The term ‘Christian’ is used widely and indiscriminately in the world in which we live.
A Christian is not:
Someone baptized as a baby or adult and confirmed into a membership of a church,
Someone who has accepted Jesus Christ as Saviour without understanding why this is important,
Someone whose parents are Christians,
Someone who lives in what is supposed to be a Christian country. (There has never been and never will be such a thing as a Christian country).
What then is a Christian? A Christian is someone for whom and in whom God has done something. God has saved a Christian. How?
A Christian is someone for whom God has done something. We call this justification. Justification is not something which is done in you. It is something which God has done for you. In order to understand the doctrine of justification we need to understand the following: Ever since God created our first parents, Adam and Eve, they and all mankind have been subjected to God’s moral law. Morality is rooted in God. He made right, right and wrong, wrong, and God’s moral standards have been encoded in His righteous law. They were given to the Israelites when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. (Exodus 20)
Even before Mount Sinai, God made known His revealed will to Adam and Eve and their descendants. Adam failed to keep the law and plunged himself, his wife Eve and the entire human race into sin. However, where Adam failed Jesus Christ succeeded, When Jesus Christ became a man like us and He did two things on our behalf. He actively obeyed the law we have all disobeyed and He passively submitted to the cruel death of the cross where the Lord laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. See John 1v14 and Isaiah 53v6.
‘14And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
and we have seen his glory,
glory as of the only Son from the Father,
full of grace and truth.’
‘6All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned-everyone-to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all
Christ’s obedience in life and His obedience to the Father’s will in the death on the cross became all that a believer needs for a right standing with God (Romans 5v19). When a sinner believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, the righteousness of Jesus is put down to his credit and the sins of the believer is imputed to Christ who suffered in our place (Philippians 3v8-9 and 2 Corinthians 5v21). Someone once wrote these lines:
“Upon a life I did not live
Upon a death I did not die
I stake my whole eternity.”
A Christian is therefore someone who is saved by the doing and dying of Jesus and not by anything done by a Christian. The results of justification by faith are enormous; these are listed in Romans 5v1-5. They include peace with God, access in prayer, a blessed hope for eternity and also rejoicing in our suffering. The reason why a Christian can rejoice even in his sufferings is because he knows that his sufferings are not a punishment for his sins, which have been completely punished in Christ the sinless sin-bearer on the cross, and therefore trials are designed to draw us closer to Christ and to God (Hebrews 12v5-11).
‘5And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. 11For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.’
The doctrine of justification therefore teaches the difference of true religion. Every religion which teaches the necessity of human merits to be saved is false. Whereas the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ clearly announces that we cannot save ourselves, but that Jesus Christ does it completely and entirely (Titus 3v4-7).
‘4But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, 5He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, 7so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.’
It is essential to understand the doctrine of justification if we are going to die peacefully.
A Christian is someone in whom God has done something. What has God done in a believer?
God has effected the new birth (John 3v3-5).
‘3Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” 4Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.’
In the physical birth of a baby, the baby is passive. In the new birth which is effected by the Holy Spirit, the one coming to faith is also passive. This does not mean that there is not personal faith. In the same chapter, in which Jesus teaches the necessity of the new birth, He also teaches the necessity of faith in Christ (John 3v16 and 36).
“16For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” ‘36Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.’
However, unless God effects the new birth, no one will believe. Unless a baby is born, it will not cry nor express dependence on its mother.
Conversion and repentance. God enables those whom He saves to turn from their sin to Him through Christ and to experience true conversion (1 Thessalonians 1v4-5 and Acts 3v19).
‘4For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you, 5because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.’
God gives the believer the gift of forgiveness (Psalms 103v8-12 and Ephesians 1v7).
‘8The LORD is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9He will not always chide,
nor will He keeps His anger forever.
10He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him;
12as far as the east is from the west,
so far does He remove our transgressions from us.’
‘7In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.’
God effects a work of sanctification in a person who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, and then progressively enables the believer to be sanctified throughout life. Positional sanctification is what God does when He sets apart a believer in Jesus at the person’s conversion, 1 Peter 1v2 (‘according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with His blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.) whereas progressive sanctification takes place throughout life when the believer becomes increasingly conformed to the image of Christ (1 Thessalonians 4v3 and 5v23; John 17v17).
‘3For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;’
‘23Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’
‘17Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.’
God gives the gift of the Holy Spirit to every believer in Jesus Christ (John 7v37-39 and Acts 2v38-39)
‘37On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” 39Now this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.’
‘38And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.”’
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