 |  |
adds: "deny himself and take up his cross." Matt. 10: has already made it plain that this
association with Christ will be attended by painful consequences:--
"The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for
the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the
master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household"
(Matt. 10: 24, 25).
It is evident that discipleship is something more than believing unto salvation, an
element of endurance and continuance being implied in the title:--
"Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in My word,
then are ye My disciples indeed" (John 8: 31).
A continuation of the quotation from Matt. 16: given above would have brought us
to the subject of "reward", this also being associated in several passages with continuance
and endurance.
Two more features characteristic of discipleship are given by the Lord:--
"By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another"
(John 13: 35).
This administers a wholesome corrective to a false deduction from the Lord's earlier
words. While a true disciple cannot avoid being called the same hard names as his
Master was called, the fact that the world hated a man and called him a devil would not
necessarily constitute such a disciple of Christ. Hatred outside must be accompanied by
love within: we have then the two sides of the question, and should be safe.
Finally, discipleship is not an empty profession:--
"Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit: so shall ye be My disciples"
(John 15: 8).
Discipleship, therefore, covers practically the whole of Christian service from the
God-ward aspect, while the conception of service in terms of a "debtor" covers a great
deal of service as seen from the man-ward point of view.