I recently had an experience in a household where three young children had come back from bible school and were talking about heaven. One of the kids was just learning to read, but somehow articulated that heaven is like unconsciousness and would be boring cause there’ll be nothing to do. Later on, the mother was explaining the concept of the “elf on the shelf”, it helped santa track who was being naughty or nice. The mother conceded to its silliness but kept it because it actually worked! At that moment the Lord revealed to me that Santa Clause was rooted in materiality. He’s a physical being that lives on the earth, you just don’t see him because he lives in the North Pole. Although the physics is hard to understand he really does somehow go down every chimney, we know this because he eats our cookies and drinks our milk. He really does have a reward to those who have been good. He did it last year so he’ll do it again. Even as the season draws nearer, and the ornamentation goes up, the children are refreshed and reminded that the day of Santa is drawing near, so they better be nice. Just think about the insanity! At the earliest age, Santa is rooted in materiality, but God is rooted in immateriality.
The false doctrine of the immaterial destiny of the saints, is one of the reasons, the modern Church cannot produce disciples. Today, discipleship is akin to trial and error, we make discipleship programs based on what methods are proven to work. 1 I think of discipleship as an analogy of a son receiving a multi-million dollar business as an inheritance from his father. The son is only 8 years old at the time and will not inherit the company until the Father knows the son is absolutely ready. The son needs to walk worthy of this calling and demonstrate that he is able to bear such a weighty responsibility. Like father like son, the child must learn to imitate his father. It’s his father's business after all. Similarly as believers, our calling is to inherit the coming Kingdom, but until then our discipleship consists of walking a straight and narrow path, in a manner worthy of our call, with fear and trembling, etc. (Matthew 7:13-14, Ephesians 4:1, II Thessalonians 1:11, Philippians 2:12).
The apostles walked with Jesus for over 3 years and then received instruction from the Chief Apostle Himself for 40 days before the ascension. Think of the questions they must have asked Jesus related to discipleship. We see in the epistles that the apostles constantly reminded the Church of their destiny in both the Day of the LORD (the day of evaluation, where the motives of men’s hearts will be revealed, 1 Cor. 4:5, Rom. 2:16) and the glories of the age to come.
Because the Day of the LORD was real to the early church and the coming glories of the age to come were real and material, they had a real impetus to walk in a manner worthy of both the Day of the LORD and the coming Kingdom. They wanted to be trained in righteousness so that they could rule and reign with Messiah. They were even willing to share in His sufferings that they might also partake in His glory. (Luke 24:25, Col. 1:24, Phil. 3:10, II Tim. 2:12) This discipleship produced fruit that did not shrink back or wither in the midst of horrid and pervasive persecution.
Along the lines of our analogy, the father had constantly reminded his son of the privilege, honor, and benefits of running a business. The son might have asked for a tour of the office to get a glimpse of what the father was talking about. He might have asked to come to work with his dad on a couple of occasions, just to observe and get a feel for what it was like. The father must have also warned his son about the hardships of running a business, the pitfalls the son must prepare for. The inheritance was a free gift, but the business could not be mocked. To the level and degree that the son prepared, the bottom line would reveal (Gal. 6:7-8).
The son understanding this had a motivation to put down his video games and spend time in activities that prepared him for the reality of running a business. He may have chosen a particular school and field of study, he may have asked his dad for tips, he may have woken up early each morning to discipline his life. The discipleship or preparation is a natural function of what the son believes.
Today, the modern church embraces a theology of “once saved always saved” and a Platonized ideal of an immaterial heavenly destiny. We don’t have fear and trembling regarding the Day of the LORD because our salvation is assured to us from reciting a sinner’s prayer. The glories of the age to come on a restored earth are replaced with a disembodied state with a harp on a cloud. Nobody really grasps how to live worthy of playing a harp on a cloud for eternity, so discipleship just becomes methodology and programs based on arbitrary set of rules or a proven track record of success.
To carry our analogy along, the father rarely speaks of the business and when the son inquires the father speaks of the business in language that the son cannot relate to. The son is not permitted to come on any tours but is assured that running the business will be awesome. The father also tells the son there’s no practical way to prepare, but be ready anyway. Therefore, the son grows up playing a lot of video games and being generally slack with his time and energy. Later on at age 18, a friend sells him into a pyramid scheme offering quick money and because the hope of having a business was not anchored in materiality, the son is easily sidetracked from his calling.
The analogy tends to break down because in our calling as believers we have a Father who has more leadership and capability than we have proclivity to mess things up. We have been given the better provisions of the sacrifice on the Cross and the Holy Spirit as a counselor instructing us in righteousness so that we can sojourn faithfully unto receiving a rich welcome into the Kingdom of Messiah. However, the point that I’m trying to illustrate is that discipleship must be rooted in light of the Day of the LORD and the coming Kingdom. How we live will reveal what we actually believe.
Footnotes:
1 "One of the most basic lessons I learned from McGavran was that the best way to discover what makes churches grow is to study growing churches. As a result, my first season of research, spanning the 1970s and into the 1980s, was spent doing exactly that. In retrospect, I now look at this as researching the technical principles of church growth. - Chapter 14 of the Transforming Power of Revival / http://www.pastornet.net.au/renewal/journal15/15b%20Wagner.htm
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