To Be A Christian

Issues – July/August 2016 – Grace & Truth Magazine

To Be A Christian —
What Does It Mean To You?

A Failure?
Injustice, violence and immorality are some features of today’s world. It is a pity that the “Christianized” countries, where for centuries religion has slowed the weakening of good behavior, are now serving as examples of perversion and corruption. Will it all end in the total failure of Christianity and the triumph of evil over good? No! It is not Christian principles that have failed, but Christians themselves.

The sad truth is that Christians in general have not taken seriously, much less lived, the teaching of Christ – a teaching supremely admirable that teaches obedience to God and love to our neighbor. There are many people who speak favorably of Christian morals. But they do not accept the One who established and inspires them: Jesus Christ.

A Questionable Claim?
Do you know that biblically a Christian is not a Christian simply because he or she takes that name? Rather, a Christian is a disciple of Christ and His representative before the world. Those who call themselves Christians but do not live according to the teachings of Christ are giving a motive for blasphemy. “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” therefore, “let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity” (Rom. 2:24; 2 Tim. 2:19 ESV).

Can you rightly be called a Christian? Are you a disciple of Jesus according to the definition that He gave: “If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples.” Or are you one of those to whom Christ will say when they present themselves before Him: “I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness” (Jn. 8:31; Mt. 7:23)?

A true Christian is not a Christian by being registered as a member or as baptized by a church. Those are not registers that will be consulted when everyone counting on those lists appears before God and will be judged according to their works: “Another book was opened, which is the book of life ... and if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:12-15).

A Right?
Your surname identifies you as born into your family; your relationship is registered in official records. In the same way the Bible teaches that a birth is required in order to be able to call oneself by the name of Jesus Christ and enter into membership in the family of God – a new birth. This is the only way your name can appear in the “book of life,” where God records those who have believed in His Son and have received Him as their personal Savior. “To all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God” (Jn. 1:12).

It is a “right,” but it is based exclusively on the work of Christ and not on any merit of the individual. One is not a Christian because he or she is better or more religious than others, but because of an intimate relationship – a family relationship – with the Lord Jesus.

A Relationship?
So we see that Christianity is not just a collection of rites, ceremonies, dogmas and religious rules. Nor is it a list of prohibitions. Christianity is knowing a person – Jesus Christ.

Jesus spoke about the necessity of the new birth to Nicodemus, an important Jewish rabbi who asked: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God ... For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:4-5,16).

This relationship is established once for all time when we recognize that we are guilty sinners condemned to eternal judgment, and we repent and receive the pardon that God offers to us through His Son. We accept salvation freely as offered by God on the basis of the redemption that His Son, Jesus Christ, accomplished when He died on the cross at Calvary. We receive Him by faith and He once for all credits us with all the value of His work and of His blood shed to erase our sins. At the same time we receive new birth and a new life (Rom. 3:23, 6:23).

Furthermore, in that moment the Holy Spirit enters into our life and remains with us. The Spirit helps a new disciple to live the life that pleases the Lord. He begins to produce His “fruit of the Spirit” which brings inner peace, patience, true joy, love toward God and our neighbor, and the desire to serve Christ (Eph. 1:13; Gal. 5:22-23; Jn. 13:16-17).

A Response?
Christian love is a reciprocal, or mutual, love. “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19). Because we love Him we seek to be in His presence, and we enjoy reading and obeying His Word. Walking like this with Him, the Spirit conforms us to the image of Christ and we begin to display some of the character of Christ in our lives. Far from being a religion of formalities and obligations, the Christian recognizes the immense grace of the Lord and the rights He holds over the life of those who are His. The true Christian finds joy and satisfaction in living to please Christ, and thus becomes more and more like Him.

In order to do what pleases the Lord it is necessary to live in intimate company with Him, to understand what pleases Him and what displeases Him. The Bible, which is the expression of all of God’s thoughts, teaches us. “If anyone loves Me,” Jesus said, “he will keep My word” (Jn. 14:23).

A Reason To Live?
A man is defined by his desires. If he loves money, he is greedy. If he seeks power, he is ambitious. If he loves Jesus Christ, he is a Christian. “The love of Christ controls us ... [Christ] died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor. 5:14-15).

When one understands things in this way, the Christian life is not just a beautiful ideal and the most noble of causes, but it is the only true life because it includes the certainty of eternity.

Jesus is the object of the Christian life! He is the only cause worthy for which to live and die.

This article is adapted from our Spanish tract #125, available from Grace & Truth.