A Biblical Christian

[Kokavkrystallos]

A Biblical Christian​

A biblical Christian is one who has wholeheartedly complied with the terms for obtaining God’s provision for sin.

What are the divine terms for obtaining the divine provision? We must repent, and we must believe. Although it is necessary to discuss these as separate concepts, we must not think that repentance is ever divorced from faith, or that faith is ever divorced from repentance. True faith is permeated6 with repentance, and true repentance is permeated with faith. They interpenetrate one another in such a way that, whenever there’s a true appropriation of the divine provision, you will find a believing penitent and a penitent believer.

a. Repentance​

What is repentance? The definition of the Shorter Catechism7 is an excellent one: “Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension8 of the mercy of God in Christ, does, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.”

Repentance is the Prodigal Son coming to his senses in the far country. Rather than remain at home under his father’s rule, he had asked to receive his inheritance early and left home for a far country, where he squandered it. Reduced to misery through his sins, he came to himself and said, “How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants” (Luk 15:17-19).

When the Prodigal Son recognized his sin, he did not sit there and think about it, write poetry about it, or send telegrams home to dad. The Scripture says, “And he arose, and came to his father” (vs. 20). He left those companions who were his friends in sin; he abhorred everything that belonged to that life-style and turned his back on it. What was it that drew him home? It was the confidence that there was a gracious father with a large heart and with a righteous rule for his happy, loving home. He did not write saying, “Dad, things are getting rough down here; my conscience is giving me fits at night. Won’t you send me some money to help me out, or come and pay me a visit and make me feel good?” Not at all! He did not need just to feel good; he needed to become good. So he left the far country.

It is a beautiful stroke in our Lord’s picture when he says, “But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him” (vs. 20). The Prodigal did not come strutting up to his father, talking about making a decision to come home.

There is a notion today that people can walk up an aisle, pray a little prayer, and do God a favor by making their decision. This has nothing to do with true conversion. True repentance involves recognizing that I have sinned against the God of heaven—Who is great and gracious, holy and loving—and that I am not worthy to be called His son. Yet when I am prepared to leave my sin, turn my back upon it, and come back meekly, wondering if indeed there can be mercy for me, then—wonder of wonders!—the Father meets me and throws His arms of reconciling love and mercy about me. I say, not in a sentimental way but in all truth, that He smothers repenting sinners in forgiving and redemptive love.

But the father did not throw his arms around the Prodigal when he was still in the hog pens and in the arms of harlots. Do I speak to some whose hearts are wedded to the world and who love the world’s ways? Perhaps in your personal life, or in relationship to your parents, or in your social life where you take so lightly the sanctity of the body, you show what you really are.

Maybe some of you are involved in fornication, or in heavy petting, or in looking at the kind of stuff on television and in the movies that feeds your lust, and yet you name the name of Christ. You live in the hog pens and then go to a house of God on Sunday. Shame on you! Leave your hog pens and your haunts of sin! Leave your patterns and practices of fleshly and carnal indulgence! Repentance is being sorry enough to quit your sin. You will never know the forgiving mercy of God while you are still wedded to your sins.

b. Faith​

Repentance is the soul’s divorce from sin, but it will always be joined to faith. What is faith? Faith is the casting of the soul upon Christ as He is offered in the gospel. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (Joh 1:12). Faith is likened to drinking of Christ, for in my soul-thirst I drink of Him. Faith is likened to looking to Christ, and following Christ, and fleeing to Christ. The Bible uses many analogies and the sum of all of them is this: in the nakedness of my need I cast myself upon the Savior, trusting Him to be to me all that He has promised to be to needy sinners.

Faith brings nothing to Christ but an empty hand, by which it takes Christ and all that is in Him. What is in Christ? Full pardon for all my sins! His perfect obedience is put to my account. His death is counted as mine. The gift of the Spirit is in Him. Adoption,9 sanctification,10 and ultimately glorification are all in Him; and faith, by taking Christ, receives all that is in Him. You are “in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1Co 1:30).

c. Always together​

What is a biblical Christian? A biblical Christian is a person who has wholeheartedly complied with the divine terms for obtaining the divine provision for sin. Those terms are repentance and faith. I like to think of them as the hinge on which the door of salvation turns. The hinge has two plates, one that is screwed to the door and the other that is screwed to the jamb. They are held together by a pin, and on that hinge the door turns. Christ is that door, but none enters through Him who does not repent and believe.

There is no true hinge made up only of repentance. Repentance that is not joined to faith is a legalistic repentance. It terminates on yourself and on your sin. Likewise, there is no true hinge made up only of faith. Professed faith that is not joined to repentance is a spurious faith, for true faith is faith in Christ to save me, not in, but from my sin. Repentance and faith are inseparable, and “unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luk 13:3). The unbelieving are named among those who “shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Rev 21:8).

4. Evidence of Being a Biblical Christian​

A biblical Christian is a person who manifests in his life that his claims to repentance and faith are real.

Paul preached that men should repent and turn to God, and do works consistent with repentance (Act 26:20). God intends that there should be such works: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:8-10).

Paul says in Galatians 5 that faith works by love. Wherever there is true faith in Christ, genuine love to Christ will be implanted. And where there is love to Christ there will be obedience to Christ. “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me…He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings” (Joh 14:21-24). We are saved by trusting Christ, not by loving and obeying Christ; but a trust that does not produce love and obedience is not true saving faith.

True faith works by love, and that which love works is not the ability to sit out on a beautiful starlit night and write poetry about how exciting it is to be a Christian. True faith works by causing you to go back into your home and to obey your father and your mother, or to love your husband or wife and children as the Bible tells you to do, or to go back to your school or to your job to take a stand for truth and righteousness against all the pressure of your peers.

True faith makes you willing to be counted as a fool and crazy—willing to be considered outdated—because you believe that there are eternal, unchangeable moral and ethical standards. You are willing to believe in chastity and the sanctity of human life, and to take your stand against premarital sex and the murdering of babies in mothers’ wombs. For Jesus said, “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mar 8:38).

What is a biblical Christian? It is not merely one who says, “Oh, yes, I know I am a sinner, with a bad record and a bad heart. I know that God’s provision for sinners is in Christ and in His cross, and that it is adequately and freely offered to all. I know it comes to all who repent and believe.” That is not enough.

Do you repent and believe? And if you profess to repent and believe, can you make that profession stick—not by a life of perfection, but by a life of purposeful obedience to Jesus Christ?

“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Mat 7:21). In Hebrews 5:9 we read, “he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.” 1 John 2:4 says, “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”

Can you make your claim to be a Christian stick from the Bible? Does your life manifest the fruits of repentance and faith? Do you possess a life of attachment to Christ, obedience to Christ, and confession of Christ? Is your behavior marked by adherence to the ways of Christ? Not perfectly—no! Every day you must pray, Forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me (Mat 6:12). But at the same time you can also say, “For me to live is Christ” (Phi 1:21) or, in the words of the hymn,

Jesus I my cross have taken
All to leave and follow Thee.

A true Christian follows Jesus. How many of us are true, biblical Christians? I leave you to answer in the deep chambers of your own mind and heart. But remember, answer with an answer that you will be prepared to live with for eternity. Be content with no answer but one that will find you comfortable in death, and safe in the Day of Judgment.

From, What is a Biblical Christian? by Albert N. Martin, chapters 3 & 4