|
Come and Die
A couple of months ago, I wrote about how true discipleship comes with a cost. The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of the great works of our time that really captures what this means. Perhaps its most famous line says it best: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
In this quote, Bonhoeffer turns his back on the notion of “cheap grace”—the idea that one could be saved by Jesus yet live an unchanged life. Instead, he paints a picture of true discipleship, one that aligns with Jesus’ own call: “Follow me.” It’s a call to radical commitment—being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus, and doing as Jesus did, as pastor John Mark Comer describes the discipleship pattern.
What does new life in Jesus necessitate? Death. Death to self, to our old life of sin, to personal agendas, and to comfort. It’s death that leads to new birth. As Jesus said to Nicodemus, the Jewish religious leader and scholar, in John 3:3: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And that new birth comes only in Jesus.
But we don’t—we can’t—do this alone. We have the model—and more than that, we have the One who makes this death and rebirth possible: Jesus Christ, the God-man. Jesus went to the cross and to the grave, paying the full and just penalty for our sins, and rose victorious over sin and death. His resurrection guarantees ours—not only on that Last Day but for today.
Through His Spirit, Jesus enables us to die to the old self and be born anew, empowered to live in and for His Kingdom today. So come to Jesus. Come and die, that you may truly live and be born again into eternal life.
| 
