Or, The Proper Basis for Making Disciples
Scripture: Selected Scriptures
Date: March 2, 2014
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Making disciples is not an option. To be a Christian is to follow Christ, to be His disciple. Christ commissioned His disciples to make disciples, so a follower cannot be a (faithful) follower of Christ without making fellow followers. The very nature of discipleship requires that every disciple must also be a discipler.
But there is another reason for making disciples. Personal discipleship isn’t merely one methodological option, it is deeply, eternally theological. The ground and the goal, and the process in between, are all Trinitarian.
We are diving into the deep end of the pool, but I promise that the water is warm. Here is a pool noodle of encouragement to hang onto.
Be encouraged: you can be passionate about discipleship without fully comprehending the Trinity. [insert smile] That’s true, of course, since no finite mind can fully comprehend an infinite God. The Trinity ante raises the pot to a profound, supernatural, and eternal level that your hand of cards can’t cover. You should fold. Besides the limits of logic, I know that my own appreciation for the Trinity hit the gas pedal only in the last two or three years, yet I (think I) was already driving the discipleship car. For what it’s worth, my excitement in the Trinity began with Genesis 1 and 2—which I realize is only a shot across the Trinitarian bow anyway—and has been spurred by a few additional books.
But I’m a different discipler because of the Trinity. Apart from the Trinity, discipleship is like “tying shoelaces tighter to make up for a bad fitting shoe” (Sanders, The Deep Things of God, 8).
The doctrine of the Trinity is “latent, but not blatant, in the Bible” (Sanders, 232). Yet, interestingly enough, one of the clearest, most visible statements of the Trinity comes in the Great Commission.
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20, ESV)
In all our rush to purchase cheap plane tickets to “the nations,” for all the baptism robes and hermeneutics books we’ve bought, I wonder if we’ve run right by the Trinity.
The warm-up exercise—one for which the teacher gives no points—is that discipleship requires “baptizing [disciples] in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (v.19). Why is “name” singular when more than one person is mentioned? How can three persons have one name? That’s the Trinity.
That’s only the most obvious observation in the paragraph. How do we explain that when the eleven disciples went to the mountain and saw Jesus, “they worshipped him” (v.17)? Isn’t worship supposed to be something that’s reserved only to God? The disciples worshipped Jesus and Jesus didn’t stop them because Jesus is God. That’s also the reason they didn’t question His order to teach their disciples to “observe everything I [Jesus] commanded” (v.19). Jesus is Lord, that’s why His commandments bear authority. Somehow, God was in flesh.
That leads to another question. Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth have been given to me” (v.18). Who gave Him that authority? He’s God; they worshipped Him as God. Isn’t it odd for Jesus to talk about giving authority to Himself? Why didn’t Jesus say, “I’ve always had authority”? Who could give God authority? God could, and in particular, God the Father gave authority to God the Son.
Jesus is God. The Father is God. The Father sent His Son, the Son sends His disciples. That’s not all the Son sends.
That brings us to another question. Jesus comforts the disciples with, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (v.20). How so? Didn’t Jesus ascend into heaven (Acts 1:9-11)? Did the “end of the age” already happen? It doesn’t help to say that the end of the age was the destruction of Jerusalem because that didn’t happen for almost another 40 years. Did Jesus change His mind? Consider the ascension account in Acts 1.
In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen [the Great Commission]. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:1-8)
This is more Great Commission speak: “be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” In other words, make disciples of all nations. The Trinity is hidden in plain sight again. We see the Father with authority, a global witness program for Jesus, carried out by the power of the Spirit! And that’s the answer to His promise of presence: Jesus is with His disciples in His Spirit.
Making disciples is carried out under the authority of the Father by the power of the Spirit for the sake of the Son. Our work is Trinitarian, it’s basis, it’s energy, and it’s goal.
Why, oh why, so much Trinity stuff? Is this really necessary? How much of this is on the test? Isn’t the God-man difficult enough to explain to people? Isn’t the cross enough of a scandal and offense? Isn’t the call to take up your cross and lose your life demanding enough?
It’s safe to assume that God knows exactly how difficult the doctrine of the Trinity is for us to wrap our minds around. I think it’s also safe to assume that He revealed it because it is important, and that there is also a reason it is so intricately woven into our disciple-making commission. In fact, perhaps one of the reasons we don’t know how to approach personal discipleship is because we don’t know how to approach the Trinity. So there are at least two reasons (really) why the Trinity is the theological basis for discipleship.
Disciple-making relates to a particular God. God is unique above the gods of the nations and God reveals Himself as one-of-a-kind and three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Disciple-making is Trinitarian, not unitarian. We talk about three Persons, not three different modes of God, as if He changes from one form into another depending on the time or situation. All three Persons have always existed as their own Person. That also means that Jesus did not become God. He did not take on divinity at any point, though He did become human by taking on flesh at His incarnation.
There is a confessional commitment to discipleship. When we baptize disciples, the disciples identify with a specific God. From the earliest doctrinal debates, the church has worked hard to distinguish the Trinity with accuracy, e.g., the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed.
Certain facts about God must be communicated in the form of words to disciples. God is who He is, we are to worship Him as He is, not as we imagine or prefer, and God is Triune. “God minus creation would still be God, but God minus Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would not be God” (Sanders, 70). If we do not teach who He is, if we leave the Godhead vague or foggy, we are making disciples of another god. Unless disciples identify with and worship the triune God, they are idolators.
That doesn’t mean, as I said earlier, that a person must be able to explain how the eternal three and One works before they can repent and believe for salvation. It does mean, however, that we are responsible to teach theology proper in order to fulfill the Great Commission.
I think we probably get that part okay; we’re mindful of the need for accurate facts. So is that it? Is discipleship nothing more than passing along true, though often undigested propositions about God and parroting a Trinitarian formula when we dunk disciples under water?
Disciple-making relates to a particular God who is a personal God. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit, all three Persons, work as a tri-unit, not only that we may know certain facts about them, but also that we would have fellowship with them! Yes, there is a confessional commitment to discipleship. But we also have a relational commitment.
There are two ditches, not one, to avoid. The Trinity keeps disciple-making from being idolatrous. The Trinity also keeps disciple-making from being impersonal. Which implies that, to the degree that our disciple-making is impersonal, we are reflecting another god/idol, too. Many truth-toting Christians are in this ditch.
God reveals Himself in creation and redemption for sake of our fellowship with Himself.
Why did God create persons? Because He is Persons and we’re made to reflect Him. “Let us make man in Our image” (Genesis 1:26); “image” includes the capacity for relationship because He enjoyed His own relationships so much. Why did God mandate men to be fruitful and multiple (Genesis 1:28)? Why is it not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18)? Why are two better than one (Ecclesiastes 4:9)? How can two totally different persons be so intimate that they become one (Genesis 2:24)? Because of the Trinity.
He made us social beings because He is social by nature. Though He could have left us with horizontal experience of relationships only, He also invited men into a vertical relationship with Himself. It’s almost impossible to imagine how good Adam and Eve had it in the garden with the LORD. Then what happened at the fall? The intimacy (horizontal, but especially vertical) was shattered; the fellowship was broken. Note that Adam and Eve still had the facts, what they lost was the fellowship.
Redemption is the work of the Trinity to save sinners. That’s the gospel, that’s the message of disciple-making. But we can make that sound so impersonal depending on how we say it.
Maybe this question would help to clarify the difference in tone. Do you think God prefers justification (declaring guilty people to be righteous) or adoption (taking strangers as into His family)? Based on how we usually speak and disciple, adoption sounds good, but “justification is the doctrine by which the church rises and falls” (per Luther). But in itself, would you rather get your freedom from prison or a Father who provides?
Consider the purpose statements in these verses.
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God… (1 Peter 3:18, ESV)
The substitution of Christ, the righteous taking on our unrighteousness, justification, was so that “He might bring us to God”!
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. (Galatians 4:4-7, ESV)
The Father’s eternal plan, the history of redemption, involves delivering men from the law in order to adopt sons. We’re brought close enough to cry, “Abba, Father!” The Son redeems “so that we might receive adoption as sons,” making us brothers with Himself (cf. Romans 8:29). The third Person of the Trinity, “the Spirit of His Son” (v.6), “the Spirit of adoption” (Romans 8:18), indwells us. We are brought into the family of the Trinity.
God’s redeem-to-adopt (not foster to adopt) mission is Trinitarian, and He funds every part of it personally. “Christian salvation comes from the Trinity, happens through the Trinity, and brings us home to the Trinity” (Sanders, 10).
In his book, Knowing God, J.I. Packer put it this way:
Pardon, acceptance, and adoption, are distinct privileges, the one rising above the other in the order which they have been stated…The privilege of adoption presupposes pardon and acceptance, but is higher than either. (quoted by Sanders, 165)
God’s eternal purpose is to invite individuals into eternal life, that is, invite persons into His life, into intimacy like the Trinity and with the Persons of the Trinity. It’s not business, it’s personal.
That means that impersonal discipleship is false discipleship. That’s why the air war can only do so much. When I stand behind the music stand, I can set a direction, I can set a tone, but that is only a start and a small part of the process. The disciples of Jesus weren’t His disciples because they heard all His sermons, but because they followed Him around and asked Him questions later in small group. Discipleship requires relationship.
The basis for us to make personal disciples, to bring men and women from every nation into fellowship with God the Father through Christ by the Spirit, is that making disciples is God’s goal to share Himself, to share His eternal life, to share the relational joy of the Trinity with men and women from every nation.
Following the shoe/shoelace analogy above, the Trinity also provides the basis for unity with diversity of person, in marriage and in the Body of Christ, and in discipleship.
The three persons are never in conflict of purpose, never jealous over another’s position or specific work, never prideful over one’s own position or work, and they are always sharing fully the delight in being the one God and accomplishing the unified purpose of God. (Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 20)
Diversity is divine, but when we reflect isolated and disjointed diversity, we are not reflecting God. The Trinity also provides the basis for structures of authority and submission along with diverse roles with equality, again in marriage and in the Body. The Trinity makes leading and following a beautiful dance, not a boxing match.
How we disciple must be personal if we’re to reflect the Trinity that commissioned discipleship. We are building a community of disciples that reflect the Trinity that will one day enjoy the full glory of the Trinity.
Trinitarian facts prevent our discipleship from being shallow, sentimental, let alone idolatrous (e.g., Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons). But an only-for-facts’ sake Trinity leads to a only-for-facts’ sake discipleship. A Trinitarian God who aims to test us on our ability to explain Him means we better work to get disciples ready for the test.
Trinitarian fellowship, ours with God and shared with others, keeps our discipleship from being cold, distant, and suppressive (e.g., Islam, Hinduism). Instead, our intimacy with God leads to intimate, warm, and joyful disciple-making.
This is part of the reason that we believe Life to Life groups, second and fourth Sundays of the month Trinity Families Fellowship, youth afterglows, camping trips, coffee meetings, and more are crucial for our life together worshipping the Triune God.