Discipleship or religious observance?

Before his ascension, Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20). Two thousand years later, almost two billion people on the earth could claim to be Christian, or at least live in “Christian” countries, but could all be really said to be disciples?

Who is a disciple? Someone who was christened at some point, or got baptised? Who believes in God? Who more or less regularly attends church, or chapel? And is even a church member! Who asserts not to be a sinner? Who says he is a believer too, then curses God for not helping him .Who claims to have read the Bible?

Just to be a little more serious, we see that the Bible is sometimes not totally clear either. Paul says: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works so that no-one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9). James, on the other hand, writes: “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.” (James 2,24). What does this mean? Do we just have to believe, or do we have to do something too?

Although the basis of salvation is certainly faith and not works, since Jesus said such things as: “make disciples of all nations… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…” (Matthew 28:19-20) and “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15), it appears that we certainly need to do something, but what? If we do things, when are we being obedient, and when are we just being religious or legalistic?

Several verses may be mentioned which summarise the new covenant commandments. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… Love your neighbour as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40). “Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.” (1 John 3:21-23). “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow-man has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.” (Romans 13:8-10). “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2). Whoever loves Jesus and his brethren, therefore, is keeping the new covenant law.

So if we teach new converts to love one another, and keep clear of stealing and adultery, that is not legalism, it is just the word of God. And if we have a word with someone who is doing these things, that is a Biblical rebuke, and not judgementalism.

What, then, is being religious? It can happen when someone claims that adhering to certain actions and externals is a condition for salvation. These may often be disputed matters, or things which are not Biblical at all. Paul talks about disputed matters: “Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgement on disputable matters. One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables… One man considers one day more sacred than another, another man considers every day alike…” (Romans 14:1-5). This is about eating habits and holy days. These are side issues, we should accept one another, and not judge one another because of these things. The one who is strong, and knows that there is freedom in Christ, and we do not have to hang on to things like this, should accept the other, the “weak brother”, who has not reached the same level of maturity.

It is a different matter, however, if someone tries to force similar, external observances on others. We see this in Galatians 4:8-11 in connection with the keeping of days, and Colossians 2:16-17 where we should not accept condemnation in the matter of food, drink and holy days. Paul says here that we must not yield to such people, and calls them “false brethren” (Galatians 2:4-5).

In connection with this, we should mention the idea of causing others to stumble. Paul says that he does not want to do anything which will cause his brother to stumble (Romans 14:19-21). If someone stumbles, it means he falls away from the Christian life, and not longer walks with the Lord. If I cause someone to stumble, then something I did led to my brother’s falling away. Paul mentions drinking wine here. The Bible does not forbid the consumption of alcohol, just if it is taken to excess and leads to drunkenness. It is possible that I can quite happily have a glass of wine, I can stop after the first, and this does not cause me any problems. If I am with a fellow Christian, however, who I know has been delivered from alcoholism, and I drink wine, he may think that it is all right, start drinking again, not be able to stop, and fall away from the Lord. In that case, I was not walking in love, and I caused my brother to stumble.

It is completely different, however, if I go to church in jeans, and my brothers are “stumbled” by what I am wearing. This is more likely to mean that they were offended, but they will not fall away from the faith because of this.

Besides these things, there is a very big problem with human tradition. Jesus had this to say on the subject: “They worship me in vain, their teachings are but rules taught by men. You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men… You have a fine way of setting aside the commandments of God in order to observe your own traditions.” (Mark 7:7-9). Jesus was talking to the Pharisees here, but there are a great many such traditions in the various streams of Christianity too.

Essentially, the problem is that the Christian life is imagined in terms of ceremonies and externals. What gets the greatest emphasis? Church membership, denominational affiliation, pastor, church building – although these may possibly be useful tools, they are not in fact in the Bible, and they certainly do not comprise the whole Christian life. What is really important is faith, a relationship with God and obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Individually and corporately. And it will not be the same every week! “The wind blows where it will…” (John 3:8).

We don’t love each other, but we are church members. We despise one another, but we go to church on Sunday and sit through the performance. We are only interested in money and gossip, but we stand up while the Bible is being read. We boast about not going to the cinema, but we can’t turn the TV off. We worship the pastor, but we don’t do what he says. We don’t evangelise, if people want to get saved they know where we are. Are we disciples of Christ? Well…

Perhaps the main point of all this, is that a disciple of Christ is a spiritual person, who understands the things of God (1 Cor 2:12-15), knows the Lord’s will from the Bible, and obeys the promptings of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:14 – “those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”). A legalist only moves in the area of the soul (emotion, intellect, flesh), but into order to keep a list of rules, there is no need for a relationship with God, because his behaviour is routine, unchangeable, uniform. There are two possible explanations for why someone might end up like this. Either someone somehow ends up in the church without being born again, or he may have been born again at some point, but for some reason did not obey God at a certain stage, and now no longer seeks God, but just attends church, and keeps to certain external signs.

If we consider the works of the flesh as listed in the Bible (e.g. Galatians 5:19-21; 2 Tim 3:1-5), we see that religious hypocrisy is also on the list right alongside the more obvious sins. Legalism is just as much a moral weakness as lawlessness! A few examples typical of lawlessness: adultery, impurity, drunkenness, carousing, murder. And characteristic of religiousness: idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, strife, jealousy, betrayal, selfish ambition, envy, arrogance, slander, hypocrisy, pride. The Word says: “Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:21), and “these have a form of godliness but deny its power. Have nothing to do with them.” (2 Tim 3:5). What should be typical of believers, on the other hand, is the fruit of the Spirit: “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23).

The figure below displays the difference between carnal and spiritual conduct: 

                                  THE FLESH

Lawlessness                     ↔                   Legalism 

                      WALKING IN THE SPIRIT

                                    Holiness 

Coming back to the difference between Paul and James as mentioned at the beginning, there is no contradiction here, the two writers are just fighting different enemies. Paul says that salvation is by grace through faith, but God has prepared good deeds for us to do (Ephesians 2:8-10). Salvation is not by works of the law, therefore, but we must obey when the Lord leads. Paul is fighting legalism. James uses the example of Abraham, that when he heard the voice of the Lord, he obeyed (James 2:14-26). James is fighting lawlessness, also known as antinomianism, or the type of gospel which proclaims: “Just believe, and do nothing else.” Moreover, whole movements have been built on one or other of these two false concepts.

I will just illustrate these differences using formulae:

Antinomian gospel:

Faith in Christ → salvation + O

Legalistic gospel:

Faith in Christ + obedience to rules → salvation

Biblical gospel:

Faith in Christ → salvation + obedience to the Holy Spirit

Following on from all this, I would assert that religious observance / legalism cannot be a fellow-worker with Christianity, although it resembles it externally and may look good, but it is actually its greatest enemy. After all, Jesus had his greatest conflicts with the religious people of his day, and in the end, they killed him. Think about it!

A little story to finish off. I once read about two Chinese girls, who had heard the gospel on the radio and got converted. A few months later they went to see a mission president and said they wanted to be missionaries. He did not want to use them, as he thought they were too young, but as he could not get rid of them, he sent them to an island where there were no Christian churches. Two years later, they came back to report. They said that these fishermen types were really tough, and they had been able to do very little, because they were only young girls, and there had been very few results. He finally got it out of them that they had founded 30 churches over the two years, with membership ranging 200-2000. Greatly surprised, the leader asked them what their missions strategy was. They looked at each other, and said: “Well, we pray, the Holy Spirit tells us what to do, and we do it.”

I like it! We should like to do the same in our mission work!