What Makes Christianity Christian?
Many things are irritating in this world, like having a favorite golf shirt lose its shape and become virtually unwearable through multiple washings. Labels are somewhat like old golf shirts in this respect. Over time the repeated, sometimes ill-informed, use of labels tends to stretch the meaning of those labels to the point that they become almost useless. As strange as it may sound for a Baptist pastor to say, I believe the label “Christian” has reached that point. It has been stretched and pulled in an effort to fit so many divergent points of view that it has lost its original meaning.
Recently a report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life was published reflecting the pluralistic thinking of our religious culture. According to the polling of some 35,000 adults, 70 % are of the opinion that there are numerous ways to Heaven. The effect of which is practical universalism—everyone ends up safe and OK. It is not surprising, troubling but not surprising, that a majority of Americans hold such views. However, according to this report, a large percentage of evangelical Christians (57%) agree with this position. That raises the question, what makes Christianity to be truly Christian?
The term “Christian” was originally a cultural label attached to disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the New Testament book of Acts (chapter 11, verse 26). The important point here is that Christianity has to do with being a follower/believer in Jesus Christ.
What did the original “Christians” believe concerning Christ?
They believed Him to be God. They believed that He was God Who had taken to Himself a true human nature in body and spirit and that He did so without losing or compromising His Deity. They believed that He made the ultimate revelation of God’s Glory and will in terms of what He said and the works He performed. They believed that He lived and died as a substitute. That is to say, that Jesus took the place of human beings in obeying all the moral commands of God, obeying those commands perfectly, and then that He died in the place of people who had broken those commands. He died in order to satisfy the holy wrath of God toward people who had brought that wrath upon themselves by their defiance of God’s law (as all humans have done). They believed that God raised Jesus from the dead because His obedience completely satisfied the holiness of God. They believed that Jesus Christ freely gave His merits, the judicial effects of His life and death, to every sinful human who believed upon Him. They also believed that when a person believed on Christ, that Christ gave them the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit changed them and continued to change them. Thus, people who believe in Christ are made to be lovers of God and lovers of people. They are caused to live in humble obedience to God’s Word because Christ has brought them to love God in their hearts.
These are the things that Christians believed in the beginning. These are the things that have distinguished Christians throughout history. According to this doctrine, man’s only hope of escaping the just wrath of God is to believe in Christ—Who alone has obeyed God perfectly and has satisfied God’s justice completely and has been raised from the dead by reason of His obedience. The most essential element of Christianity is the conviction that Jesus Christ is alive from the dead and that He alone is qualified to make sinful humans right before God. Jesus Christ alone has eternal life to give to those who repent of their sins and entrust themselves entirely to Him.
This is what makes Christianity Christian. There is exclusiveness in Christianity. That exclusiveness is due to the fact that Jesus Christ alone is the God-Man who lived and died in the place of the guilty and has been raised from the dead. He alone has authority to forgive sins and to reconcile humans with God. The suggestion that there are other ways to find acceptance with God is not broad-mindedness. It is a denial of Jesus Christ. It is fatal!
