Belief in God Does Not Make You a Christian
There are many loud voices and strong opinions in Western culture regarding what it means to be a Christian and believe in God. Postmodernism has become the cultural cry of Hollywood and the Millennial generation. If one disagrees with another on religion, morals, or politics, this is now viewed as offensive or bigoted.
Take, for example, the tweet that actress Alyssa Milano posted recently. Milano directed it against Georgia bill “HB481” which outlaws abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat. She wrote, “I love God. I believe in God. But I don’t believe my personal beliefs of which we can’t confirm should override scientific facts and what we can confirm.” Milano concluded the tweet by quoting from the Gospel of John stating, “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (John 3:12).
There are many things to be said in response to this statement (especially in regard to “scientific facts”), but it does seem to show that Milano sees a difference between personal beliefs about what Christianity teaches, and objective reality. She says she ‘loves God,’ yet fails to believe or obey God on the teaching that murder, the unjust taking away of human life, is a sin.
Similarly, Lady Gaga recently spoke out against Vice President Mike Pence during one of her concerts saying, “And to Mike Pence, who thinks it's acceptable that his wife works at a school that bans LGBTQ, you are wrong… You say we should not discriminate against Christianity; you are the worst representation of what it means to be a Christian. I am a Christian woman and what I do know about Christianity is that we bear no prejudice and everybody is welcome. So, you can take all that disgrace Mr. Pence and you can look yourself in the mirror and you'll find it right there."
Again, the theme here presented by Gaga is that it is wrong for a Christian to engage with schools that uphold biblical teachings on homosexuality. If a Christian believes homosexuality is a sin because the Word of God defines it as a sin (Romans 1:18-32, Lev. 18:22, 1 Cor. 6:9-10, 1 Timothy 1:8-10) they are seen as hateful and discriminatory. The irony of Gaga’s logic is, of course, that she is doing the very thing she accuses Mike Pence and his wife of doing; telling someone their beliefs are dishonorable.
These are just two of the numerous examples of what is not acceptable for Christians to believe or say in our culture. The general idea is that it is fine to be a Christian as long as your personal beliefs do not interfere with the personal beliefs of others.
It is common to hear that the reason one is a Christian is that they believe in God, grew up in the church, are part of a particular denomination, or read the Bible/accept parts of what the Bible says. With this being the prevalent, western, understanding of what Christianity is, how do we know what it truly means to be a Christian? In order to answer this question, we must closely examine the roots and foundation of what Christians believe, which is found in the Word of God.
From Genesis to Revelation, the grand theme of Scripture is this:
God created the universe and all of mankind (Gen. 1:1, 27, Psalm 24:1).
He is Holy and requires perfect obedience and holiness (Matt. 5:48, James 2:10).
All mankind has sinned and rebelled against God, and now are all worthy of death and eternity in Hell (Romans 3:10, 23, Romans 6:23, Titus 3:5).
God, because of His great love, sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to live the perfect life (fulfilling the law we have broken). He gave himself up to die and bear our sins and punishment on the cross (Col 2:9, Romans 5:8, 2 Cor. 5:21).
Three days later he rose again, defeating sin and death ( 1 Cor. 15:4, 55-57).
This is the gospel; the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Now, the call and command to all sinners is repentance and faith. Repentance means a changing of our mind, turning away from sin and any attempts to gain merit before God, and putting our whole trust and confidence in Christ alone as our savior; the one who died in our place and imputed (exchanged) his perfect righteousness to us (Acts 17:30, Eph. 2:8-9, Romans 10:9, Isa. 55:7, Luke 9:23).
Jesus Christ taught that in order to see the Kingdom of God we must be born again (John 3:3). This is often called regeneration. Where our hearts, which were once dead, are made alive in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:1-10). The Christian who is born again, and has repented of their sin and put their faith in Christ will have new desires. No longer living to glorify and gratify his or herself, but living to glorify, honor, obey, and love God and others (Ezekiel 36:26-28, Rom. 6:1-4). This means they have fully submitted themselves to him in obedience and dependence for their everyday life.
So then, we see from God’s Word that to be a Christian means more than just believing in the existence of God. God says that “even the demons believe and shudder” (James 2:19). To be a Christian is more than being a “good” or “loving” person. The mark of a true Christian will certainly include belief in God and genuine love shown to others. However, faith and repentance are never absent from these.
This life will not look like perfection, as Christians will still struggle with sin and doubt. (Rom. 7:15-17, Mark 9:24). However, the mark of a true Christian is one whose life has changed due to the reality of Christ living in them (Col. 1:27). True followers of Jesus Christ do not see Him merely as a good teacher or role model, but as the Son of God who died for our sins, who rose again, and who now is seated at the right hand of God (Gal. 2:20, Rom. 8:10, 34).
We should be attentive when celebrities and those we know claim to be Christians yet consistently live, act, and believe contrarily to what God has revealed for our lives. This reveals either that they truly don’t know Him and are not saved or are in grave error. We must learn to discern between what we hear in the media and in our culture about what Christianity is and is not. What we believe must come from God, our Creator, who has revealed to us all these things in His Word, and has graciously given us His Son, Jesus Christ. Though it is not popular and may even be offensive to disagree with the world around us, Jesus taught that to truly be His disciple, we must “deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him” (Luke 9:23).