Who Said You Are a Christian?
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Calling someone a Christian began in the city of Antioch in the first century AD.
The Gentile followers of Jesus Christ in that city were labeled Christians by the unbelievers, distinguishing them from the Jewish community.
Initially, it was not meant as a term of endearment, but of derision.
The Governor of Judah used the term when he spoke to the Apostle Paul saying, “You almost persuade me to become a Christian.” (Acts 26:28) The Apostle Peter identified it as an identification that brings persecution, “Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God, in this matter.” (1Peter 4:16)
Being a Christian identified the person with Jesus Christ, Christianos, one who is seeking to be like Christ.
The Jewish community would never have used the term because the root word, Christos, is the Greek form of the Hebrew word Messiah. Someone being Christianos is someone who is a follower of Messiah, seeking to be like Him.
Jesus claiming to be Christ was blasphemous to the Jewish community.
Interestingly, by the second century AD the believers had adopted the term Christianos or Christian as a positive. It became a term of endearment. What did it mean to be a Christian in the first and second century AD?
The vast theologian Lewis Speery Chafer identifies no less than thirty-three life-transforming marks that identify one as a Christianos. In his exhaustive Systematic Theology Chafer wrote a Christian “…is not one who does certain things for God but… one for whom God has done certain things: he is not so much one who conforms to a certain manner of life as he is one who has received the gift of eternal life.” (Systematic Theology, VII, pg. 75)
In today’s postmodern, deconstructionist culture, most anyone is identified as Christian.
There are those who identify as Christian and believe Jesus Christ and Lucifer are brothers. There are those who claim to be Christian and identify as LGBTQ+.
There are Christian communities who do not believe the Bible to be the infallible Word of God and who are staunch followers of evolution and Darwinism, yet they identify as Christian.
There is Christian clothing, Christian stickers, Christian clubs, Christian dating sites, and Christian events that may or may not honor Jesus Christ.
What did it mean when those believers in Antioch were first identified as Christianos?
Let’s look at three identifying traits that distinguished a person as a Christian.
First, they had been freed from the guilt of their sin because they had confessed their sin to Jesus Christ and repented of their sin.
The Apostle John wrote, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” (1John 1:8-10 NKJV)
When the Apostle Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost, the people listening asked what they should do.
The Apostle responded, “Repent and let everyone of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins…” (Acts 2:38 NKJV)
A few days later preaching in the city of Jerusalem Peter proclaimed, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” (Acts 3:19 NKJV)
Second, they have been delivered from all judgment and condemnation.
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:1-2 NKJV)
Jesus called this being born again. When one confesses their sin to God, repents of their sin, and asks God to forgive them, Almighty God forgives, washes their heart clean, and chooses to never remember their sinful deeds again (Hebrews 10:15-17).
Almighty God establishes a divine fiat. He justifies them. He declares them to be just-as-if-they-had-never-sinned.
The third identifying mark is they have received the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2Corinthians 5:21 NKJV)
When one is born again, Holy Spirit comes into their heart and creates a new heart by what Scriptures calls, “The washing of regeneration” in Titus 3:5-7. “…not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (NKJV)
Holy Spirit does three important works in our heart.
He cleanses us, He baptizes us into Christ, and He imparts the righteousness of Jesus to our heart. Because the believer is now “in Christ” His life begins to take on the character and behavior of Jesus Christ. He is a Christianos.
How very different this is from what is commonly labeled Christian today. Maybe it is time to rethink and re-identify those who are true followers of Jesus Christ.
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