Two Tiered Christianity

Throughout the history of the church there have been movements that attempted to promote a two tiered view of the church. The gnostic heresies talked of those without liberating knowledge, the unenlightened, and those "in the know." Today such ideas can be seen in differentiating between believers and seekers, believers and Christ followers. The monastic movement saw a difference between those concerned with living every day lives and those who separated themselves to chastity, poverty, and obedience within the cloister. The radicals of the Reformation proposed doing away with every vestige of the medieval church. They sought to return to primitive christian practices, believer's baptism, and a holiness based in the Law of God. These ideas are around today in popular American evangelicalism. Dichotomies such as: Jesus as only Savior or Jesus as also Lord, a christian or a disciple, weak believers or mature believers, cheap grace or costly grace, carnality or Spirit baptism, etc.

I do not dismiss some of the distinctions made in the past. But have you noticed one glaring problem? The distinctions in our perceptions about ourselves and others all revolve around us and what we do. We must seek gnosis. We must be Christ followers. We must separate ourselves from the world. We must make Jesus Lord. We must go beyond being merely a christian and become a disciple. We must show that we appreciate the cost of grace by our lives of sacrifice. We must be Spirit filled and speak in tongues. Each of these distinctions, that focus on what we do in contrast to others who don't, feeds our pride. We are better than them. We are mature. They are still babies. Paul wrote in 2 Cor. 10:12 "For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise."

When we compare ourselves to one another of course we can find others who don't measure up to "our standard." Believe me, that many of those who don't measure up are aware. We don't let them forget. Some of them will eventually become despondent. They will walk away from the church. We will have committed a grave sin of pushing sinners away from God. You think this is unreasonable and overstated. I am one of those who could have walked away. I knew many who did. The common factor was the bait and switch move from the Gospel to the Law. Sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus changes to our own efforts to keep a self imposed list of rules, even rules based soundly in Scripture, in order to be all we can be. Those who think they have attained some measure of success in doing so feel good about themselves and their attainments.

After all a disciple, so the argument goes, is self-disciplined. Get with it! Just try harder. Develop good habits. Get off your lazy butt and do what God commands. However, the transfer of discipline, and hence self-discipline, from the term disciple is illegitimate. It is based in English not Greek. In Greek the term disciple, mathetes, at its most basic meaning is "a learner, a pupil." One could say that for a christian the focus should be on the One teaching us through his Word. Who talks about or remembers a great teacher's pupil? The focus is on the Teacher!

In the Bible there is no distinction between a christian and a disciple. In The Gospels the term disciple, mathetes, is almost exclusively used of the twelve. The Gospels do not present a flattering picture of the twelve. They look and act a lot like us with their jealousy, pride, selfishness, and even unbelief. In Acts the term expands to include all believers. In Acts 11:26 the term christianos is equivalent to mathetes, "And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." Paul, the apostle who was certainly a disciple, called himself the chief of sinners (in the present tense not past tense, 1 Tim. 1:15). He showed the struggle he had against a contrary law in his members at conflict with what he wanted and should do (Rom. 7:23). I can understand Paul's struggle. The longer I have been a christian the less holy I feel. I see so much more about me that doesn't measure up to God's absolute standard. Perhaps the problem with two tiered christianity is simply that we think in the wrong terms. We are measuring ourselves by the wrong standard. We pick a standard that we can achieve either by actually doing it or by fudging a bit and excusing ourselves from perfection. In our pride we deceive ourselves that we actually do what God expects! But if we measured ourselves against perfection which of us could claim any level of attainment? "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

Luther taught that the christian life is a life of repentance. When we truly measure ourselves by God's standard we can fully understand why he said this. In fact, we don't know the half of it. I am sure that I don't always recognize when I fall short of God's standard. This is especially true when it concerns doing good works. In my opinion we need forgiveness as much for our good works as we do for our sins! I need forgiveness for this blog and for my last sermon! Perhaps we should say that even our best works are tainted and corrupted by sin. Good news! Christ didn't just die for our sins. He lived for us. In Heb. 5:8 it says, "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered." The term "learned" in Greek is manthano. Guess what term it is closely related to? Your right, the term is a cognate (very closely related term) of the term disciple, mathetes. Christ's perfect obedience before God is the perfection of what we call discipleship! Though I could never be the perfect disciple, Jesus was, for me! So, even though we try hard, we fail to be what God wants us to be. Thank God Jesus served God without sin for us. Therefore God forgives my imperfect obedience in Christ.

Then why do any good works? Why go to church, why study the Bible, why do good deeds for others? We go to church and study the Bible to learn from Christ and receive his gifts. We do good deeds for our neighbor in order to bear testimony of our gracious Lord. In all of this as christians, as disciples, we live in God's forgiveness for all of our sins, even those that are called good works. We all live in the same forgiveness as sinners saved by grace alone!