What Makes a Christian a Christian?
What makes a Christian a Christian?
It’s not coming to church. And I’m sure you already know what I’m going to say. “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than being in a garage makes you a car.” It’s about the life we live. What makes someone a Christian is love, compassion, humility, forgiveness, and a servant’s heart. I would argue that there are Christians out there who don’t call themselves Christian, but they are following the call of Christ in their life. And there are people out there who call themselves Christian who are Christian in name only. It goes back to something Shakespeare wrote in one of his most famous plays, “Romeo and Juliet.” When I was in high school, we had to memorize either Romeo’s soliloquy or Juliet’s and even though I did Romeo’s (“Hark! What light through yonder window breaks?”) it is in Juliet’s that we hear a word that mirrors this exact thought. She says to Romeo, “What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Being a Christian is much more than simply calling yourself one. It’s about proving it through the life you live.
But it IS useful to know about our beliefs as a Christian.
If we don’t know what we believe, how can we know the life we are to live? Traditionally, most Christian traditions have defined Christianity by a few simple beliefs. John Wesley summed them up in his essay “The Character of a Methodist.”[2] He wrote Scripture is the inspired Word of God, Scripture was sufficient to “equip us for a life of faith and service,”[3] and Christ is both fully human and fully divine. Everything else Wesley said we should “think and let think,” meaning we can discuss and disagree with each other, but it shouldn’t drive a wedge between us. Obviously, with 47,000+ denominations worldwide, we have horribly failed at this.[4] Which says more about us than about these basic concepts which we find supported in Scripture. In fact, on our way back from visiting my parents, I saw a billboard that said “Jesus is not God” which is completely and 100% false. So, it’s important to know what we believe and why. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy about the sufficient and inspired nature of Scripture and our Scripture this morning is about the divinity of Christ.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. – John 1:1-5, 14
It always confused me to hear Jesus being called “the Word of God.”
What did that really mean? I kind of just assumed it was just another name for God like Immanuel or Prince of Peace. But there is more to it than just a name. The “Word” was something both Jews and Gentiles would have been familiar with. The Jewish people would recognize this description of Jesus meaning Christ was the “instrument for the execution of God’s will.”[5] Throughout the Old Testament, God’s will was often made manifest by his “word” and so Jesus would have been seen as the personification of God’s will on Earth. On the other hand, the Greek interpretation of “word” was Logos which would have meant in Greek philosophy that he was the bridge or the intermediary between God and Earth.[6] So in the Old Testament you have the “Word” as the manifestation of God’s will, and in Greek the “Word” would have been understood as the bridge between God and Earth. To use this description of Jesus as the “Word” would have meaning for everyone in trying to understand what role Jesus played in God’s creation. Explaining that the Word was there at the beginning, the Word was with God, and the Word WAS God establishes Jesus as divine, on equal terms with God.
But not all people who claim to be Christian believe this.
From my reading and understanding of both the Jehovah’s Witness belief and Mormon belief, neither one of them think Jesus was God in the sense we traditionally understand it. In the faith of the Jehovah’s Witness, Jesus was not God, but a creation of God. He was also known as the Archangel Michael and did not die on a cross but on a stake. When Jesus did die, he was not resurrected but existed only in spirit form. The Jehovah’s Witness were taught only 144,000 people would be taken to Heaven and the rest of humanity would remain dead. Not that they would go to hell but would simply cease to exist. They revised that interpretation to say that true believers after 1935 would be resurrected to a new Earth but that 144,000 who were chosen prior to 1914 would still be the only ones to go to Heaven.[7] My question is what happened to those “true believers” between 1914 and 1935? Mormons similarly don’t believe Jesus is actually God. Instead, they believe God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are different and distinct beings that act in unison with one another. It seems like a very subtle difference, but it denies that Christ is God and instead one of many gods. The Mormon faith also teaches we can eventually become God or at least as God is. They believe God and Jesus both have physical, perfected bodies, that God is made of flesh and bone so when we are created in his image that is a literal interpretation.[8] But then in what image is that? An answer to that isn’t offered. Mormons believe in a Heavenly Mother although not much more is said about this divine being. They don’t believe in hell but instead on three levels of Heaven. My roommate in college, Wayne, was Mormon and he described it to me this way. There are three levels of Heaven. The first level is occupied by true followers of the faith, the Mormons, who get to dwell with God. The second level is for all Christians who are not Mormon. They come close to accepting the truth, but are not quite on the Mormon level and they get to dwell with Jesus. And while they are happy, they are always looking up and wishing they could be with God the Father. The third Heaven is for everyone else. They get to live with the Holy Spirit. And while they too are happy, they are always looking up at the first and second Heavens and wishing they got to be there. Now, while the official version of the levels of Heaven or what is called the “degrees of glory”[9] is a little more complicated, Wayne’s version was a good summary of what is taught.
As for the sufficiency of Scripture and Scripture as the inspired Word of God, there are also differences.
The Jehovah’s Witness faith believes in the Bible as the inspired Word of God, but they use a translation of the Bible that conforms to Jehovah’s Witness beliefs.[10] As mentioned before, they don’t believe Jesus died on a cross so they changed the translation of the word to “murder stake.” They don’t believe Jesus was God but instead a creation of God so they changed the verse we read that distinctly said, “The Word was God” to instead say “The Word was A god.” And because they believe Christ already returned in 1914, they changed the translation of the word “coming” to “presence.”[11] In contrast, the Mormons do not believe in the sufficiency of Scripture – not because they doubt God but because they believe mistakes were made and the Book of Mormon corrects those mistakes.[12] They also turn to two other books written primarily by Joseph Smith based on his interpretation of the Bible and by a series of golden plates he claims revealed to him God’s teachings. Because they hold these revelations as equal to the Bible and in some cases supersede the Bible (although not the Bible’s fault), they don’t truly believe in the sufficiency of Scripture.
That isn’t to say that members of either church are not good people.
Many of them are living a more dedicated, Christ-like life than “mainline” Christians. That’s also not to say that we can’t learn from them as much as we hope they learn from us. Both have a dedication to evangelism that mainline Christianity has struggled with. Whether or not they are effective is something we can debate, but they take the Great Commission seriously in a way most churches do not, even though God commands it. As we explore our faith deeper and seek to define what we believe, it is important to point out that not every Christian faith is in fact Christian. Or at the very least when we seek to understand our faith, there are some very fundamental beliefs we believe come from God and the Bible that define who we are. We should always seek to love those who are different than us. We should always seek to understand without ridicule people who honestly adhere to their faith. And by understanding our own faith better we can be as Peter said “prepared to give an answer…for the hope that you have (1 Peter 3:15).”
[2] http://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/John-Wesley-Sermons/The-Wesleys-and-Their-Times/The-Character-of-a-Methodist
[3] http://www.gotquestions.org/sufficiency-of-Scripture.html
[4] https://omsc.ptsem.edu/the-annual-statistical-table/
[5] http://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-Word-God.html
[6] http://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-Word-God.html
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses and http://www.equip.org/article/are-jehovahs-witnesses-christian-3/
[8] https://carm.org/is-mormonism-christian and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrees_of_glory
[10] http://www.gotquestions.org/New-World-Translation.html and http://www.equip.org/article/are-jehovahs-witnesses-christian-3/
[11] http://www.gotquestions.org/New-World-Translation.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology_of_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses
[12] http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/mormons-and-the-bible/?_r=0 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_Christianity
Craig's Corner 