INTRODUCTION TO DISCIPLESHIP
Matthew 5:17-18
"Do
not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come
to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and
earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will
by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
Christ said that only he who wills
to do the will of the Father in heaven will know whether his teaching is from
God. Understand, only he who does the will, who is in earnest about it, who
stakes his life on it. God is known only by those who venture, just as all
great things in life are seen only when we are obedient and downright serious
about them and not when we look at them from the easy chair of speculation and
noncommittal curiosity. And something more: don’t think you will get by with a
little philosophy like ‘do right and fear no man’. Your talisman doesn’t
trouble you at this point at all; it’s far from exercising even a bit of moral
control over you. But with Christ the first thing you will be shown is that
never in a thousand years will you be able to stand up before God.
At first Christ is always very disturbing. You are
dealing with the God who leads men into hell and out again. You are a nice,
easygoing world-ling (you don’t mind my saying this straight out?) and you have
settled down comfortably in your world-view. You are really convinced that you
have not settled down in hell. But if you are in earnest with Christ, you will
have to give up your comfort and peace of mind, not because you are supposed to
become a nervous worrier, but because it is a false, delusive peace, which you
keep propping up with the power of suggestion and your little magic devices.
But God loves the brokenhearted and the poor in spirit who have no illusions
about their won wretchedness as they stand before the face of God. As long as
you have not met God as one who opposes you, you haven’t met him at all…You
have already gained a great deal in at least coming to the point where you
realize that these things you are waking and standing on are only tottering
makeshifts and that beneath you lies an abyss.
The thing in this conversation which
seems to me to be important for the understanding of our texts is this: that at
the very beginning and as a kind of introduction to discipleship, Christ makes
us feel the implacable severity of the law and thus leads us to death.
Life Can Begin Again by Helmut Thielicke,
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963, pg.39.