Lance Lambert
What Is a
Christian?
"I have three questions. I believe they're all important."
What Is a Christian?
In John chapter three, we find that the Lord Jesus speaks to the leading teacher and scholar of His day. A man who was renowned for his piety and for his knowledge of scriptural things, Nicodemus.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee — a member of Israel's most respected religious class — and a ruler of the Jewish council. He came to Jesus by night, perhaps to avoid being seen. John 3 records their full conversation.
The Lord Jesus went straight to the heart of the matter. It is one of the loveliest things about the Lord Jesus that He never ever wastes words — He comes to the point immediately, gently, firmly, decisively. He always comes right down to the need of whoever it is.
When Nicodemus came to the Lord Jesus, he was a very pious man. He was a very good man. He wasn't immoral, he wasn't indecent, he wasn't a bad man. He was a man who was known everywhere for his piety and his goodness.
The Lord Jesus never wasted any words. With Nicodemus, He went straight to the point and He said: "Verily, verily — except a man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
"What is a Christian? A Christian is someone who is born of God, spiritually begotten of God. That is a Christian. Nothing more and nothing less than that."
It would be easier if we were to tell ourselves quite plainly what a Christian is not. Sometimes the easiest way of getting to a clear understanding of the matter is to clear the ground of all the rubbish.
There are multitudes of people who say their prayers, who read their Bible, who go to church and many other things. They believe that in so doing they are Christians. But the word of God condemns such — not necessarily the motive of such, for the motive may be very good and sincere, but it condemns the idea that things such as that constitute a man or a woman a Christian.
"A Christian is someone who has been born of God. Something of God for the first time has been deposited in you. For the first time, you are linked in an eternal union with God."
What does it mean to be born anew? It means simply that you're born of God, just as you were born of your parents. Just as physically you were born of your father and your mother, so the same miracle spiritually has got to take place — so that you are born of God. Something, in fact, happens. Something within happens. And you are suddenly produced — a child of God.
He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. What is a Christian? Oh, the miracle of it. A Christian is someone who is joined to God. God is joined to them. They have been born of God. They are children of God. They are now God's family.
We have been begotten again unto a living hope... begotten again not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible.
What is a Christian? What does the name Christian mean? The name Christian came from the little word Christ's ones — those that are Christ's ones. People couldn't describe these people. They looked at them in Antioch. They watched their behaviour, their conduct. They watched. They listened to their speech. They saw these people changed.
"We knew them, we lived with them. We've had our dealings with them, but they've completely changed. Yes, they're the same people, and yet they've changed. What can we call them?" And they thought and they thought. And in the end they said, "We can only describe them in one way. They are of Christ. They are like Christ. They are Christ ones. Christ is in them."
What does it mean to be a Christian? It means that Christ has come to live within us and we are now joined with Christ. That is what it means to be a Christian.
How Can God Produce a Christian?
How then — if we know what a Christian is — how on earth is it not presumptuous to say that God can live inside of us sinful, failing, frail, weak human beings? Do you mean to tell me that God can actually come and live within me? That somehow or other God can get inside of me?
The Almighty God, the eternal God, the Holy God — how has He found a way with sinful, rebellious humanity? This is the way He has found. He Himself has taken human nature upon Himself and has become one of us, and yet without sin, and has taken into His own body the thing that has wrecked humanity.
The Lord Jesus said a remarkable thing. He said, "Nicodemus, you know, in our history, there was a time when the people sinned. And Moses was told to make a brazen serpent. And when he lifted it up, whoever looked at that brazen serpent lived. And whoever did not, died. Nicodemus, even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up."
This story is from Numbers 21. The Israelites were dying from snake bites in the wilderness, and God told Moses to make a bronze serpent on a pole — anyone who looked at it was healed. Jesus uses it as a picture of His own death on the cross: just as they looked and were saved, so we look to Him.
"Him who knew no sin, God made to become our sin, that we might become the righteousness of God."
Do you understand what that means? It means that God's Son Christ became our sin. He became the thing. He became sin. He knew no sin — that was His difference to the rest of us, that was His uniqueness. He was not sinful. He knew no sin. He became sin in order that we might become the righteousness of God. An exchange. He became our sin, that we might become His righteousness.
Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. And by His stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. But the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53 was written roughly 700 years before Jesus was born. It describes in striking detail a "suffering servant" — someone who would bear the punishment that others deserved. Christians understand this as a prophecy of Christ's death on the cross.
How does God produce a Christian? By being wounded. By being bruised. By stripes. By the chastisement of His people upon Him.
You mean to tell me that you can be a Christian in a cheap and easy way when it costs God everything? That is a pernicious lie. You and I can only become Christians by the way God has given us — the way of a crucified Christ.
"How does God produce a Christian? By the way of a crucified God. A God who allowed Himself to be nailed by His own creation to a tree which He Himself had created."
What Is My Responsibility?
To become a Christian is wholly within the sovereignty of God. Oh, wholly within the sovereignty of God. I can do nothing but cry. When I cry, God hears.
He shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied.
We can only do one thing. We must leave our rather glorified and easy ideas of what makes a Christian. We must come simply to the Lord as one whose own attitude has made the cross a necessity. We must come, therefore, as contrite sinners to an almighty God. We must make no excuse. We must not try to evade any issue.
We must come and see that our sin — my sin — nailed Him to the tree. You and I have a personal responsibility in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was for us. For us.
We don't come to try and make out that we should be alright, or to try and make God believe that we are better than we really are. We must come simply, just as we are. And we must, in faith, take Christ crucified as the way of God. The way of God by which I can reach Him and by which He can reach me.
The Lord Jesus said: "I am the way, the truth and the life." That's the way.
"No more excuses, no more dilly-dallying, no more evasion. Simply, quietly, definitely take Him as your offering for sin. The one who died in your place. The one who answers to God for you."
"God's salvation is not a thing. It is a person."
You accept the person and you have the salvation. You can't have the salvation without the person. The person is the salvation. Jesus — the salvation of God.
Take Him, open your heart to Him, receive Him. Surrender to Him. Abandon yourself to Him and you'll become a child of God.
To as many as received Him, to them gave He the authority to become children of God.