Son of God. Thus, discipleship is not merely following the Son of God who accidentally or arbitrarily died, but following the one who has died because that is the fullest manifestation of the self-giving and reconciling nature of the Son of God, and thus of God himself.12 Therefore, to follow Christ in the way of the cross is more akin to participating in the reality or life or story of God—God’s narrative identity, we might say—than to following someone at a distance or even imitating a master.