The question has been asked What makes someone a Christian? It should be a relatively easy question to answer, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more difficult it has become to answer it. Then I realised that I was thinking so deeply about it that my head was up my backside! So, I went back to first principles and started again.
I started at the Creed which I’ve boringly included
I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through Him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation he came down from Heaven. By the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and was made Man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; He suffered death and was buried. On the third day He rose again, in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and His Kingdom will have no end.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets.
I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sin and look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
So, a brief summary of what all that is.
Firstly there is only one God that Christians can believe in and He is responsible for making everything around us, including ourselves. However, that doesn’t explain the how of it. You can believe in the Genesis version of Creation, or you can believe in evolution. Nothing in the Creed specifies how God made everything.
Christians also believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, i.e. the one to die for our sins, but there’s more to it than that. He is described as the Son of God, begotten, not made. That means begotten just like all the other begottens in the Bible. Remember the whole list of who begat who? So Jesus Christ came into being in the same way that new people are made today. His mother was Mary. Thing is, who was his Father? I’m not talking biologically, so don’t think I’m talking about Joseph. According to all the references in the Bible and the Creed, God is His Father. Yet it also says that He is of one being with the Father. So that means that God is God and God is Jesus and Jesus is God and since the Creed also states that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, it means that God is God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, Jesus is God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. This neatly describes the Trinity, the Three in One. I think of it as a bit like water. You can take a bit of water, depending on the conditions, and those same molecules can be ice, water or vapour. Three in one.
Then we come to the bit about the crucifixion. If you believe all the explanations above, then you come to the realisation that, although it’s said that God sent His Son to suffer and die for us, in actual fact it was God Himself, manifested as the Son who did the suffering. That’s why the argument How could a loving Father make His Son go through that? doesn’t make me wonder. It also makes me realise that the crucifixion was the final step in the forgiveness of our sins. Our sins come from that fact that we are human with human weaknesses and frailties. God had never been human and had never experienced the weaknesses. By becoming human, God got to see what it was like FROM OUR POINT OF VIEW. The capitalised bit is the important bit!! It’s sort of like mitigating circumstances. Jesus became the bridge between the Divine and the human.
Now what might be an awkward bit. The holy catholic and apostolic church. Apostolic is self-explanatory, but what about catholic? Notice the small c. So we’re not talking Catholic as in Roman Catholic, we’re talking definitions here and it means universal. OK, why is that included in the Creed? Well, because prior to Paul it was only the Jews who were being included in Christianity. Paul extended it to ALL. He made it all-inclusive, i.e. universal.
One baptism for the forgiveness of sins? Well, that’s a passive forgiveness; you don’t have to do anything. However there is a HUGE but. Anything done after that isn’t included. So how do you get later sins forgiven? By asking for forgiveness in prayer. That means you have to recognise that your action or words or thoughts have actually been a sin, that is you have to admit that you’ve done wrong. It’s easy to say I’m sorry to someone, it’s a damned sight harder to say I’m sorry for.. and actually specifying what you know you shouldn’t have done. While we’re on the subject of sins and forgiveness, I’m going to bring in a specifically Roman Catholic slant — the issue of Confession or as it’s more properly known Reconciliation. Before I became a Roman Catholic I would pray in privacy and ask for forgiveness for whatever I thought I had done wrong. Now I have to TELL someone and my priest doesn’t do it in a confessional — it’s his front room, face to face. Boy, is that the pits!!! It makes me so aware of sin and it makes me ashamed and determined not to do it again. Doesn’t mean that I succeed, but I do try. Also, it’s not a matter of three Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys and you’re forgiven. If you don’t feel genuinely contrite in your heart you’re NOT forgiven and priests make that clear. Yu can put on as much of an act as you can when you confess to the priest and he may perform the Absolution, but if you don’t feel sorry for your sins in your heart then God knows and won’t forgive you, no matter how many Hail Marys you say. Yes, Reconciliation is abused, some people confess the same sins week in, week out, but the Roman Catholic Church makes it quite clear that in doing this you obviously can’t be genuinely contrite and so you’re not forgiven by God.
The Resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come sort of speaks for itself again. Christians believe that after physical death you get eternal life. It was believed that the resurrection was physical and that the dead body would be raised at the Second Coming — that’s why many believed that cremation was not a good thing — it destroyed the body. However, that belief has been superseded by the belief that it is the soul which is resurrected. After all, didn’t Jesus say on the Cross to the guy crucified beside him Today you will be in Paradise? Note the TODAY. No question of waiting for the Second Coming.
So that’s my take on what makes a Christian a Christian. I’m not trying to argue from logic, I’m not trying to prove to anyone that there is a God. This is just my personal opinion on the matter. It takes in core beliefs and instructions on how you should act towards others. The specifics are set out in the teachings of Jesus, but if you truly believe in Jesus Christ as the Saviour, then you will try with all your might to follow his teachings and that means staying your hand, turning the other cheek, helping people, forgiving others, praying for forgiveness and asking others to forgive you when you sin against them, not judging others — leave that to God, he’s the best judge.
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