A disciple is a learner and a follower. The Lord Jesus is both Saviour and Master of all those
whom He has 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 14:25-35). It is not that the
disciples were deprived of all as by force, for then the affections might still be engrossed with
such things; but rather there was a deliberate and willing separation from all that would interfere
with following Christ. 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 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" (v. 26). 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.

Some have given up father and mother for the sake of worldly advantage; others to gain the
applause of seemingly religious men, which is but another phase of the same world. There is only
one case in which the Lord shows the necessity of forsaking father and mother, and that is when
the child is commanded to forsake Christ; in every other it is sin against Him who said of old,
"Honor thy father and thy mother," and also by the apostle, "Children, obey your parents." When
father or mother, yea, or wife or life, comes in competition with Christ, then all must be "hated";
the disciple must bear the cross and follow Him. If any of these stand in the way of confessing
Christ as Saviour, it is better to be driven from home and disowned by parents, than to be
Christless.

Hate in this scripture is not to be understood in its meaning of intense dislike. The true disciple
does not at all dislike his unconverted relatives, but he seeks their blessing. He may be intensely
disliked by them, for he cannot join in their worldly pleasures, and his joys are beyond their
apprehension. They are outside and opposed to all that he loves and follows. Hence to the world
he has the appearance of hating them. This is a trial to the disciple who longs to see them brought
to God, but he will not cease to follow Christ. The separation on the disciples’ part and the hatred
on the world’s part had a very acute form when the Lord was here. To break away from every
thing, to be in open separation from all that had hitherto been accounted of God and highly
esteemed, and as a consequence to be scorned by the religious persons of that day, was what the
disciples of Christ had then to endure.

Nor has the world changed from its hatred of true and faithful disciples. Our Lord and Master,
the first who trod the path of utter rejection and world’s hatred, is now on the Father’s throne; but
the path remains the same. The world has tried to take away the offence of the cross, to make a
pleasant way for nature. It has carved out another pathway, and very easy walking it is to tile
natural man. But the real old path of true discipleship is as rough as ever; the truth has not
changed. In the world’s religious path there is no need to count any cost; there is nothing to
endure, or give up, or hate, for His name’s sake. Those who walk therein know not the meaning

of disciple.

In John 8:31 we have another trait of true discipleship:"If ye continue in My word, then are ye
My disciples indeed." The word in which the disciples are to continue is in connection with Christ
being "lifted up"_an expression which had no doubtful meaning to the Jew. It meant a shameful
death, the cross, the death of a malefactor. They should know who He was when they lifted Him
up; but would those who then believed on Him continue in His word, as the One who only spoke
and acted in obedience to the Father? Would they so continue when He would be condemned and
crucified between two thieves? His discipleship involved this. When that hour came even the true-
hearted failed, the sheep were Scattered; but the risen Lord gathered them again. Abiding in the
word is more than knowing the truth intellectually:the essential point is obedience to the truth,
a life conformed by the truth and marked by the holiness which grace demands. For knowledge
of the truth may be separated from obedience to it. A man may be orthodox in doctrine and lax
in practice, or outwardly unimpeachable in life but unsound in fundamental truth. In neither case
is he a true disciple.

Continuance in the word of Christ is a sure sign of true discipleship. The followers of Christ were
then assailed, slandered, and evilly spoken of. At this present day disciples have to bear the same.
Perhaps no former time gave greater opportunities for the true disciple to show faithfulness to
Christ. The faggot and scaffold do not require more power of faith than constant misrepresentation
and untruthful accusation need its sustaining energy. Patient abiding in the Word of God amid the
contentions of those who oppose and amid the breaking up of old and cherished ties, is the mark
of a meek and quiet spirit. The truth makes us free from strife and self-will.

This leads to a further mark of true discipleship:"By this shall all know that ye are My disciples,
if ye have love one to another" (John 13:35). Men were unable to appreciate the previous marks
given. A disciple giving up all to follow Christ would be esteemed a fool. To confess that flesh
is profitless, that it is only by the operation of the Spirit of God that a soul receives Me, without
whose power all man’s strength is vain, seems fanaticism. To part company with the respectable
religious world, to be numbered with the despised, seems bigotry, or at least as having strange
notions unsuited to this enlightened age! But if we have Christ to fill the eye and the heart, all
these things are proofs of being disciples, of discipleship before God. In this chapter the Lord
gives a mark which the natural man can recognize; it might create wonder, but there would be an
evident testimony of a power superior to the selfishness of nature. The Lord gave the pattern of
this love:"As I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (v. 34).

Another mark of discipleship is given in John 15:8:"Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear
much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples." The emphasis is not the bearing much fruit, but the
glorifying of the Father. Much fruit-bearing is the means, the Father’s glory is the end. It was
what we see the Lord Himself always doing, and it is the highest mark of discipleship. It contains
in itself every other mark "Hating" all for Christ’s sake without a lingering look of regret toward
the Sodom we have been delivered from, or a looking back if only to bid farewell to those at home
(Luke 9:62), this is the blossom which in maturity is much fruit, as it ripens, manifesting every
other trait of discipleship until in full fruition the Father is glorified. Abiding in the Word,
obedience, loving one another as Christ has loved us, is the much fruit that glorifies the Father.

Mark the place the glory of the Father has in the heart of the Lord Jesus. As it was His meat to
do the Father’s will (John 4:34) and thus glorify Him, so any who glorified the Father should be
His disciples.

May our hearts be stirred up more distinctly to follow Christ, to be truly His disciples, that the
Father might be glorified.

(The Bible Treasury, Vol. 15.)