GOD'S GREAT NEWS for MAN'S GREAT PROBLEM - Romans 1-8

What is a Christian?

One of the most important questions in life is rarely asked. It is one of the large, looming questions of life like "Who is God?" or "Who am I?" or "Why am I here?," and like those questions, the answer seems to be elusive. The question is this: "What is a Christian?"

Perhaps if you were to ask that question, you might turn to a standard dictionary to derive your definition. I looked in my old reliable Funk & Wagnalls College Standard Dictionary, and found this definition for "Christian: noun. 1. A disciple of Jesus Christ; one whose profession and life conform to the teaching and example of Christ; a member of a Christian church. 2. One of a nation of which Christianity is the prevailing religion. 3. (Colloq.) A converted person; a professor of religion. 4. (Colloq). (1) A civilized person as opposed to a savage; as, the food isn't fit for a Christian. (2) [Eng.] A human being as distinguished from a brute; as, that dog knows as much as a Christian." Now I may be strange, but the bit about the dog made me doubt the mental acuity of the Christian.

So, I turned to the Internet, to the online resources for defining what a Christian is. When I typed in the word "Christian" on the search line, the Compton's Living Encyclopedia listed Christian as "Christian, hero of John Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' ..." The Columbia Concise Encyclopedia was a bit too concise in its definition. It said, "Danish kings. Christian I ..." So much for the Internet.

But then I stumbled on some famous 20th century definitions of Christian. William Faulkner said in an interview in 1958 that "No one is without Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by the word. It is every individual's individual code of behavior by means of which he makes himself a better human being than his nature wants to be, if he followed his nature only." Thus, a Christian can define himself, if he defines the word the way he wants to. A whimsical definition came from a man named Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil's Dictionary, written in 1906: "Christian: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbour. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin."

Then I thought about definitions I have heard throughout my life. I once asked a relative at a family reunion in Texas if he was a Christian, and he replied somewhat indignantly: "Of course I'm a Christian ... I'm Texan." Many Americans think that a Christian is one who believes in the teachings of Jesus Christ; that mental assent equates to salvation by faith. Others think that being a Christian means following the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, and trying to be Christlike in your ethical life. Is a Christian someone born into a Christian family? Is a Christian someone who has been water baptized in a Christian church? Is a Christian one who takes communion in a Catholic church? Is a Christian someone who is active in ministry? Just what is a Christian? Can any of us answer this question right now, with absolute certainty?

We are a confused people on this most important question. In an article from the Nov/Dec '96 issue of Christian American, spiritual pollster George Barna noted that 67% of adult Americans say they have made a "personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today." If two out of three American adults say they are Christians, how can our culture be so radically anti-Christian in so many quarters? Barna has this to say about the way Americans use the term "Christian." He said, "Much of American Christianity is nominal in nature. Americans like to have a term to summarize their religiosity, and 'Christian' remains the label of choice, even if their commitment to Biblical Christianity is waning." Americans don't really know what the term "Christian" means, but we like to apply it to ourselves anyway.

I must confess that I invited Christ into my life and gave my life to Him full stop without really knowing what a Christian is. If someone had asked me to define what a Christian is in the first few years of my Christian life, I would have mumbled something less than coherent and turned several shades of red. But into my own confusion, and into the confusion in our culture about this issue, there is a startling word of truth. Paul the Apostle gives us a clear definition of a Christian in Rom. 8:9, our text for today: "However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him." Thus, A CHRISTIAN IS ONE IN WHOM THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST LIVES. It takes Christ to make a Christian.

Defining our Terms is Critical

Although Faulkner's definition of the Christian was spiritually vacuous, he did hit on a key point: we all need to agree on the definition of the term as our starting place for discussing Christianity. I remember one day a few summers ago when a brilliant young man named Roy came into my office and asked me the question of all questions: "How can I become a Christian?" Blythe recalls a time when she was busy studying for a Greek final during her pastoral internship, and her sister was hovering over her asking her questions while she was trying to study. Blythe finally put her books down and said, "Stacy, what do you want?" Stacy then simply said, "I just want to know how to become a Christian." Each of us will find ourselves on one end of that kind of dialogue at one point or another. What will you do when someone approaches you and wants to become a Christian?

One of the best ways to respond to such a request is to start with a clear, Biblical definition of what a Christian is. The person coming to see you, or the person you are sharing Christ with, will have some notion in their minds about who or what a Christian is. Usually that notion is incorrect, or too vague to mean much of anything. To meet that person at the point of their need, we can begin by giving them a clear Biblical definition of a Christian. When Roy came into my office and asked "How can I become a Christian?," I opened my Bible right here to Rom. 8:9. I told Roy we were going to begin by establishing what a Christian is according to a sound Biblical definition. He discovered that "... you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him." Thus, Roy was told that becoming a Christian means inviting the Spirit of Jesus Christ to come and live within you; that His presence as the indwelling Christ will define you as a Christian. That afternoon, as I have shared before, Roy opened his heart to Christ and became a Christian, a Christian indeed and in truth. Starting with the correct definition of a Christian is an excellent springboard to effective evangelism.

In fact, one of the great figures of modern Christianity, Soren Kierkegaard, spent the last years of his life battling over the importance of adopting a clear definition of "Christian." One biographer summarized it this way: "Kierkegaard's life culminated with his attack (1854) on the Danish state church, which he saw as an embodiment of Christendom. In Christendom, Christianity is abolished by being made into a triviality. Nobody can become a Christian because it is assumed that everybody is a Christian. Being a Christian has been reduced to being a 'nice person' who conforms to the established human order. Kierkegaard saw his task as that of 'reintroducing Christianity into Christendom' by helping his contemporaries see that being a Christian requires a radical, courageous decision to follow Christ." (Great Leaders of the Christian Church, pg. 328).

Kierkegaard wrote passionately about the importance of having the correct definition of "Christian." In Training in Christianity, Kierkegaard wrote this about the misfortune of Christendom: "The misfortune of Christendom is that it has encouraged people in the notion that by knowing the facts about Christ's life eighteen hundred years ago, they have faith. By degrees, as knowledge about Christ became accepted as faith, so all the pith and vigor went out of Christianity; the tension of the paradox of faith was slackened; one became a Christian without noticing it; the offense of Christianity was ignored. One took possession of Christian doctrine, turned it about and inspected it, while the meaning of Jesus Christ himself was lost. Becoming a Christian was as simple as thrusting a foot into a stocking. And in this way Christianity became paganism. On Sunday clergymen in the pulpit talk a lot of twaddle about Christianity's glorious and priceless truths, and the sweet consolation which it offers. But it is only too evident that the Jesus Christ to whom they refer is merely an historical figure, not a living reality."

In his final book, Attack on Christendom, Kierkegaard drew a portrait of the "respectable Christian" of his day: "Let us imagine a young man who is a skilled businessman, cultured and well-spoken, with an interest in public affairs. As for religion, he feels no need. It never occurs to him to think of God, nor does he go to church. He does not object to religion, but he fears that to read the Bible would make him appear ridiculous. But then he decides to get married and soon is a father. He wants his children to be baptized, and to grow up with correct moral standards. And he feels that it is the church's job to teach those standards. So he sends his children for religious education. Soon he is regarded as a pillar of the church, supporting its work generously and playing a leading role in its management. He is universally regarded as a good Christian. But still he feels no need of religion, nor does he ever think of God." What a chilling portrait.

Something was rotten in Denmark in Kierkegaard's day, something that sounds eerily familiar to the Bible Belt of today. I wonder what Kierkegaard would think if he lived here in Greenville at the end of the twentieth century?

I had an interesting experience in our mortgage lender's office down at BB&T when we were in the process of buying our house. We were meeting with her to see if she would approve the loan for our house, and we were getting to know her while we filled out our application. Several times she teared up as we asked about her family. We discovered she was a divorcee against her will, and she shared with us some of the pain she and her children had gone through over the years. It was an amazing time of vulnerability on her part. Near the end of our meeting, her man friend called her on his car phone. She directed him to park and come on in, assuring him that we would be finished in a few minutes. Sure enough, we finished the loan application, and in walked a portly man in his 50s, wearing cowboy boots and a ready smile on his face. We met him and spoke with the two of them for about fifteen minutes about an upcoming trip they were planning to the San Francisco area. He had a distinctive face, so his profile is etched in my memory.

About five months later, Dave and Joe and I went into Charlie's barbeque for lunch one day, and Dave waved to a friend in the construction business, one of the richest, most successful builders in town. When Dave worked with the man, Dave often overheard him transferring a million dollars or more into different accounts, depending on interest rates for that given day. When the man nodded at Dave, I recognized the man immediately: he was the man who was going to take our loan officer to San Francisco. I asked Dave about him, revealing what little I knew of him. At the time, Dave assured me I must be mistaken, because that man was a pillar in the community: a longstanding deacon at one of the larger churches in the area; donator and builder of a major building program at his church; and happily married man of many years. Dave probably figured I mistook the man's identity.

But then a few weeks later, Dave came back and said I had been dead right: that the man had been having an illicit affair with our loan officer, and that he and his wife had been down to the last day of a fairly amicable divorce before the wife found out about the affair. The wife stopped the proceedings and now she plans to rake him clean. The question is: is this man a Christian? Was he ever a Christian? Perhaps: but only if the Spirit of Christ lives in him. He might have been a "cultural" Christian, a successful businessman who had been acclaimed a pillar in the community because of his money, and all of that may be fine and good as far as it goes ... but did he have Christ living inside? If not, he was not a Christian. If so, then he is a Christian, which makes his duplicitous behavior all the more saddening. In either case, may our good God have mercy on him, that God's kindness might lead him to repentance.

The point is this, and it is strikingly simple: if the Spirit of Christ lives inside me by invitation of faith, then I am a Christian. If not, then I am not a Christian. It takes Christ inside to make a Christian. That is the Biblical definition, and when we stand before the throne of God on the day of judgment, no other definition will matter.

Paul's Definition: Word-by-Word

Since having the right definition is so critical, let's be sure we understand what Paul is saying here. His definition is this: "... you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him."

As we discovered in our last study, the four verses leading up to Rom. 8:9 draw a contrast between the man or woman "according to the flesh" and the man or woman "according to the Spirit." Those "according to the flesh" are spiritually dead, born into the stream of sinful humanity, unregenerate, unable to obey God's laws, and unable to please God. They exist in profound spiritual isolation, knowing not the God who made them. They are the company of the unsaved, who have not Christ, and do not belong to Him. By contrast, those "according to the Spirit" have been born of God because they invited God's Spirit to live within them. They are children of God. These are the regenerate believers in Jesus Christ, possessors of eternal life, royal princes and princesses in the reigning family of God, inheritors of the divine estate, the ones who have Christ living inside them, the ones belonging forever to Christ, who belongs to God. The contrast can be boiled down to this: the spiritually dead without the indwelling Spirit, and the spiritually alive in whom the Spirit lives both now and forever.

In Rom. 8:9, Paul defines for us exactly what he means when he speaks of those "according to/in the Spirit." He says, "YOU ALL (emphatic) are not in the flesh BUT (emphatic) in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you." This is a profound statement of their IDENTITY: this is who YOU ALL ARE, Paul says. You are defined by the One indwelling you: the Spirit of God.

This is also Paul's clear definition of what it means to be "in the Spirit." Today, the term "in the Spirit" is often considered the proprietary property of the Charismatic movement, that it somehow refers to those slain "in the Spirit," or preaching a prophetic word "in the Spirit." But Paul's definition again cuts right through our misconceptions. Paul says very simply that "[You all are] in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you." Being "in the Spirit" therefore means being "indwelled by the Spirit." You are "in the Spirit" when the Spirit lives "in you."

Now in Greek there would be a fatal pitfall had Paul ended the verse after this initial proposition that "... you all are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you." Both of the terms for "you," the pronoun at the beginning of the first phrase, "you all," and the dative at the end of the phrase, "in you," are in the second person plural. Thus, one might argue that Paul is saying something like "However, you all are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells among you all." This makes the statement seem like a watered- down affirmation of the entire Roman church, not a definitional truth for the individual Christian.

This is why Paul states the same principle again in the last sentence, sharpening his point to a definition applying to the individual Christian: "But if anyone (singular) does not have the Spirit of Christ, he (singular) does not belong to Him." This is a classic technique of Hebrew poetry: to state a general principle in the first line, then to sharpen and focus it to the specific point in the second line. In both of the verbs of this second phrase, "have [not]" and "is [not]," Paul uses the third person singular. Paul literally says in Greek at the end of the verse, "this one (singular) is not of Him."

We also notice in this verse that the Spirit is referred to by two different titles: the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. Since this definition is written in a poetic form, we again see Paul's sharpening technique applied to the title of the Spirit. In the first line, He is referred to as the Spirit of God. Then, in the more specific and pointed second line, He is referred to as the Spirit of Christ, who is God. Paul speaks of the same Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God more generally, the Spirit of Christ more specifically.

Thus, God's own definition of the Christian expressed through the Apostle Paul is this: You are in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. The one indwelled by the Spirit of Christ is a Christian. Having the Spirit of Christ inside is the necessary (you must have Him inside) and sufficient (you need only have Him inside) condition of being a Christian. This is the irrefutable Biblical definition of the Christian.

But this definition does not stand alone in the New Testament, without attestation in other books. Paul concluded II Corinthians with a very similar litmus test of the Christian, in II Cor. 5:13: "Test yourselves to see that you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you -- unless indeed you fail the test?" Similarly, John winds down his argument in I John 5:12 by affirming the definitional truth that: "He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life."

Thus, the Christian is one in whom the Spirit of Christ lives. There is no clearer, no more concise, definition of a Christian found anywhere. May we all define what a Christian is in such an accurate way, because nearly all of our neighbors are in a fog about what it means to be a Christian.

Not a Human Definition, Not a Human Event: The Startling Fact of Incarnation

Part of the reason for this fog is that this definition is not derived from human reasoning: this definition was conceived in the mind of God as the culminating miracle of incarnation. Jesus' first incarnation on Christmas Eve was miracle enough to keep Christians from Anselm onward contemplating the marvel of why Christ would become a man. But the even greater and more marvelous question for each one of us individually is this: "why would Jesus Christ constrain Himself to live in one like me?"

Think about this: Jesus Christ, by virtue of His victory at the cross over sin and at the tomb over death, is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on High. All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Him. He is in control of all things. He is the timeless Lord of the Universe. Yet He came to earth and endured the ultimate limitation of birth as a swaddling-bound baby, for the purpose of becoming a linen-bound corpse laid in a narrow stone grave. We would think that when God resurrected Him and He burst forth from the tomb, Jesus Christ would never allow God to be so contrained again.

But that is the rebel reasoning of humanity. The loving reasoning of God is that Jesus so limited Himself to be a man dead in a tomb FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF LIMITING HIMSELF YET AGAIN TO COME AND LIVE INSIDE YOU AND ME BY THE HOLY SPIRIT. Christ Himself lives inside the Christian, limited by our bodies, constrained by our pettiness and small mindedness, enduring with long endurance our unfaithfulnesses and inadequacy. But He lives inside us nonetheless: when we wake up in the morning looking like death warmed over ... He is there inside ... when we grouch at each other before we have our coffee ... He is there inside ... when we turn to Him to pray because we so need Him at the start of our day ... He is there inside ... when we laugh and when we cry ... He is there inside ... when the news of the day is bad or good ... He is there inside. That is the miracle: He is always there inside.

All the misconceptions of what it means to be a Christian miss this simple definition of Christ indwelling the Christian because that notion comes from heaven, not from earth. When we define the Christian, we inevitably sink to definitions of what a human being does to make himself a Christian. But God defines a Christian based on what God does to make a Christian: He enters the body of the one believing in Him, the one inviting Him inside. The human might still invite, but God alone can actually choose to accept the invitation. Being a Christian is about the miracle of Christ's incarnation inside a believer. This incarnation, and the definition of the Christian that arises from that startling fact, is a heavenly truth directly emanating from the mind of God, not an earthly attempt at spirituality spewed forth from the mind of man.

This is why it is so easily missed. The best truths of God are all around us, but we usually tread them underfoot. Every sunrise is a divine announcement of the power and glory of the resurrection, but we are so overbusy that we usually greet the rising sun with a groan of regret at having to get up. Every quiet moment is an invitation for the divine voice to give us guidance, but we spend our days filled with the noise of radios, TVs, music and virtually anything to fill the quiet moment and miss the opportunity to listen to God. Every truth in the Bible is amply and beautifully illustrated in the created order of things, and yet we rarely slow down enough to smell the roses, much less to contemplate the wisdom of the ant. As it takes the Spirit of Christ to make a Christian, so it takes the Spirit of Christ to open our eyes to the heavenly simplicity of this definition of the Christian.

This great truth is the wisdom of God, but it is seen as foolishness by the world. He has revealed it to babes like us, but the wise of the age have missed it. I will never forget a meeting I was in last spring with the religious leaders ministering on the campus at Stanford. The Dean of the Chapel convened the meeting. He is a renowned Greek scholar and expert in the field of patristic literature, and he was incensed: he had heard from several students that some of the evangelical leaders questioned if he was a Christian, based on his performance of homosexual commitment ceremonies and his unerring political correctness. So furious that anyone would question his Christianity, he gave this empassioned statement of self-justification: "How could someone accuse me of not being a Christian! I can recite the Apostles' Creed in Greek!" His statement hung in the air for a moment of tragic truth: he had missed the whole point. When standing before God at the end, would it matter if he could recite the Apostles' Creed in Greek? Absolutely not. All that matters is the glorious miracle of incarnation: the Spirit of Christ living inside the believer.

Becoming a Christian According to the Right Definition

So, now we have a clear, Biblical definition of the Christian. But what do we do about it?

Let me tell a story about a dear pastor named Dr. Don Schooler. Here is his own account of what he did once he had discovered the truth defined in Rom. 8:9. He said, "In my first two churches I preached all that I knew, honesty, faith (not knowing what it meant), good habits, church attendance, honor, and a continual exhortation to be 'good,' to serve God. I talked about the fruits without knowing the roots. Enthusiasm carried me in those days -- enthusiasm and youth. These two proved not to be enough.

He continued: "My wife's religion consisted of a belief in God, worship of beauty, and social and personal ethic, aesthetics, lovely music, sunsets, and nature appreciation. I believed in conversion, preached it, but did not know it. The marriage was getting difficult. My wife believed one thing. I believed another. We decided to study Jesus, without any helps of any kind, which we did with a small group for seven weeks in Canada. ... It began to dawn upon me that if I would put my will into God's hands ... that this would be equal to doing God's will. ... I was committing myself to all of God I could see in Jesus, plus all of God that would be revealed tomorrow and the next day and the next. ... The light broke upon me. I wept like a child calling out to my wife: 'I have missed it. Utterly missed it.' All these years I have preached only ethics, social and personal, but not the gospel. ... The gospel was the living Christ who has come to dwell in me. He has liberated me. He assured me my sins were forgiven. ... There was a new center for all my social passion -- it was not centered in human striving -- it was centered in Christ. ... Power in some measure has come."

Imagine that: preaching the rule without the relationship, preaching Christianity without preaching Christ's indwelling. But how much of that very same teaching is happening today in churches all across America?

There is a wonderful story about a boy wonder named Harry. Harry memorized his first Bible verse when he was three. At eight he read the entire Bible through, reading three chapters each week day and five chapters on Sunday. By age 14 he caught up with himself by reading the Bible 14 times. When he and his widowed mother moved out to Los Angeles, he discovered there was no Sunday school in his neighborhood. So he gathered the neighbor kids and collected burlap sacks, organized a miniature army of girls to sew the sacks into a tent, and erected a tent capable of seating 100. He started a Sunday school, with him at the lectern. Adults marveled at the boy preacher.

When he was 14, a visitor came one day. His name was Mr. Munro. He was a traveling evangelist who had stayed with them before. Each time in the past, Mr. Munro asked Harry one question: "Harry, lad, are you born again?" Harry's usual reply in the past had been that he attended Sunday school, distributed tracts, and memorized Scripture. But Mr. Munro said, "Oh, laddie, you can do all that and still spend eternity in hell."

On that day, Harry was asked again: "My, my, how you've grown Harry lad. Now tell me, are you born again yet, laddie?" Harry blushed and looked down to the floor. Then his uncle Allen spoke on his behalf, "Don't you know, Sir, that Harry preaches himself now? He has his own Sunday School." But Mr. Munro thundered, "You're preaching and not yet born again! Get your Bible, lad. We've some things to talk about." Harry dragged himself upstairs, then reluctantly down again, clutching his Bible. "Now, open to Rom. 3:19 and read it," Mr. Munro instructed. Harry read, "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." Mr. Munro said, "Now lad, when God makes a preacher, He stops his mouth first and shows him his lost condition. Then God leads Him to put his trust in the Lord Jesus and He is born again. Don't you think you've been putting the cart before the horse?" "Maybe so ..." Harry mumbled.

This event convinced Harry he was going at things in the wrong way, so he decided to re-think what he was doing. He decided to sample some of the things he had never tried before. So he went out and had a party time in the world. But every time he came home his conscience burned. Finally, six months later, Harry came home and picked up his Bible. He started with Rom. 3:19 again, then went to John 3:16. That night, well after midnight, in the privacy of his own room, Harry invited Jesus Christ to be his Lord and Savior. He invited Jesus Christ to come and live inside him. Harry trusted that finally he had eternal life within him. Harry "Lad" Ironside was thus born again, and he went on to become one of the great pastors/preachers of this century. I love that story, because Harry Ironside mentored one of the men who mentored me, so I thank God both for Harry and for my model pastor, Ray Stedman. (I condensed Harry's story from How Great Christians Met Christ, pg. 120-123.)

Praise God that Harry had found the right definition of a Christian: one in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells, one born anew by the indwelling Spirit.

Conclusion: Getting the Right Definition ... Getting Christ Within

So, we have spoken of two questions today. The first was the large question, "What is a Christian?" A Christian is one in whom the Spirit of Christ lives. If you have the Spirit of Christ inside, you are a Christian. If you have not the Spirit of Christ inside, you do not belong to Him and you are not a Christian. That is what we learn in Rom. 8:9.

But the other question still hanging is this, "What do we do about it?" I know that everyone here has come here to meet God, to hear from Him through the words preached, the prayers prayed, the songs sung, and the Spirit moving among His people here. Not one of us is here by mistake. God has drawn us each to this place, and we have come in the hope of finding God and hearing a word from Him. Every person here is hungering to know and love God, otherwise you would all be sleeping in on a Sunday morning.

And the word today is a word defining what a Christian is. Does Rom. 8:9 define you? Are you a Christian by this Biblical definition? Are you certain that the Spirit of Christ indwells you? He doesn't come in by good deeds, nor by family background, nor by religious rite. He only comes in by the invitation of faith. We are going to take a few minutes of silence to let anyone here who has hungered for God, but who has not yet become a Christian, to invite the Spirit of Christ to come inside and make you a Christian indeed. May today be the day of salvation for any God-lovers in our midst! May you all ask Christ to come and live inside, making you a true child of God, making you a royal prince or princess in the family of God, making you a new creature in Christ, making you a Christian according to God's definition. May your heart become Christ's home. Amen.

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