WHAT
IS A CHRISTIAN?
We’d better begin by finding
out where that name comes from and what it means.
The Jews have always been
expecting, waiting for the coming of the Messiah - which is their word for
God’s Anointed One, the Holy One of Israel. When the New Testament was written
(in Greek) their translation of
Messiah was the word Christos. Now although according to the Acts of the
Apostles many Jews, among them a large number of priests, accepted the
identification of Jesus with the Messiah, the Christ, the vast majority did not.
To them he perhaps was a prophet, but he was condemned as a criminal and
executed as such. ‘Cursed be he who hangs on a tree’ was a favourite text of
theirs, so by their understanding Jesus was cursed and could not be holy, could
not be identified with God or call him Father (Jesus was condemned and crucified
mainly because he did just that).
But for the Apostles and their
converts he was Jesus Son of God, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Their
earliest Creed was the three words, ‘Jesus is Lord’. And the word they used
for ‘Lord’ was reserved for the Roman Caesar only. It was political dynamite
to apply that word to anyone else. Indeed many early Christians were executed
just because they did that. The name ‘Christians’ was given to them because
they followed Christ and called him Lord. They were so convinced of his identity
that over three centuries many were executed - some in very painful ways -
because they refused to avoid all that went with the title ‘Christian’ no
matter what the result. They were enthusiasts!
So twenty centuries later we are
Christians and members of a Christian Church because we accept that title with
all that it implies. If we say that he was only a man: if we deny his Godhead,
his Birth, his Resurrection, then we deny the title and put ourselves exactly
parallel with the Jews - except that they are often more faithful in matters of
the Law and of worship!
So, no Resurrection - practical,
physical Resurrection with no holds barred - then no Christian Church.
Problems arise because many even
from infancy have acquired a taste for worship, hymns, prayers and liturgy after
the Anglican style. But at the same time they have for one reason or another
never encountered the Risen Lord. And never having met him and known him, the
Bible testimonies about him seem, once these have grown out of their original
childish acceptance of them, to be utterly incredible, unbelievable; legends,
fairy tales. Nevertheless they value the ethos, the teachings and traditions of
this or that Church (because the Anglican Church is not alone in this matter).
They regard themselves as the heirs of all that is valuable in the Church and
think they are forced to restate, reinvent, even discard those parts of the
Bible which testify to the truth of what they regard as unbelievable.
What follows from this is that we
who still hold firmly to the general body of Bible testimony - Godhead,
healings, miracles and all - must appear
to them to be gullible, ignorant, out-of-date or round the bend. After all, no
rational person in full possession of his wits could possibly believe all that
in defiance of scientific discoveries, the Enlightenment and whatever! So we end
up with a situation in which those who have never yet met the Lord regard
themselves as the only true Church, while those who have had actual experience
of the Lord and the things he does find themselves increasingly shut out of the
club, the material organisation which churches so often become. And those who
are so shut out become in the Lord’s eyes and often in their own, the Faithful
Remnant of Israel!
There is no help for it at least
in my mind: either we are in Christ - and like it or not, increasingly the
consequences of being in Christ become ever more unpleasant and even dangerous -
or we cling to the name and the kudos and all the rest which sticks to it, and
call ourselves Christian without any idea of what it means.
In the Middle East, Africa, India
and Pakistan, and in the Far East, being a committed Christian already means for
many, persecution or danger to life and limb. How many of those now claiming
ownership of the Church in its present de-Spirited and social gospel form, will
find it worth adhering to when that persecution and danger comes to the West -
as it will?