What Makes a Believer a “LEGITIMATE CHRISTIAN”?
Occasionally you’ll come across people who have a list of doctrines that they deem mandatory for being a “legitimate believer.” This is fine if the list is comprised of actual core truths of Christianity, but not if the doctrines are peripheral and therefore unessential. So, what makes a legitimate Christian according to the God-breathed Scriptures? The answer can be split into two areas — beliefs and practices. We’ll look at both in detail and then offer the gist (so, if you don’t want the details, just scroll down to The Short Answer).
The Beliefs That Mark a Genuine Christian
The core belief that marks a legitimate believer can be observed here:
9If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
Romans 10:9-10
If you truly believe something, you’ll declare it with your mouth. This core belief can be observed by what the Lord said during his ministry on Earth, as well as John:
14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
16For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
John 3:14-18
36Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.
John 3:36
Humanity’s problem is that we have a sin nature, which separates us from our holy Creator and puts us on a collision course with eternal death. God’s conundrum is that the LORD is love and thus loves humanity (1 John 4:8 & John 3:16), but God is also just and must therefore issue out the just wage of sin, which is death (Romans 6:23 & Matthew 10:28). While God is willing to forgive sin, the LORD cannot ignore sin. Thus the Almighty came up with an ingenious plan to save humanity from eternal death by providing a way to forgive a person’s sin through providing someone without sin willing to die in his/her place (2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 4:15 & 1 John 3:5).
This parable might help to grasp the concept: An entomologist lived by some woods where he studied the various insects. There was a huge ant hill of which he became particularly fond. When news came that the nearby road was going to be extended through the woods and it was on a collision course with the ant hill, the entomologist longed to save his beloved ants, but it was impossible to communicate the dangers to them. The only way he could do so would be to become an ant!
This is the Christian message in a nutshell: God became a human being in the form of Jesus Christ to warn us to repent or perish (Luke 13:1-9) and, more than that, sacrifice himself for us by dying in our place (Philippians 2:5-11, 1 Peter 3:18 & Hebrews 9:14, 9:26). Think about it, the LORD could’ve just kicked back in Heaven and destroyed us all for our sin, which would’ve been a just act. Instead, God was born into this humbling, brutal planet and suffered & died for us.
Yet it doesn’t end there, Christ was raised from the dead for our justification (Romans 4:25).
Thus the penalty of sin, death, is paid for and those who believe & repent are saved from eternal death (Mark 1:15 & Acts 20:21), not to mention reconciled to their Creator (Romans 5:10 & 5:11). Belief, by the way, simply means you believe the message while repentance means to “change your mind” in response to that particular truth, which naturally has an impact on your actions or lifestyle. This shows that faith & repentance go hand-and-hand and are actually two sides of the same coin. After all, if you truly believe something, you’ll change your thinking and actions accordingly, right?
This explains why faith and repentance are the first two basic doctrines of biblical Christianity (Hebrews 6:1-2), as detailed here.
It should be emphasized that believing the message of Christ with the corresponding repentance (changing one’s mind accordingly) is all that is required for eternal salvation:
8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:8-10
Yet notice that, while we are saved by faith, we are recreated spiritually in Christ (Titus 3:5) for the purpose of doing good works, which brings up…
The Practices That Mark a Genuine Christian
If a believer is walking in the spirit and producing the fruit thereof (Galatians 5:16 & 5:22-23) as they fulfill their particular call, that would indeed mark them as legitimate. This ties into the two greatest commands with its three applications: Love God and love others, as you love yourself:
36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ c 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ d 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22:36-40
This is what the New Testament calls “the law of love” or “law of Christ”:
19Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.
1 Corinthians 9:19-21
2Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
Galatians 6:2
In the believer’s dealings with other people, the law of Christ is ‘the golden rule‘:
“In everything, then, do to others as you would have them do to you. For this is the essence of the Law and the prophets.”
“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
If you really fulfill the royal law stated in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.
True believers live a lifestyle that reflects ‘the golden rule,’ which James calls “the royal law.” This rule is the simplest of guidelines to live by: Do to others as you would have them do to you. For instance, if you don’t want people to be rude and insulting to you for no justifiable reason, don’t be rude and insulting to others. If you don’t want people to commit crimes against you, don’t commit crimes against others.
I’m stunned when I come across confessing believers who’ve gone to quality assembles for decades and yet don’t follow this simple rule. They might as well get out a megaphone and say, “I’m not a true believer! I’m a fake Christian!”
You can read more about the law of Christ here.
Understanding “Keeping With Repentance”
According to Hebrews 6:1 (noted above), what are we to repent of? “Acts that lead to death.” The word ‘acts’ is the same Greek word translated as “acts” in this passage:
19The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Galatians 5:19-21
These verses show that “acts of the flesh” are not limited to just sexual immorality, drunkard-ness, stealing and murder. Things like discord (strife), jealousy, factions (meaning the divisive spirit that results from rigid sectarianism), hatred and envy are also works of the flesh. Unfortunately, these works are regularly evident in many congregations, as was the case with the believers in Corinth a few years after Paul left to start assemblies elsewhere (1 Corinthians 3:3). Paul warned believers in Galatians 5 that “those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God,” meaning those who practice these sins with no care of penitence. This explains why the Bible encourages us to keep ‘fessed-up when we miss it:
8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:8-9
When we miss it we need to be quick to repent. This takes humility, of course, but humility is good because God’s favor flows to the humble, not the proud. In fact, the LORD resists or opposes the proud, which is why He doesn’t offer forgiveness to the unrepentant (James 4:6 & 1 Peter 5:5). This explains Jesus’ declaration: “But unless you repent you will all perish” (Luke 13:3,5). Arrogant people have an extremely hard time admitting they’re wrong, which is why they won’t repent. By contrast, humble folk will readily confess when missing it and it’s humility that unlocks God’s favor.
John the Baptist referred to regularly penitence as “keeping with repentance”:
“Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”
Matthew 3:8 & Luke 3:8
It’s impossible to bear fruit unto God while knowingly walking in impenitent sin. So the principle of keeping with repentance assures the continuing stream of the LORD’s forgiveness and favor in our lives as we regularly repent. Needless to say, don’t allow unconfessed sin to block-up your spiritual arteries from the flow of God’s grace.
Humbly ‘fessing-up should become a regular activity in the life of the believer. It’s particularly helpful for believers who are in bondage to a certain sin. They want free, but they keep falling back into the transgression in question and confessing. This keeping-with-repentance principle ensures the flow of the LORD’s forgiveness and favor into their lives. As they seek God and continue in the Word they will eventually walk in freedom (see this article for details). I was once one of these people, but no longer struggle with any certain sin, which is different than saying I never miss it. A couple days ago I missed it and felt so convicted; I immediately ‘fessed up and received God’s grace. Praise God!
The Short Answer
A believer’s legitimacy in Christianity doesn’t depend on being doctrinally correct on every peripheral issue. While it’s certainly good to be as accurate as possible on any given topic, it’s one’s faith in the message of Christ that marks a true believer (John 3:16 & 3:36). As the Lord said:
“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
As far as practice or lifestyle goes, legitimate believers are those who walk in the spirit and produce the fruit thereof in every good work (Colossians 1:10), the primary fruit being love (Colossians 3:14), which includes walking in tough love when appropriate. Genuine Christians naturally live by the ‘golden rule‘ (or should I say supernaturally live by it, with the help of the Holy Spirit?). Walking in the spirit of course includes keeping with repentance (1 John 1:9, Matthew 3:8 & Luke 3:8). Any confessing believer who refuses to keep with repentance and stubbornly lives a lifestyle of sin is deceiving himself or herself. As it is written:
7Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the spirit, from the spirit will reap eternal life.
Galatians 6:7-8
Related Topics:
How to Keep Yourself BLAMELESS (while Not Being SINLESS)
God Deals with People According to the Light they Have
Spiritual Growth — The Four Stages
The Seven Keys to SPIRITUAL GROWTH
The Six Basic Doctrines of Christianity
comments powered by Disqus