What does it mean to be a Christian?

Going to church doesn't make you a Christian!

I generally don’t like to talk about what other people think – or more precisely what I think they think. So suffice it to say I have heard several people express what sounds to me like obvious misunderstandings of what Christianity is.

The word “Christian” (Greek Christianos) means follower of Christ. It was first used to mock the early believers as “little Christs”. But it stuck. This simple word really conveys the basics of Christianity – Christians are people who are followers of Christ. They should be like Christ.

Another word often used is "believer" - one who believes in Jesus Christ. But what does it mean to believe? In English, this word conveys a thought process, a simple measure of thinking something to be possible or likely, without finding it objectionable. It is used not as a permanent but rather fleeting, contemporary acceptance of something to be likely. But in the Biblical sense, the word believe conveys an ongoing, permanent, and complete trust that Jesus Christ is God, and that God can and will do what He says He can and will. It is the absolute acceptance that He is sovereign and in charge - He is our Lord, our Master, the One who created everything and makes the rules, the One who imposes the final judgement on us, and decide whether we will spend eternity in Heaven or in Hell. What He says matters above all else!

Think of the story of the Great Charles Blondin, the first man to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope, back in 1859. He made a number of crossings and daring stunts starting on June 30th, 1859. Legend has it that after carrying a sack of potatoes across in a wheelbarrow, he asked the audience if they believed he could carry a person across in it. They were all in awe and convinced, they all claimed to believe he could. But when he asked for a volunteer, nobody had enough trust to commit their life to it.

Later that year he carried his assistant Harry Colcord across on his back. That is the kind of belief we are called to have as Christians. Not in some tightrope walker, not in some great or important man or woman, but in Jesus Christ.

Unbelievers find the Bible unbelievable some 2000 years later. Going back to the Blondin story, according to the Smithsonian "One indignant resident of Niagara Falls insisted that he was a hoax, that there was “no such person in the world.”. ...At the same time it happened. And there are people who claim that the moon landing never happened and that there was no holocaust, even though the proof should be indisputable.

Today, “Christians” come in many shades. And quite frankly, most fall well short of the true meaning of the word. Some claim to be Christian simply because they grew up in a Western country, with Christian friends or family, or maybe they went to church while growing up. Some believe in Christ, but don’t really know what to do about that, and don’t believe in going to church. Some set aside Sundays for going to church and for fellowship with others who go to church. Many participate in and some may even lead a Sunday school class to gain status among their fellow churchgoers. Some will say their church is important to them.

These are all signs of what can be described as “cultural”, "secular", or marginal Christians.

So who, then, is a “real” Christian?

John 3:5-6 (ESV):

5Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

So the Spirit must be in us – we must be born again, of the Spirit. The Spirit indwells us and we develop a personal relationship with Christ through the Spirit. And we feed the Spirit in us by the reading of the word of God. As we get to know Christ and how he lived, we should imitate Him. As Christians, we should be like Christ.

John 5:19 (ESV): So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”

I’d say John 5:9 is a good model for how Christians should act. And I am a Christian.

But alas…

When people talk about being human – they often refer to the fact that we make mistakes, that we do things we aren’t supposed to, and worse. The Bible teaches us that we are all sinners. Only through the blood of Christ can we be forgiven for our sins. As much as we’d like to be without fault in what we do, we aren’t. We fail. We sin. We do things that are wrong – some worse than others, but still, we are all in the wrong in some way, and the closer we walk with the Lord, the better we understand our own depravity.

It does seem to be a common view that Christians act like they are “holier than thou”. I’m sure some do, but for the majority of born again Christians, I really don’t think that is a fair understanding. When we talk about morality and sin, and what we should do and what we shouldn’t do – it isn’t because we are perfect and never do any of those things. It is because God has prescribed to us how to live.

At this point, those that are opposed to Christianity are quick to point out that there is a long list of do's and don’ts, of harsh punishments, etc. listed in the Old Testament. And they pick some of the things they consider to be wrong, for instance about slavery, or about sins punishable by death.

But they make the same mistake that Eve did in the Garden of Eden. God deals in two deaths – some say three and include the spiritual death – the death of the body, the spiritual death, and the second death. The latter is the punishment of being forever separated from God in torment. Revelation describes the second death as being cast into the lake of fire.

The spiritual death happened in the Garden of Eden and we are now all born that way. That is why we need to be born again of the Spirit.

God used the laws given in the Old Testament as a covenant to the Israelites. It described how they were to live and govern their affairs. It was to set them apart from other nations. It regulated how they were to deal with each other. Sure, it described slavery but it did not prescribe it. The Israelites didn’t invent slavery – that was common at the time. Joseph was sold into slavery to a group of Midianite traders. God brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. The Bible doesn’t endorse slavery – it regulated it and provided an out for those who were slaves.

The punishments in the Levitical law were harsh and provided an image of the eternal consequences of sin. It served to keep the nation together in some form of obedience. But as we know, they would regularly go astray and have to be brought back to God. The laws in the Old Testament were part of a covenant between God and His chosen people (the Israelites). We often refer to it as the “Old Covenant”.

Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26 describe blessings and curses associated with the old covenant. It becomes especially clear that the covenant is with the Israelites when we read these two passages:

Deuteronomy 28:21 (ESV):

The LORD will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

and Leviticus 26:3-6 (NIV):

3 “‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.

6 “‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country.

But as Christians, we are also grafted in as Abraham’s seed.

Romans 11:19 (NIV):

19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.”

Galatians 3:29 (NIV)

29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

If it wasn’t for the way the Old Covenant was qualified (including the geographically tied statements in Deuteronomy and Leviticus), we would have to look elsewhere to determine what, if anything, of the Old Covenant applies to us. But the Old Testament itself points it out for us.

Reading the Old Testament also reveals how the commandments and statutes have different purposes. They all serve to glorify God by setting the Jews apart from other nations, but they also serve to deal with practical matters such as health issues*, justice, religious ceremonies, social issues, etc.

*Some of the health issues dealt with:

• Diagnosis and cleansing of certain skin conditions possibly related to leprosy.

• At least some of the “unclean” foods are prone to parasites that affect people – for example trichinella can be found in pork, rodents, etc.

• Carcasses can be disease carriers.

Those types of statutes dealing with practical matters can pretty easily be considered confined to the pre-Christ Jews.

Hebrews 8:7-9a (ESV):

7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

8 For he finds fault with them when he says:[a]

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

This passage quotes Jeremiah 31:31-32 (ESV):

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.

So Jeremiah foretold it, Jesus Christ Instituted it, Paul talks about it in 1 and 2 Corinthians, and again it is discussed in the letter to the Hebrews. That the Old Covenant was going to be, and indeed was replaced by a New Covenant.

Hebrews 8:13 (ESV)

13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

As Christians, we turn to Christ for instruction for our lives. He regularly objected to the Pharisees who had studied and interpreted the statutes of the Old Testament when they applied them rigorously and without regard to what was most important. Time after time, Christ pointed them back to the basics.

Matthew 22:36-40 (ESV)

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

The laws and statutes of the Old Covenant are separated from us by time (Christ instituting the New Covenant) and Geography (the Old Covenant was for the Jews in their land). Some of them describe sin – and those we should heed because we love Jesus. We want to follow Him – follow His example. We want to be like Christ.

John 14:15 (ESV)

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

And by being born again, we receive the Holy Spirit to help us walk with Him.

John 14:16-17 (ESV)

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Galatians 5:18-23

18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy,[d] drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.