What is the difference between a Christian and a disciple?

Everything thus supports and carries out more and more manifestly the meaning of this instructive type — the blessing figured by the incense and the bullock, for those that belong to the Lord, while He is now within on high. Mark the force of this. Are we not brought into association with Christ while He is in the sanctuary? Properly speaking, there was no Christian until Christ entered the sanctuary. There were disciples before. A disciple might be a Christian or he might not. For we read of disciples not merely in the Gospels but even in the prophecy of Isaiah (Isa. 8). Thus there were disciples who merged in the church of God, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles, as there were disciples long before the church began. A disciple, therefore, is not necessarily or properly a Christian.

But, as we have seen, the abounding and activity of grace, so this induces necessarily conflict; as the rejection of Jesus involved rejection, the activity of goodness involved the sacrifice of all in a world in possession of the enemy - the cost of all that tied us to it, and the opposition of the prince of it. If one made inroads in his kingdom one could not keep its outward blessing if one made war upon him. Of this Jesus warns the multitudes. They followed Him as an easy thing, interested and attracted, but not knowing whither He went or whither it led them. He tells them plainly: You cannot follow Me without sacrificing all, life and all. There is the principle of the new dispensation and its grace; the world is all gone wrong. It is the introduction of an extraordinary power into it, this very grace. The world is adverse. These things are links to it by which Satan will hinder in the war - the heart's hostages in his hands; there must be entire and simple devotedness in the war. So it was in Jesus in the exercise of grace. Such was discipleship to Him, for discipleship, though every Christian is a disciple, and every disciple is a Christian, is more than a Christian. It takes up the Christian in his learning from and following of Jesus in His life and service. "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples," for He had borne much fruit. So far as His disciples in this service and following Him, this would be the result or the necessity, and at the commencement that His work and its efficacy might be presented in power and force, it actually involved all this. It always does in the service to which this applies. So far as that service goes the warfare always involves the same consequences, "So then," says the apostle, "death worketh in us but life in you." He was carrying about in his body the dying (nekrosin) of the Lord Jesus, that His life might be manifest in his mortal body; he could not follow Jesus in his service otherwise. Such was his advice to Timothy. No man goeth a warfare at any time, etc.; and whoever did not carry his cross, set out on a constant course of humiliation, shame, and self-denial, cannot be His disciple.

1884 56 Disciple is learner, follower: the Lord Jesus is both Saviour and Master, Lord and Master of all men, of those whom He bought with His blood. Only believers are true disciples. To be a disciple of Christ while He was here below involved the loss of all that men value (Luke 14:26 etc.). Not by being deprived of all as by force, for then the affections might still be engrossed with them; but a deliberate and willing separation from all that would interfere with following Him. Faith is the first step in the path, the only true beginning. A false start, that is, a pretended following, when all else is not forsaken, frequently if not invariably leads to greater hardness of heart, and to infidelity. The sure natural result is hatred of the truth. The Lord warns the multitude of what is needed to be a true disciple, "if any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." Had they ears to hear? Anyone attempting to be a disciple in his own strength, by the working of his own will, would be like a man beginning to build a tower without counting the cost, or like a king going to war with ten thousand against another king with, twenty thousand. The cost of being a disciple is beyond the resources of man.

Another thing is comprised in her attitude. Sitting at His feet proclaimed that she had become His disciple. Thus Paul, speaking to the Jews in Jerusalem, reminds them that he had been brought up in the city "at the feet of Gamaliel," and had been "taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers," etc. (Acts 22:8.) It is not all Christians, as before said, who become disciples; and, on this account, we should mark well this position of Mary. And it adds increased significance to it, if we adopt the reading, preferred by most, "at the feet of THE LORD." It is remarkable to find the Spirit of God thus calling our attention, in this narrative, to the claims of Jesus as Lord, by giving us an example of one whose whole soul acknowledged them, and who, by sitting at His feet, owned Him in this title of absolute supremacy. It is a blessed moment for any soul when that point is reached, when He is enthroned in the heart as supreme, when His will becomes the only law of our daily lives, because we understand His word, "If ye love me, keep my commandments."

I am speaking now of discipleship in its real character, as it is presented in Luke 14. I repeat, beloved friends, you can be a true believer, and never have entered this path of identification with Christ. The sine qua non, the essential point for it is, that you must send away the multitude, and so break with things. and hindrances here. It is no use saying things will drop off, they won't. I used to say that at one time, but I do not now. They do not drop off.

The effect of beholding Jesus as He walked must be the realisation that He loves us; and His love, drawing out our love, attracts us to Him in such fashion that we are drawn after Him and we become followers of Christ. Are we not often content to know that we are under the shelter of the work of Christ, and sealed with the Spirit, without definitely following Christ? Following Christ must mean more than believing in Christ. It surely involves believing, for a follower must be a believer, and yet a believer is not always a follower. To follow implies that He has become the great Object before the soul — the One Who governs and controls the life. Is not the lack of this definite following the secret of the little progress that we make in our spiritual history; and does not this lack mark the difference between devotedness and half-heartedness?

To come after Jesus is in itself an arduous task from which any man might well shrink who knows not the Master. It is the knowledge of the gracious and glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ which awakens the sincere and whole-hearted response that men ought to make to His call to discipleship. But there are degrees and measures in the knowledge of Christ. There are many persons who know something of our Lord Jesus, who have answered His invitation and come to Him in their distress and weariness and penitence, and have found rest in Him and peace for their conscience but yet they have never followed Him! They have been content, as it were, to know Him from afar. Such Christians, sad to say, count absolutely nothing in the world in the matter of witness, of effective testimony for the One whom they profess to love.

Discipleship is the special form taken by the love that springs up responsively in the heart of a believer. It is the backward flow of divine love to its Source. To be a disciple is to be a learner, and not a learner only, but a follower; and when the grace of God grips a soul and new life begins, its first instincts are to learn of the Saviour and to follow Him.

The disciples of the Lord (Acts 9:1)

While the New Testament sometimes uses the phrase ‘the disciples’ to denote the twelve apostles specially called by the Lord while He was on the earth (Matt. 10:1–4), the word ‘disciples’, particularly in Acts, often refers more generally to those who had believed on the Lord Jesus. In both instances, the meaning of ‘disciple’ is important. Strong’s Concordance gives it as learner or pupil. Another thought connected with the word is a follower (see Luke 14:26–33). Although much of the truth which God has, in His grace, made known to us in the New Testament was still to be revealed at that time, the early Christians had willingly taken upon themselves the yoke of Christ and were learning of Him (Matt. 11:29). They also understood that the Lord Jesus was indeed Lord and that they were not their own (1 Cor. 6:19–20) but had to obey His commandments and follow in His footsteps (1 Pet. 2:21), cost them what it may. The word ‘disciple’ may not encapsulate all of our standing and privileges as believers in this dispensation (which may be why the word does not appear in the epistles), but would any of us want to suggest that we should not forsake all and follow the Lord Jesus in our lives?

The sixth of the so-called beatitudes shows very clearly that the “Sermon on the Mount” is not a social or political programme. Sad to say, within some parts of Christendom it is thus understood and explained. Neither does the Lord Jesus here address the multitudes following Him as if they were unbelievers, far from Himself. He does not call them to repentance and faith, even when He speaks to them apart from the disciples. They all belonged to Israel, the earthly people of God, who were waiting for their Messiah, the King promised by God. In the first place, these principles of the Kingdom of heaven are intended for them. But they are also meant for the Lord’s disciples at all times. “Disciple” really means “pupil, apprentice”. A good pupil will always endeavour to learn as much as possible from his teacher, in order to put it into practice himself. At the same time he will willingly subject himself to his teacher and thus accept his authority. The followers of the Lord Jesus on earth were first called disciples (and not only the twelve apostles, see Luke 6:13). We frequently come across the word “disciples” in Acts too. It was obviously a common name for Christians in the beginning. In contrast to other names like “children of God”, “saints” and “brethren”, which occur very often in the epistles of the New Testament and emphasise our blessings, “disciple” rather expresses our subjection and our following after, i.e. our responsibility.