciples after Jesus—as the one whose power was at work in Jesus.
Wright, Surprised by Hope, 46.