By: Brian Ediger
6-25-16
This is something that comes up fairly often in discussions of religion that have at least one Christian as a participant. It even comes up when all parties claim to be Christian. Normally it comes up as “Christians believe this” or “Christians have done that.” But here’s the thing, I don’t want to be blamed for something that someone else did, especially if that someone else claimed to be a Christian, but really wasn’t. It will also come up as “don’t you believe I’m a Christian?” when discussing things with members of groups that claim to be Christian, but really aren’t. I feel those groups are spiritually more dangerous than any other group (keyword “spiritually”).
Now if you want to say “You can’t decide who is a Christian and who is not!” then I want you to consider something. In Matthew 7:21-23 Jesus said “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father in heaven. On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in Your name, drive out demons in Your name, and do many miracles in Your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you lawbreakers!” (HCSB) Just before this, He also talks about false prophets, and there are other passages in the Bible that talk about false believers, be they prophets, teachers or just ordinary people in the church. So there is such a thing as a false Christian, and the only way to know for sure is through the beliefs that they hold.
So, what exactly does it mean to be a Christian? An atheist friend of mine pointed out that a common denominator is accepting Jesus Christ as you Lord and Savior. And I actually agree with him on this point. However, “accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior” isn’t as simple as it sounds.
Don’t get me wrong! I am not saying that we can do anything to earn our way into heaven (which is something I discuss here). What I am saying though, is that when you truly believe, and you have truly accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then you will eventually (through studying the Bible) come to the beliefs that I am going to list below. Before I do that, though, I would like to point out that I will not be going into too much detail in this particular post. I don’t want this blog post to get so long that few people will read it. Therefore, I will be writing other posts that do go into detail on all of these beliefs, and then I will add hyperlinks in this post to those posts, where appropriate.
Let us dissect the statement “Accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.” For the first part “accepting Jesus Christ as your,” it is pretty clear that you, yourself, are accepting (receiving, believing, recognizing) Jesus who is called Christ (Messiah, Savior) as someone personal to you. Not that this is true only for you and those who believe the same, but that it is true for everyone, and you are making it a personal matter. The second par is the one that I would like to expound upon in this post.
The easiest part is what I will start with.
“And”
It is such a simple word, yet it conveys so much meaning. Here it is connecting two things into one idea. He is both your Lord AND your Savior. Not just on OR the other. If He were just your Lord, then you would obey Him, but you would be on your own when it comes to getting into heaven. On the other hand, if He were just your Savior, then you would be able to do whatever you wanted, and still make it into heaven. Neither of these scenarios is the case in the Christian worldview (religion, lifestyle, etc.). So what do each of these ideas, Lord and Savior, mean?
“Lord”
Other terms with a similar meaning are: master, boss, ruler, authority, and owner (which isn’t a popular term these days in regards to people). Normally with these terms comes the idea of “they tell us what to do, and how to do it.” And this is definitely true of the Christian who has made Jesus Christ their Lord. They will believe what Jesus taught, and they will follow His commands. That topic is a rather in depth one, and so I will only focus on one of the most important points here.
Jesus had a very high regard for the Scriptures. In His day, the only Scriptures He had were the Jewish Scriptures, which Christians today call the Old Testament. Whenever He was asked a question, tempted by Satan (the adversary), or denouncing a false teaching, He would always quote the Scriptures. To partially quote Matthew 22:31 “haven’t you read what was spoken to you by God:….” (HCSB) You can see from this partial quote that He believed God actually spoke to (interacted with) man, and inspired them to write the Scriptures. If someone says to you “Didn’t you see the memo that the boss sent out?” you would know that it was important for you to have read and understood that memo, right? It’s the same thing with God and the Scriptures.
Also, without having this kind of view of the Scriptures, it is very easy to take the verses that you like, get rid of the ones that you don’t like, and then make up your own religion. This is something that many cults do, and it is something that many non-Christians will do to try and make a point or show that Christianity is wrong. Sadly, it is something that many true Christians do as well. This is something that most of my blogs posts will be centered around. Either showing that the Bible is the true word of God, or discussing what it actually teaches and denouncing false beliefs.
The second part of Lord that I would like to talk about is that we know who our boss is, right? Every job that I’ve had, I at least was told about the main boss, and they would describe him to me. And of course, if he was coming that day, they would make sure to tell us, and point him before meeting him. Similarly, the Bible describes God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit to us. So we should know who each of them are, and who Jesus claimed to be. That is, is Jesus God? Is the Holy Spirit God? Is God one being with one person who took on different rolls? Is God one being with three persons who work and live in harmony? Or are there actually multiple Gods?
I personally believe that God is one being with three persons who work and live in harmony. So I would call myself a Trinitarian (which is a doctrine/belief that I will be discussing in full in a series of blog posts, because there are just that many points to make and scriptures to look at). Other groups that call themselves Christians will have one of the other versions of God. And it is clear to me that they are worshiping a different God than I am. It is not merely a matter of having a different view or opinion of God. If I met the president of the US, but he was in jeans and a t-shirt and didn’t have any bodyguards around, would I not be able to tell that he was the president? For a little bit, I might suspect that he was someone who happened to look like the president. But if I sat down and talked to him, I would be able to know for certain whether or not he was the president, especially if I had taken the time to get to know things about the president that would distinguish him from a look alike or impersonator.
It’s the same with God. He cannot be one being with one person, and one being with three persons, and multiple beings with one person each all at the same time. If we take the Bible at its word, and understand the verses in their context (taking into account the genre of the section it is in) then we can be certain of who God actually is. And this is important as Jesus equated knowing God and Himself with eternal life in John 17:3.
“Savior”
There are also two sides to this point. The first side is that He is the one that saved us. From the Christian perspective, He saved us from our sins. Let me explain what “saved us from our sins” means, just to make sure that we are all on the same page. Firstly, we are taught that the punishment for sin is death (Romans 6:23). This death is both physical and spiritual (and spiritual death is a separation from God, which means you end up in hell [which will be the discussion in another blog post]). Jesus lived a perfectly sinless life, and then willingly gave up His life to pay for our sins. Like Jacob Marley from “A Christmas Carol” we were doomed to a meaningless roaming around. Jesus gave us rest.
Secondly, we are taught that we are slaves to our sin. That is, from my personal experience, we are addicted to our sins and what they give us. I’ve never had a drug or alcohol addiction, but my sins do give me a chemical high, be it adrenaline or dopamine. It is only by trusting in Jesus, praying to Him and asking for help, that I have had any success with not sinning. And when I forget to reach out to Him, that is when I sin again. Like Jacob Marley, again, we were in chains of our own making. Jesus took those chains off.
The second side of “Savior” is what we do. Again, I believe that there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation (as seen here). Rather, it is the fact that we are saved, that cause us to do things. These things are called “good works/deeds” or just “works/deeds.” Other religions have their people doing good deeds for people because if they don’t, then the cosmic scales of justice will show their bad deeds out weighing their good deeds, and they will end up in that religions version of hell. Christianity has us doing good deeds because of what God did for us. He first loved us, we therefore love Him and others. That love causes us to do good deeds. And why would we not want others to be in heaven with us? So we love others by doing things for them, and by telling them about Jesus and what He did for us. We are also called to do this in Matthew 28:16-20.
In conclusion, the thing that makes someone who claims to be a Christian truly Christian is “accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.” However, that simple statement conveys a much deeper set of truths. All of these truths will be discussed in much greater detail in other posts, and I hope you will read them before deciding that I am wrong. If, after reading those posts, you still think I’m wrong, please feel free to contact me and we can discuss the issues.
