In some ways, it seems this should be the easy bit. After all, has not this whole exercise to date been a sort of defining of what a Christian is, or at least what a Christian believes? Well, it is certainly an effort to set down what this particular Christian individual believes, and it is to be hoped that the beliefs expressed along the way are in keeping with those beliefs expressed by Christians in all ages. But what I have not expressly done as yet is defined what it is to actually be a Christian.
Does this entail having the right set of beliefs? Well, to be sure, a Christian must, rather by definition, have the right set of beliefs if he is indeed a Christian. Surely, at bare minimum, one who would claim to be a Christian must believe there is a Christ, and the Christ they believe exists must indeed by the Christ Who Is. That is to say, He is eternal, divine, holy God, and He is simultaneously a man who live in real time and space as a real human being. His life and His death, His resurrection and His ascension are, to the Christian, both sound, historical events, and also events whose significance must be recognized in light of what this Christ declared in regard to them, and in regard to us.
But to be a Christian is more than this. It delves into the depths of recognizing how it is we have come to accept the rather stunning claims made in regard to this Jesus, particularly as to His birth and His resurrection. These are, we must admit, rather unbelievable claims, aren’t they? He was born without benefit of a human father, or even, to allow for modern medical techniques, so much as paternal sperm? That’s a bit much, don’t you think? And as for Him coming back to life after having hung on the cross, having had a spear thrust into His side and the heart sac pierced, and that inside a stone-sealed cave with no available egress; well, that’s just the stuff of children’s tales, isn’t it? Well, no. No, it isn’t. It’s the stuff of history. But it’s a history that many, most I must say, will dismiss as pure fantasy. How is it, then, that a Christian, by all appearances and evidences a wholly rational individual in every other regard, has accepted that any such tale is to be taken as truth and not just another mythology of old?
Here is where I arrive at what is the foundational, no exceptions, definition of a Christian. The Christian is one who has had his heart and mind changed, and that, not by mere words nor by the efforts of any man; rather by the Holy Spirit. The Christian is made a Christian not by some exercise of will on his part, nor by arts of persuasion exercised by some other individual. God has chosen. God has called. God has so moved upon this one that he is in fact changed. The mind that could not accept the idea of this Jesus as God, and the heart that could find no love for the God of Scripture discover themselves readjusted of a moment. There is a shift of perspective, and it hasn’t come, as the popular thought has it these days, from an earnest seeking desire on his part. It has come for one reason: God decided.
This, I recognize, is a matter of some debate even within Christianity. Did God choose me, or did I find Him? But then, this is a statement of what I believe, isn’t it? And I believe it is most assuredly God choosing. I believe it, particularly, because that has been my express experience. If I was seeking God, it was news to me. I was going along with certain religious activities in the hope of maintaining happy marital relations, but there wasn’t any seeking going on. I was fine with being me, thank you very much. But God had other plans. God saw me signing on for a retreat before I’d even really had the chance to think about it. God met me in an old Chinese restaurant on the day of that retreat and, in what I think is still the only hearing of Him that I recall experiencing – hearing, in this case, being entirely internal, but clearly not just me talking to myself, offered a proposition by which to test His real existence. It wasn’t stated quite that way, but it presented rather like the geometric proofs of high school. Here are two foundational theories. Test them over the next few days, and then consider whether it’s all real or not. I am leaving it rather vague here, I know, but the point is simply this: God called. He called quite personally, and quite undeniably. It was not me looking. It wasn’t the drugs, as there weren’t any. It wasn’t outside voices. Those with me had no reason to know what was going on in my head, nor what my thinking was as the next few days progressed. They had no way of knowing the role they would play in this voyage of discovery. But we all sure knew when that discovery had been made. Things had changed, and had changed permanently.
Having discovered God visiting, there really wasn’t any choice but to believe. I found Him? Hardly! He wasn’t lost, nor am I equipped to go probing about in heaven to seek Him out. No, nor had He found me, for He had never lost me. He had called, and not answering really was not even an option. You can say what you like in regard to free will, but that freedom is of no use to a man until and unless God changes the heart and mind, and then freedom will choose the only sensible course: Believe.
The Christian, then, is one who has been made so by the will of the Triune God. Father commanded, Son redeemed, Spirit applied. By the express revelation of Scripture, that command was given before even Creation came into being, as was the precise timing of that moment when heart and mind would be changed. So, too, is the precise timing of that moment to come when the body will know its own change set firmly in God’s schedule.
The Christian, having come into being by God’s hand, is shepherded through this present life and into the next by God’s hand. His development, while he certainly takes an active role in it as a labor of love, is very much the work of God, shaping, molding, maturing that which was begun in him until He shall have brought it to full fruition.
[09/05/20]
This does not, must not, lead to complacency. Knowing ourselves utterly dependent on God and safely in His hands does not leave us free to sin without concern for repercussions. Jesus fulfilled the demands of the Law on our behalf, but He did not rescind the Law. If anything, He made certain we understood the Law in all its implications and not just the bare letter. Thus, we find the Christian urged by the text of Scripture to strive for compliance to the Law. But it is expressed rather differently, I think, than we tend to expect. The Law, after all, is a thing of demands, is it not? Thou shalt do this. Thou shalt not do that. Keeping the covenant qualities of the matter in view, there is ever that penalty clause in view should we fail. Go back to Moses’ delivery of the legal review to God’s people, and it’s rather telling that far more time is spent declaring the penalties and curses for noncompliance than is spent describing the blessings for obedience.
We are not delivered of a law or from a law. Neither are we delivered by the Law. To be sure, had one kept the Law to perfection, then he would live (Ro 10:5). The Law is just in that regard. But it is quite evident that compliance is not to be had. The best of the best of mankind has failed to attain to this, and that didn’t suddenly change when the Spirit changed our heart and mind. I say that with sorrow, for it would be so much easier had that been the case. But God in His infinite and perfect wisdom has discerned that such an approach to our perfection would not in fact lead to perfection. It would instead lead to just the sort of spiritual automatons that those who insist on man’s free will as the controlling factor in salvation insist would result otherwise. But while we are redeemed, as Paul observes, while we were enemies to God (Ro 5:10), we were not refashioned as those with no choice, no moral culpability. I say our choice to become Christians was most assuredly inevitable when the call of God had come, and it must be, for He is sovereign and all-powerful. We quite clearly are not.
All that being said, we arrive at a life in which we discover that if anything we have far too much say in our choice to comply or not with the righteous requirements of this new covenant in which we live. We know too well how readily we revert to sinning. We know too well how readily we can retreat most fully from the pursuit of righteousness to return to the life of old. We also know we are hardly alone in this. We see that even the Apostles had their struggles with sin and, if we are attentive, we are rather relieved. They are not perfect models that we are required to match if we are to attain to heaven. They are men like ourselves. Indeed, while we honor the Apostles as those chosen by our Lord Jesus Christ to promulgate the tenets of the Church He chose to build, it is to Christ and Christ alone we look for our example and for our victory.
It is because of Him that we have confident hope that however badly we mess things up day by day, in the end we shall be made like Him, as we must be to arrive at that moment when we see Him as He truly is. As I keep repeating, this does not leave us free to just do as we please without thought or care. To be sure, we are free to do as we please, but it is eminently to be hoped that we are discovering our pleasures refocused, reshaped by the work of Christ in us. I dare say that if we are not discovering this to be the case, then we must needs question the validity of our claim to being Christians in the first place.
Many a passage avails of the examples of agriculture to discuss the nature of the Christian life. To preach the gospel is to sow seed. The populace of the world is looked upon as a field ripe for harvest. The life of the Christian is described as one which bears fruit. Throughout, there is the underlying recognition that the seed ought to bear fruit, and the fruit that is borne cannot but correspond to the seed from whence it springs. Jesus makes the observation. “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they?” (Mt 7:16). The point He is driving home there is twofold. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit” (Mt 5:18a). There must be correspondence. But also, “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Mt 5:19).
What, then, shall we say gives evidence of a true Christian come to life? Well, we have the good fruit defined. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Gal 5:22-23a). While these may not be ours in perfection, they ought to be ours in growing abundance. That said, I have to emphasize that these are not qualities that we work ourselves up into a lather seeking to generate by sheer force of will. Indeed, by and large, those efforts made to show such fruit tend to result in what Jesus quite properly termed hypocrisy in the Pharisees. It is nothing but a show. It’s rather like that fig tree He found on the way into Jerusalem. It had the appearance of fruitfulness. By the show of it, there ought to be fruit, but there was none. It was false. Just so are those efforts to ‘put on’ the fruit of the Spirit. If it is but a public display, an effort to fit in, or to be thought righteous by our peers, then all I can say is, welcome to the Pharisee club.
The thing about fruit is that it does not spring forth of its own will. It is the natural produce of the seed. If there is fruit of the Spirit, it is evidence of the seed of the Spirit. If, on the other hand, the fruit is of the flesh – “immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these” (Gal 5:19b-21a) – then what seed is planted is equally evident.
Turning back ‘round again, while the fruit must grow from the seed, we are not told to just kick back and wait for God to produce it. Rather, we are urged at every turning to strive to live as befits a child of God. Observe: That which befits the child of God is not some life of privilege. That’s been a failing amongst God’s people time and again, and no doubt will continue to be so. It’s not a case of, “We’re king’s kids, dang it,” as Steve Taylor’s song so memorably points up the error of that whole health and wealth pursuit of material blessing in the name of God. It’s fine to be materially blessed, but it’s hardly the point. Indeed, from earliest times, God warned His children that material blessings could readily become a trap to the spiritually minded. “Then it shall come about when the LORD your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and love trees which you did not plant, and you shall eat and be satisfied, then watch yourself, lest you forget the LORD who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Dt 6:10-12).
But earthly reward and earthly ease are not our proper focus. Rather, we are urged to keep our attention heavenward, to have our treasure, the true desire of our heart, stowed away with Christ above. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mt 6:21). If it’s all about comfortable living and pleasurable circumstances in the here and now, recognize the message your heart is telling you: This is what I treasure. Heaven is an afterthought. Oh, how easy it is for the Christian to be drawn into just such a mindset. Our modern life has made this the standard toward which we are expected to strive. But God holds up His own standard and cries out, “Rally to ME!”
“If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Col 3:1-2). “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:25). “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (Gal 5:16). “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:1-3). We strive, but not for earthly riches. We strive, but not to earn favor with God. He Who loved us to the uttermost, Who loved us so greatly that He sent His only beloved Son to die that we might live, can hardly be expected to love us any more than He already does because we’ve been good boys and girls after all that. His perfect, unconditional love for us could never expand, being already at full extent. Neither, God being His unchanging self, can it contract. He already knows us as we are. He already knows us, as well, as we shall be in final glory.
Our efforts, then, are not undertaken in hopes of gaining a place in heaven, but in joyful recognition that our place already awaits, and our glorious Lord shall meet us there in the fulness of time. He is our bridegroom, and we His bride. He has gone to make a place for us in His Father’s house. What a glorious depiction of our heavenly expectation. It’s not about mansions, and floorplans that perfectly suit our desires and expectations. It’s that we have a home in heaven. The bridegroom, having become betrothed to his bride, takes pains to prepare for the wedding day. That means providing for the bride. That’s what this building of the home depicts: Christ’s provision for His bride. That it is in His Father’s house is, while surely an image chosen as in keeping with Jewish practice of the time and therefore readily understood, also a clear indication of Father’s joyful welcome of the bride into His family. We have a home. We have a family. And nothing, but nothing, can wrest that from us. “I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (Jn 10:28-29). Observe that detail as well! This is an arranged marriage. Father chose, and as Jesus took pains to emphasize here, His choice is not subject to failure.
Our future is certain, and this, in the end, seems to me to define the Christian rather nicely. We are able to abide in quiet confidence, knowing the Father has chosen to love us, chosen us to be His own people, His own children. He has us in hand, and nothing can disrupt that, not even our own willfulness and failures. The Christian is one whom God has called, who has therefore, rather inevitably, put his trust fully and firmly in Christ, and set his eyes on the things above. He has in many ways died to this world, although rarely if ever is that completely the case. But the things of this world are devalued, in a way. They are lovely. They are significant because even in their sin-marred state they yet demonstrate the handiwork of God, and as such, they ought rightly to be cherished, preserved, and restored where such is possible. But in the end, they don’t matter all that much. For to us, to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Php 1:21). Our lives in Christ are not matters of seeking personal gain, but in seeking that all alike might come to the fulness of the knowledge of Christ; that fulness reflecting not merely in an ability to recite verses or pronounce upon matters of doctrine, but demonstrating in character, in worldview, in our approach to life. It demonstrates in love to God, first and foremost, but also in love to neighbor close behind. It demonstrates in a certain sacrificial way of living, not as demonstrating one’s righteousness, but as the natural outworking of a Christ-centered life. Thus, He taught. Thus, we seek as best we may to live.
