15/03/2026
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1328560745972278&set=a.476950594466635&type=3
What Does It Mean to Be a Christian?
In our time the word Christian is used everywhere. It appears in political speeches, cultural debates, family traditions, and social media profiles. Entire nations claim the label. Churches are filled with people who carry the name. Many assume that if someone is moral, religious, or connected to a church, the title naturally belongs to them. Yet the question remains far more serious than most people realize. What does Scripture mean when it speaks of a Christian?
A dictionary might say that a Christian is someone who believes in Jesus or follows the religion based on His teachings. That definition may serve as a basic description, but the Bible presents something far deeper. Scripture does not describe Christianity as a cultural identity, a family tradition, or a moral lifestyle. It describes a supernatural work of God that transforms a person from the inside out. The New Testament uses the word Christian only three times, yet those three appearances reveal something important about the early believers. In Acts 11:26 we read that the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. The name was not invented by the church as a title of honour. It was given by outsiders who observed their lives and saw that everything about them pointed back to Christ. Their speech, their conduct, their convictions, and their devotion made it clear that they belonged to Him.
The word itself carries the meaning of belonging to Christ or being identified with Him. In the earliest centuries it was often used as a term of ridicule. To be called a Christian meant that a person had attached their entire life to the crucified and risen Lord whom the world rejected. Yet believers did not reject the name. They carried it because their identity had truly been changed. As Peter later wrote, “If anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name” (1 Peter 4:16).
The tragedy of our age is that the word has been emptied of its meaning. Many people assume they are Christians because they were raised in a church, because their family identifies as Christian, or because they live in a society historically shaped by Christianity. Yet Scripture repeatedly warns that outward association with religion does not equal genuine faith. Jesus Himself said that many who claim His name will one day discover that they never belonged to Him. In Matthew 7:22 and 23 He says, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:22–23). Those words should silence every careless assumption about what it means to belong to Christ. It is possible to use His name, to participate in religious activity, and yet remain a stranger to Him.
Because the word Christian has become common in culture, people have begun attaching other identities to it as if Christ can simply be added to whatever life a person already wishes to live. We now hear phrases such as progressive Christian, cultural Christian, nominal Christian, liberal Christian, political Christian, nationalist Christian, and even gay Christian. The label is stretched and reshaped until it becomes a container for any belief or lifestyle that wishes to borrow the reputation of Christ while refusing His authority. Yet the Scriptures never present Christianity this way. A person cannot attach Christ to a life that remains ruled by sin and still claim the name as though nothing has changed. The gospel does not decorate the old life. It replaces it.
The Bible teaches that the natural condition of man is not moral neutrality but spiritual death. Paul writes, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Dead people do not reform themselves. Dead people do not gradually improve their condition. Dead people must be given life. This is why Jesus told Nicodemus that entering the kingdom of God requires something far deeper than religion. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). A Christian therefore is not simply someone who has adopted Christian ideas. A Christian is someone whom God has made alive.
This new birth is the work of God alone. Peter explains that believers are those “who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5) and that they have been “born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). The heart that once resisted Christ is changed so that it now sees Him as Lord and Saviour. Faith is not the achievement of the sinner but the gift of God. Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).
Because this salvation is God’s work, it produces a real transformation. The person who once lived for himself now belongs to Christ. Paul describes this change with remarkable clarity in 2 Corinthians 5:17 where he writes, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” This does not mean that believers become sinless in this life, but it does mean that their relationship with sin changes. The pattern of their life begins to move in a different direction. They no longer defend sin as their identity. Instead, they learn to hate it and fight against it because they now belong to the One who saved them.
This is why attaching sinful identities to the name Christian completely misunderstands the gospel. Scripture does not present believers as people who celebrate the sins Christ came to deliver them from. Paul addresses this directly in 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 where he lists various forms of unrighteousness and then reminds the believers in Corinth of what God had done in their lives. He writes, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals… will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” The past tense in that passage is important. The gospel does not affirm sin as a permanent label. It cleanses, forgives, and transforms those who come to Christ.
The same principle applies to every form of sin. No one becomes a Christian by cleaning up their life first, but no one who has truly been brought to Christ remains unchanged. A Christian is not someone who simply agrees with Christian teaching. A Christian is someone whose trust rests entirely in the person and work of Jesus Christ. That trust rests in His death on the cross where He bore the penalty of sin, and in His resurrection on the third day which declared His victory over death. Paul summarizes the heart of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4 when he writes, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”
When a person believes this gospel, something remarkable happens. They are united with Christ. Their sins are forgiven. They are declared righteous before God. They are adopted into His family. John writes, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12). That new relationship begins to shape the believer’s life. Love for Christ grows. Love for God’s Word grows. Love for other believers grows. Obedience becomes the natural fruit of a heart that has been changed by grace.
John speaks plainly about this evidence when he writes, “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4). The apostle is not teaching salvation by works. He is explaining that genuine faith always produces visible fruit. A person who belongs to Christ will increasingly reflect the character of Christ.
For this reason, the title Christian is not something that can be claimed lightly. It describes a person who has been rescued by the grace of God, forgiven through the sacrifice of Christ, and brought into a new life by the power of the Holy Spirit. It describes someone who now belongs to the Lord who bought them with His blood. As Paul writes, “For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20).
In the end the question is not whether someone admires Jesus, respects His teachings, or enjoys being associated with His name. The real question is whether they have been brought to Him in repentance and faith and given new life by God Himself. Only those whom Christ has truly saved can rightly bear the name.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Jeremiah Knight
The Reformation Resurgence
