Dying to Live: Understanding the Freedom of Discipleship
The Gospel is a call to liberty. Jesus announced that the Father had sent Him “to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk. 4:18-19). Whereas much of the Prophets’ message was about judgment, the Church has the unique privilege of proclaiming the Good News: Jesus death and resurrection saves us from God’s eternal wrath. Christians have been released from the Law’s curse of condemnation and are set free to live righteously in Christ (Rom. 8:1-2).
Liberty costs, however, and that cost is discipleship. Many times the Gospel is couched solely in terms of the freedom that it provides and not in what it requires of believers. But for Jesus, the Gospel was a “costly grace,” as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it. Freedom has a price [1]. It did for Jesus, and it does for His disciples.
Jesus has called all believers to take up their cross and to follow Him if they will be His disciples. But what does it mean to “take up the cross”? What significance does the cross have for discipleship? Finally, what freedom does the cross provide through discipleship? A quick survey of the Gospels provides answers to these questions.
Living to Die
Discipleship and death are inextricably linked. Without death there is no discipleship. This is displayed in John’s passion narrative where he wrote that Jesus “went out, bearing his own cross, to a place called The Place of the Skull,” meaning Golgotha (Jn. 19:17). Furthermore, all three of the Synoptic Gospels record Jesus commanding His disciples to take up their cross after Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah, and Jesus foretold of his own crucifixion (Mt. 16:13-28; Mk. 8:27-9:1; Lk. 9:18-27). Clearly Jesus’ death is the paradigm for what it means for people to take up their cross. The way death is understood, however, varies in meaning depending on the context in which it was used.
In Matthew 10:34-39, Jesus said that He did not come to bring peace, but instead a sword. He taught that family security often hindered a person’s devotion toward God. Thus, Jesus said that anyone who loves family more than Him is not worthy of Him. In other words, Jesus called His disciples to die to family. In the first century, families were the only form of economic security that most people had. Without the family’s financial assistance, most people would have become destitute with no help from anyone. Family, furthermore, was what tied people to their community, providing them with a sense of identity. However, Jesus demanded His disciples to forsake the security family provided, and identify with Him in their death to such security.
Another context in which death takes on a different meaning is in Luke 14:25-33. In verse 33, Jesus defined what it means to die by taking up the cross: “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” Jesus’ words here are sobering. Though Jesus, again, tells His disciples that they must forsake family, He broadens the scope considerably by instructing them to renounce all that they have for Christ’s sake. This could refer to one’s possessions, wealth, or anything considered valuable to the individual (family included). In this context, the death that Jesus’ disciples will experience when taking up their cross will be the renunciation of anything valued more than Jesus. He tells His followers to count the costs because the stakes are high. The death that Jesus requires is one that could cost everything—money, possessions, and all.
As these examples illustrate, Jesus clearly taught that one could not be a disciple without the willingness to die. Death, however, comes in many forms. Bonhoeffer stated it best:
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call [2].
If anyone desires to be Christ’s disciple, death, in some form, is inevitable. But the freedom that death brings is the primary reason why Jesus calls His disciples to die in the first place.
Dying to Live
Ironically, it is only when Christians bear the cross of death that they truly learn to live. Jesus remarks, “For whoever will save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (Mt. 16:27-28, cf. Mk. 8:35-37; Lk. 9:24-25). Jesus tells us that what we hold dear in the world, regardless of what it is, means nothing if we lose our soul along with it. Instead, those who lose their life for “my sake,” says Jesus, “will find it.” In other words, the opposite applies as well. That is, if they lose the whole world through death, then they will gain everything through life.
The apostle Paul proposes a similar idea, though stated differently. He says:
Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:3-4).
The cross is the paradigm by which we not only understand the disciple’s death, but also the freedom to be a disciple. The apostle continues, “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom. 6:6). This was Jesus’ intention when He told the disciples to take up their cross and follow Him. Being Jesus’ disciple meant that they would “be brought to nothing” so that they would no longer be enslaved to sin, but free to live for God.
What takes place in justification is only the first step in the process of what progressively happens in sanctification, however. Paul spoke of he and Timothy to the Corinthians: We “always carried in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also might be manifested in our bodies” (2 Cor. 4:10-11). For Paul, this was the Christian life and the process of sanctification.
This principle is the paradigm for the Christian life. C. S. Lewis agreed when he wrote:
The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes ever day and the death of your whole body in the end. Submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find him, and with everything else thrown in [3].
As Lewis shows, Christians must die to live, and this is a never-ending cycle. When we die to our ambition, pride, and desires, we find the freedom to truly live. And though the costs are great, the rewards outweigh the costs. Discipleship is the process of living from death to life. And where there is life, there is freedom, freedom to live for God and live for others.
In regards to discipleship, both Jesus and Paul make one thing clear: We live to die, but we die to live. On the one hand, we are in the business of dying. We must count the costs and die to self. On the other hand, we are in the business of life. For it is only when we die that we truly gain the freedom we need to finally live.
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[1] Dietriech Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Touchstone Book, 1959), 43-56.
[2] Ibid., 89-90.
[3] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Harper Collins, 1952), 226-227.
June 10, 2013
Jeremy, I am thankful for your thoughts. You mentioned Romans 6, and I wanted to share an item of particular interest. Throughout Romans 6, Paul employs a strong usage of personal pronouns, like “we”. Paul discussed that being a slave or servant to righteousness actually brings freedom. When we become “slaves of righteousness”, we submit to the Father’s will in love. May we do as Paul, and crucify the flesh daily-then we can experience true freedom in Christ!
June 12, 2013
You make a good point, Dustin. Thanks for your comment and readership.