Opus 2024-243: Sheep or Goat

Who is a Christian?

In one sense this is an impossible question for us to answer.  In reality only God and the individual know if they meet the criteria for becoming a child of God.  The one keyword I see is belief, or faith, if you prefer that form of the word.  Beyond that, it gets a bit murky.

I say that because I worked up a brief summary of the different accounts of people becoming believers.  The only consistency I see is the word believe.

Whether I believe that you are a Christian or not is not the key issue.  The key issue is whether God accepts you.

Probably a more important question than who is a Christian is the question of why is it important to be a Christian.

Here you get into the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament.  In the Old Testament, it seems that the references are to corporate Israel, the nation of Israel, a group salvation.  It seems to be focused, mainly on this world, and nothing else.

In the New Testament it is individual and is dealing with your eternal destiny.  The church you attend could be full of people marching to hell and you could still be on the right path.  The goal of becoming a Christian is to have salvation for eternity.  If you don’t believe that, then there is no compulsion to move towards Jesus, other than He has an entertaining philosophy.  In that way people were drawn toward the Jews, because they had a monotheistic God with high moral standards and people liked that.  They wanted to become part of something that was wholesome and pure.  That did not require them to be changed.  They hung around the fringes of the synagogues and absorbed what they could.

Believing in Jesus is the key.  Of course there is an “and then...”  If it were that one-step then we would not need more than one of two verses of the Bible.  When you trust in Jesus you are entering into an eternal relationship that will always be growing.

It is up to you whether you are a sheep or a goat.

homo unius libri