What Is a Christian?

The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” But what is a Christian? If you should be asked to give a definition of a Christian, what would your answer be? It is not enough to say that a Christian is one who is a member of the Quitch, because many Church members are not Christians. Nor is it sufficient for you to reply that a Christian is one who is an officer of the Church, for I doubt not that some Church officers will hear Him say at the great day, “I never knew you.” It certainly is not a satisfactory answer that one is a Christian because he is a minister in the Church, because we are very sure that when we come to the judgment seat of Christ, and possibly at the judgment of the Great White Throne, some who have stood in the pulpit will find that their works have all been burned, and they themselves saved “as by fire,” or they, too, may hear Him say, “I never knew you, depart from me.”

What is a Christian? I was standing one morning in a hotel in Seoul, the capital of Korea, in conversation with a young Korean who told me that he was a Christian. “But,” he said, “while my father was a Christian, my grandfather was a Confucianist.” I know the definition of a Confucianist. He is one who believes in Confucius as a great teacher. He not infrequently goes into the temple to worship, and possibly he may go away a somewhat better man. He is one who recognizes Confucius as a sage and a teacher who presented to the world some very high ideals of living, and occasionally, if he is a real Confucianist, he may practice the teachings of his great teacher. But if I were to change that definition, and insert the name of Jesus in the place of that of Confucius, that would not be the definition of a Christian. So I put the question plainly, “What is a Christian?”

Some one answers, “A Christian is one who believes in Jesus Christ.” I answer, “Not of necessity.” The very devils may believe in Him. The ordinary wicked man in the world believes in Him. You may believe in Him and never know Him.

Then, you say, a Christian is one who believes on Jesus Christ, and to those of us trained in Christian homes, who know God’s Word and have come to know Jesus Christ, the definition begins to be satisfactory. What is the difference between believing in and believing on? I was once in the mountains of Colorado going through some of the silver mines, and I came to one mine where the miners went down to their work by means of a rope, a windlass and a bucket. The miners would step into the bucket and be lowered by means of the rope and windlass to their day’s task. I can imagine one of those men examining the windlass, and untwisting the rope and testing the bucket, then stepping back and saying, “I believe in these things thoroughly. The windlass is strong, the rope perfect, and the bucket sure.” That is believing in them. But that will not lower him to his day’s work. However, when he lays hold upon the rope with his hands, steps into the bucket, and trusts himself to rope and windlass to be lowered into the mine for his day’s toil, he believes not in but on, because he has committed himself to the rope and the windlass and the bucket. That is the beginning of the definition of what it really means to be a Christian. It is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But even that is not a satisfactory definition; that is, it is not satisfactory to the man whose training has been defective and whose tendency is to doubt, and who is seeking light, because he does not attach as much importance to the little words in the Bible as we do who have come to know Jesus Christ in all His love and power.

A college professor defines a Christian thus: “Christianity is .primarily a way of living: the Christian life is a life in which a man adopting the ideals of Jesus and reaching out for connection with the personality of Jesus finds himself increasingly becoming a true son to God and a true brother to his fellow-man.” To me this is far from a satisfactory statement. I am not a son to God, but, by regeneration and sovereign grace a son of God ( 1 John 3:2); and then, again, according to this definition it would seem that one becomes a Christian as a result of personal effort in the reaching out after ideals, and striving to attain to them. If this be a true definition (which it is not), then there is little hope for the man with the ruined life, the shattered constitution, the depraved and distorted will. Yet to all such Jesus came with tender compassion and matchless grace.

What is a Christian? May I give a negative answer? A Christian is not of necessity one who boasts of his ancestry. Kinship with the saved does not insure salvation. Your mother may have been a saint, your father a priest in his household, and you be lost. I am not unmindful of that Scripture which declares, “The promise is unto you, and unto your children, and to all that are afar off,” but at the same time I know that my mother’s faith cannot save me, and my father’s righteousness cannot be imputed to me.

Again, a Christian is not necessarily one who subscribes to a creed. There are a great many people in the world to-day who are orthodox in their thinking and very heterodox in their living. From such turn away. You may approve of the creed of any or all evangelical churches and go to perdition. To be a Christian is not to subscribe to a creed, although that is not without its value.

Again, a Christian is not, of necessity, one who boasts of an early training. You may have been in the Sunday-school in your youth, you may have attended the church regularly, and you may have a sort of an apprehension of the Saviour in His beauty of character, but that is not enough. You must personally accept Him. You must be united to Him by’fai’thT Your early training is not enough.

Again, a Christian is not merely one who uses the language of heaven. Taking the train one day at Vancouver, B. C., I traveled over the Canadian Pacific Railroad with a most interesting railroad porter, ii

who told me that he was a lay-preacher of the Methodist Church, and he gave evidence of his genuine piety. He told me of a man who was a passenger on a previous journey with him, whose conversation, he said, was beautiful to listen to. He said he spoke like a preacher, but one day he came on him unexpectedly and heard him swearing like a pirate, so his conversation did not amount to anything. It is not a matter of talking, it is a matter of living.

Again, a Christian is not simply one who claims membership in the Church. You may join all the churches in the world, if that were possible, and never know God. A Christian is not of necessity a man whofboasts of his denominational connection. I think the denominations are valuable for many reasons. There are people who could feel at home only in the Episcopal Church, or the Presbyterian Church, or the Methodist Church, and I think it is a poor policy to put them in a place where they could not work satisfactorily, and could not find congenial companionship; but the denomination does not save. My mother was a most devout member of the Methodist Church. My father was devoted to her, and though he came from a long line of Presbyterian ancestry he did not attend his own church while she lived, but we went to the Methodist Church with my mother, attended the Methodist Sunday-school, and stayed there during the early years of my childhood as scholars in that school. When my mother died, at thirty-five years of age, my father naturally turned his thought again to the church of his ancestors, so we became worshippers in the Presbyterian Church in the city of Richmond, Indiana. I have no doubt at all that if my father had died first, we should have continued in the Methodist Church, and I suppose to-day instead of being a Presbyterian minister I might have been a Methodist minister. So while I love the Church of which I am a member, and could not be happier than in association with that church and her ministry, at the same time I say that it is not the denomination that counts, so much as what is in the denomination in the way of the spirit of Jesus. It is not being a Presbyterian, or an Episcopalian, or a Congregationalist, or a Methodist, or a Baptist — it is being united to Tesus Christ, hv saving faith that makes you a true follower of Him.

What is a Christian? Turn back to the statement of the text: “The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” Unquestionably this word was spoken with scorn concerning these followers of Jesus. They thought to heap insult upon the followers of Jesus by calling them Christians. But why did they call them Christians? For this reason: I am sure they must

I have reminded them of Jesus. I do not know a simpler definition than that to start with. If you are reminding your household of Jesus; if you are reminding your partner of Jesus; if you are reminding your friends of Jesus; if, in the look of your eye, the ring of your voice, the touch of your hand, there is the spirit of Jesus, then I should like to have fellowship / with you, because I believe you have come to know ‘Him, at least in part, whom to know is life eternal.

Recently I have read a most helpful definition of a Christian. It is in a remarkable book by Carnegie Simpson, entitled “The Fact of Christ.” This book strongly moved and influenced me. It says, “A Christian fs one who responds to whatever meanings of Christ are through God’s spirit brought home to his intellectual or moral conscience.” And if that is an involved definition, I can sum it all up in this: A Christian is one who responds to Christ. I think that is the beginning of a great definition.

If one is to be a Christian there must first of all be a Sense of Need. Then there must be an Appreciation of Jesus; then there must be a Turning to Jesus; then there must be a Yielding to Jesus, and Accepting by Faith at His hand what He offers. When we read, “The gift of God is eternal life,” it means “The gift of God is life of the Eternal.” Because when God’s life* comes in — and that is always at the time of regeneration, and regeneration is at the moment of your acceptance of Christ — when God’s life comes in, then you live in an entirely new sphere, under entirely different conditions. You can lift your eyes heavenward, and say, “Abba, Father,” and you know Him.

But if you are seeking Jesus Christ you must not, under any circumstances, ignore sin, for sin can hide the vision of His face effectually. In a remarkable book recently published in America, entitled “Twice-Born Men,” which was originally named, “A Clinic in Regeneration,” a book which has the indorsement of men liberal in thought and also those conservative in their views, the following statement is made: “Until a soul hates evil little can be done; until it desires good — nothing.” So you must hate sin. You must love the good. You must long to see Jesus. You must think of Him. You must give heed to His teaching. You must yield to Him. You must obey Him.

What is a Christian? I have recently read in a great book that no one has a right to be a sceptic until he has first of all faced Christ, been fair to Christ, and then made an honest effort to follow Christ. You have no right to be a sceptic until you have given Him the consideration that is His due. Have you ever really considered Him? There can be no question of His existence, notwithstanding the fact that recently in a city in Germany a man spoke for hours to prove that Christ never existed. Then he and a number of men who believed in Jesus entered upon a discussion that lasted until three o’clock in the morning, in the midst of which women fainted and- strong men cried out. But that does not disprove His existence. We know that He existed. Have you ever really considered Him? You know that the heavenly bodies were all in confusion until the sun was made the centre of all those great systems. With anything else as the centre the planets appeared to be swinging off into space, hither and thither, in great confusion, but when the sun was made the centre then there was perfect harmony. And there never can be harmony in your thinking, and certainly never harmony in your living, until Christ is the centre of your thinking and living.

Some one will say, “But I cannot know God.” I understand your difficulty. He holds the winds in His fists. How could you take Him into your mind? In the hollow of His hand the seas beat and throb. How could you hold Him in your thought? God is infinite, eternal, unchangeable. He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. He speaks, and it is done. But when you turn to the New Testament, and hear Jesus saying, “He that hath seen me hath seen my Father also”; and when you watch Him as He bends down and writes in the sands forgiveness for the woman at His feet; when you hear Him as he speaks the word that sets the woman free from her bondage of years; when you watch Him as He places His hands upon babies’ heads, and sends them out to a life of blessing; when you stand near Him as He weeps in sympathy with Mary and Martha, and then speaks the words which liberate Lazarus from the grip of death; then, when you hear Him say, “He that hath seen me hath seen my Father also,” what think ye of Christ? Notjod — Christ, the Son of God.

There are those to-day who say they cannot understand the riddle of the universe. Very well, do not consider it. Go back to Him without whom was nof anything made that was made. What think ye of Christ? Settle that question, and every riddle will! have its solution, every problem will be solved easily. What think ye of Christ? That is the first question for you to answer. The Church may be destroyed, but you have Him. If you should lose your Bible, which is impossible, you have Him. Let one plant his feet by faith on the Rock of Ages, let him lift his eyes to see Him who is the Morning Star, and nothing can shake him. In the midst of all this Babel of criticism and confusion of tongues what think ye of Christ? You must face Him. No man can be an intelligent and honest sceptic until he has fairly considered Jesus Christ.

It is not altogether a question of ethics that we mus consider. Ethics cannot save you. There has hardl; been a nation in history with a better system of ethic than the Chinese nation. Take the sayings of Confucius and put them alongside the sayings of Jesus and while of course they will suffer by comparison still they will shine out brilliantly before you. Bu what has ethics done for China? They say that whei one of the missionaries was translating the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans into Chinese, th< Chinaman to whom he was dictating refused to continue the work. He said, “This is a picture of th< Chinese people, and I will not have the story sen out to the world.” I recently journeyed througl China, and if ever there was a land where darkness i found and sin is rampant it is China. The Chines* have had ethics. The difference between the ethics o [the Chinese and the teachings of Jesus is this: Confucius gives the ideal which to many is impossible o attainment; Jesus gives the ideal and the strength t< reach it as well.

We saw a great company of people come up to om of the Buddhist Temples, in Japan, with care plainh written upon their countenances. They stood witl bowed heads for a moment at the entrance to the tern pie, then they clapped their hands to attract the attention of their God. Then they threw their money int( the receptacle that was there for the purpose. But! saw them go away with hearts still heavy, with car* weighing them down.

Let me give you another picture. It is a picture o a company of men whom I met in Peking, China, ir

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the Congregational Compound, every one of whom had been through the Boxer persecution. One man told me that there was not a space on his body as big as a man’s hand that was not scarred. Another told me that his wife was murdered and his children were torn limb from limb. Another was left for dead, was tossed into a well with the dead and dying men and women, but he climbed out and barely escaped with his life. But as these men gathered around us, with faces shining and eyes glistening with tears, they said that not for a single moment did Jesus forsake them. They were told that if they turned away from Jesus their lives ?would be spared, but they said they would die before they did that. On the one side you have the ethics without the strength to reach the ideal. On the other side you have the ideal with the strength / to live up to it. It is a marvelous thing to be a ‘Christian.

Do you know Jesus Christ? Then, if you do not, answer me this question: Have you ever really faced Christ?

Have you been fair to Christ? It is an awful thing to trifle about salvation, to treat the acceptance of Jesus as you would treat the purchase of a piece of property — to take Him, or not, as you please. This is a day when men are breaking away from the old paths of faith, when they are almost ridiculing the hope that made their mother beautiful, and their father strong. I am not disposed to treat otherwise than kindly the so-called believers in what is known as New Thought, or the believers in Christian Science. I do not treat unfairly the people who do not believe as I believe, but I ask those who were once Christians, this: Did you give as much time to the consideration of the claims of Jesus as you have given to the mysticisms of New Thought? Did you ever put in as much time practicing the principles of Jesus? And I ask the Christian Scientists who were once members of a Church: Did you ever give as much consideration to the claims of Christ as you have given to Mrs. Eddy? Were you ever as faithful in practicing the precepts of Jesus as you are in practicing the things which are written in Mrs. Eddy’s book? Were you fair to Christ?

Dr. J. M. Buckley, writing regarding spiritualism, said that many who have dabbled in spiritualism have lost their religion, still more their reputation, a great number their money, and a multitude their domestic peace; and this is also true of other forms of error. Have you ever fairly considered Him? He is marvellous. tie is worth, vour. ^.consideration. “Men speak of Alexander the Great, of Charlemagne the Great, and of Napoleon the Great, but they never speak of Jesus the Great — they just say ‘Jesus.’

“Sweetest name on mortal tongue,

Sweetest note in seraph’s song,

Sweetest carol ever sung,

Jesus 1 Blessed Jesus.”

“There is no name S(5 sweet on earth, and none so sweet in heaven.” He was great in His birth. When he was cradled in the manger the heavens hung out the brightest star to mark His birthplace. The angel choir sent their singers to sing, “On earth peace and good will towards men.” Wise men came to wonder and to worship, and the shepherds came to look and to love.

He was great in His name.

“Although I know Thee as the Son of God anointed,

And hail Thee, Prophet, Priest, and King appointed,

Still when I need Thee, Thou art nearest,

And when I trust Thee, Thou art dearest,

As Son of Man.”

He was great in His nature. So human that he could stand beside Mary and Martha at the tomb of Lazarus, and shed tears. So divine that he could say with that voice that made worlds leap into existence, “Lazarus, come forth,” Have you ever really been fair to Jesus?

He is great in His power. He has only to speak and the devils obey Him. He has only to speak and disease is gone. He speaks and death is conquered. He demands the best there is in you. You have trifled with Him. That is the reason you are not a Christian.

He is great in His influence. He lived thirty-three years on earth, and He has done more than all the philosophers of the ages to make life worth living, to make manhood strong and womanhood beautiful. One writer gives us a picture of Jesus passing through the country. People throng Him on every side. There are crowds ahead and crowds behind, but the difference between the crowd ahead and the crowd in the rear is this: Jesus has passed by the crowd in

the rear, and they are leaping and rejoicing and praising God, with good health beating its way to their finger tips, with eyes flashing, and with renewed strength. Jesus has made them whole. Ahead of Him is sorrow and distress, and suffering. He is still moving in the same wonderful way.

He is great in His message. There was never such a message as this. “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” or this, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me.” He is great in His message.

All the world has testified to His greatness and power. Judas saw Him live, and said, “He is the Son of God.” His enemies heard Him speak, and said, “Never man spake like this man.” The centurion saw Him die, and said, “Truly this was the Son of God.” Have you ever been fair to Jesus Christ? You must study Him, and when you study Him, He will thrill you. You study the story of a soldier, and it will make your pulses beat faster, it will make your eye flash with fire, it will almost make you feel that you are having a call to battle, it will almost make you feel as if you are marching on to victory. Study the stories of great saints, and you are rebuked for your own lack of faith, and you long to be more like Jesus. But study Jesus, and your weakness is gone and power is in its place; your blindness is gone and sight is in its stead. Have you ever been fair to Jesus? Most of you have not. I call you to Him.

I can give you the secret of overcoming doubt, and of mastering difficulty. It is this: You just start to live in Jesus to-day.

What must I do to be a Christian? It is an important question, it is a perplexing question, it is an eternal question. First of all, you must recognize ft your, sense of need of Christ. Nothing else can satisfy you but Christ. If I could throw off into space to-day a world a thousand times larger than this world, if I could hurl into space a world ten thousand times larger than this one, I could not fill space, but I know what can. “If 1 take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the Sea,” God is there, He is everywhere. God pity the man who thinks he can satisfy his soul with money, or the woman who thinks she can satisfy her soul with pleasure. You must recognize your sense of need. God can satisfy it.

What must I do to be a Christian? Recognize the Jact of sin. We have come to a time when people tell us that sin is only the thought of mortal mind. I think I might say, if I lived in a mansion, and shut my doors so that I could not see the men go staggering down the streets, if I stopped my ears so that I could not hear the shrieks of the women in distress, that I believed that statement. You may say what you please about sin, but whenever a man has heard, as I have, the shrieks of the dying, and the cries of the doomed; when he sees, as I have seen, men and women springing to their feet with the hot tears rolling down their cheeks to say “Pray for my boy, he is in danger,” he must believe the fact of sin. Not the world’s sin — your sin. You have to remember that your sin is the sin you have permitted, that you have enjoyed, that is to-day mastering you — you may call it by another name, but it is sin.

A distinguished Methodist minister of the city of Adelaide, Australia, preached on sin, and one of his church officers afterwards came into his study to see ’22

him. He said to my friend, the minister, “Mr. Howard, we don’t want you to talk as plainly as you do “alSout sin, because if our boys and girls hear you talking so much about sin they will more easily become sinners. Call it a mistake if you will, but do not speak so plainly about sin.” Then my friend took down a small bottle, and showed it to his visitor. It was a bottle of strychnine, and was marked, “Poison.” Said he, “I see what you want me to do. You want me to change the label. Suppose I take off this label of ‘Poison’ and put on some mild label, such as ‘Essence of Peppermint,’ don’t you see what happens? The milder you make your label, the more dangerous you make your poison.” But do not be so foolish as to say there is no such thing as sin. There was enough sin to break God’s heart, there was enough sin to send Jesus from heaven, to make Him say as He came down from the skies, “Lo, I come to do Thy will,” and to make Him say, as during His ministry on earth he sat on the well-curb, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.” And to make Him say, when He struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Not my will but Thine be done.” You will never be a Christian until you know something about sin.

Again, accept the fact of Christ. Lady Henry Somerset said that when she was struggling in the darkness God came to her and said, “My child, act as if I were, and then thou shalt know that I am.” She says that it brought her out of darkness into light. If you accept the fact of Christ, then accept the statements He makes you. First, concerning forgiveness. When God forgives sin, He forgets sin. He casts your sin into the depths of the sea. When God forgives sin it is as if it were not. You may have seen that poem written by a factory girl, after being taken by her employer to see the Giant’s Causeway. She had seen that text of Scripture, “I will cast all your sins into the depths of the sea,” and she wrote this poem:

“I will cast in the depths of the fathomless sea All your sins and transgressions, whatever they be.

Though they mount up to heaven, though they reach down to fciell,

They shall sink into depths, and above them shall swell All my waves of forgiveness so mighty and free,

I will cast all your sins in the depths of the sea.

In the deep, silent depths far away from the shore,

Where they never may rise up to trouble thee more,

Where no far-reaching tide with its pitiless sweep May stir the dark waves of forgetfulness deep,

I have buried them there, where no mortal can see,

I have cast all your sins in the depths of the sea.”

Then accept these statements regarding Christian life in the New Testament. To be a Christian is to be the strongest citizen, the greatest father, the truest mother, the noblest, friend. As regards rulers — “Fear God, honor the king.” As regards society, “Among whom ye shine as lights of the world” or, “Bear ye one another’s burdens.” As regards the unfortunate, “Be ye tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” As regards social life — “Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right.” Ephesians, 6:1, 9. “And ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing, threatening; knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with Him.” As regards judgment — I. Corinthians, 13: 4-7. “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”

There is a way out. If a man who has been born in a Christian home asks me the way to be a Christian, I tell him, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” That is what he must do, and he understands what I mean. But he who is a sceptic, whose father was a sceptic before him, does not understand what I mean. So, just for a moment, let me speak to the man who is a doubter, and a sceptic. He asks, “What must I do to be a Christian?” I will suggest two things: First, just for

the time being, put aside your doubts. Be honest and fair about it, and accept the Bible’s statement as true. Just start with that, even though you cannot understand it. This book has stood the test of scholarship. So just accept the Bible as true, even though you cannot explain it.

Then begin with the very least statement of Christian truth, and live it. A woman came to me in the city of Providence, Rhode Island, and said, “I am a sceptic. I have for years been an out-and-out sceptic, but in these meetings I have a desire burning within me to be better. I have no conception of God and none of Christ, but I have a great sense of need.”

I could see that she came from a home of culture, and I said, “Very well, then, will you follow me in this? For the time being just acknowledge that God is. Start with that.” And she said, “I will.” Then I said, “For the time being acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God, and believe that He is.” She said, “Very well, I can take that on the testimony of my friends, but I cannot understand it.” Then I said, “Go back to your home and live what Jesus tells yoi to live. Live it with your husband, with your children, with your friends, then come and tell me the result.” And before long I had a letter from her, in which she said, “Dear Sir, I have come into the strongest faith, I have come into the clearest light. I have come to know God, I have come to see Christ, and I know that I am a Christian.”