The Essential Christian

Sometimes I wonder what heaven will be like. I close my eyes and think about my fellow Christian brothers and sisters and ponder spending eternity together with them. And then my thoughts stop and I open my eyes, my brow creasing, my mouth frowning. It’s not that I don’t want to spend eternity with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. No, my confusion is over the question: Just WHO ARE my brothers and sisters in Christ? By last count, there are over 1,500 variations of Christian denominations. That’s one thousand, five hundred.

Break that number of 1,500 down and we start to see the denominations by their smaller, core groupings – such as Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Orthodox, and then you got your “non-denominational” types like Calvary, Mariners, Assembly, Emergent, well, the list goes on, but any way you look at it, there are lots of variations to the Christian faith.

That’s a lot of “different” Christians. But wait. Isn’t a Christian, a Christian? That is, don’t we all believe the same thing? If we don’t all believe the same thing, are we all getting into heaven? Or are there various levels of heaven? For example, I go to a Lutheran church. A Lutheran church – Missouri synod, that is. Now we Lutherans got that Sola Scriptura thing going for us. We’re all over theology and doctrine – we got it down! So does that mean we Lutherans (Missouri synod, don’t forget) get the penthouse suite in heaven because we understood the Bible better than other “Christian denominations?”

Of course I’m being silly here, but all to make a point – just what does being a Christian mean? And do all Christians go to heaven even though they disagree, quite vehemently in some cases, with different parts of the Bible and its interpretation?

God only knows.

So what then, does it mean to be a Christian?

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the light. No one comes to the Father except by me.” (John 14:6)). At the very heart of Christianity is Christ. Without Jesus, then Christianity may as well be some kind of generic, feel good philosophy about doing good deeds and believing in yourself. But if Christ is at the center of our faith, then we must all have the same understanding of who He is and what we believe about Him.

You see, there’s something at the core of what it means to be a Christian. That is, if you say you are a Christian, there are certain non-negotiable beliefs you must have in order to hold on to that membership card to the Christian faith.

As Christians, you may have some differing opinions on some parts of the Bible and how they are interpreted, for example, the sacraments of baptism and communion. Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, the list goes on, have both similar and different views. Concerning baptism, do you believe in infant baptism or baptism only as an adult? In communion, do you believe the bread and wine actually become Christ’s body and blood after they are blessed or are they always symbolic?

How about the beginning when God created us and the world in seven days? Do you believe it was an actually seven days as we know time – that is, seven, 24-hour days? Or do you believe that since God is not restricted by time as we are, that “seven” days is a relative term and that, while you believe God created everything, you think it’s possible it took longer – that perhaps a “day” in God’s terms could have been anywhere from a hundred to a million years?
And what about the end of the world? Do you believe there will be a tribulation? A 1000-year reign of Christ on our earth before we go to heaven? Are you a pre- or post-millennist? Okay, we’re just scraping the tip of the iceberg on some of the different things that everyone who calls themselves a Christian believes in.

So are there differences among fellow Christian beliefs?

You better believe it.

But lets go back now to those non-negotiable beliefs, the basics, if you will, that all Christians must have in order to really be able to call themselves a Christian and be assured of a place in heaven to reign with Christ forever one day.

What then, makes up the Essential Christian?

It’s very simple, actually. Since Jesus is at the center, that is, the heart, of our Christian faith, lets see what He has to say.

To begin with, Jesus declares that there is only ONE way to eternal life with God and it is a way that few decide to follow. In Matthew chapter 7, verses 12 and 13, Jesus says, “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose the easy way. But the gateway to life is small, and the road is narrow, and only a few ever find it.” The Essential Christian has but one road to walk down, which sounds simple and straight-forward. That’s because it is! How ironic then, that only a few ever find it.

So we know that being a Christian means we’ll have challenges and is not the most popular choice to choose, but still, what does it mean to be a Christian?

Jesus tells us more about who a Christian really is when he speaks to the rich young man (Matthew 19:16-30 as well as in Mark and Luke). One day, a rich young man approached Jesus and asked him what good things must he do to have eternal life? First, Jesus tells him to keep the commandments, that is, obey God. The rich young man tells Jesus he has kept the commandments. What else must he do? Jesus then answers, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. The come, follow me.” After this, the rich young man walks away in great sadness. Here, Jesus exposed that the rich young man was putting his money in front of God. Money was his God.

Now we have a few more answers to who the Essential Christian is – a person who obeys God and who puts God first.

There’s something more, though. Something that unites all Christians at the very core of who Jesus is and what Jesus did for us. And how interesting that we have one of the best examples of the Essential Christian in a criminal. I’m speaking, of course, of one of the two criminals who was crucified along with Jesus. Here was this person, who, for most of his life we can assume, led a life of crime. Certainly he had no thoughts of a God except the ones he probably created for himself in the things he stole. Even earlier when he was placed on his own cross next to Jesus, this criminal scoffed and mocked Jesus as recorded in Matthew 27:44. But something miraculous happened during the time this criminal hung on the cross next to Jesus. Somewhere along the line, this criminal came to believe in Jesus – to believe that Jesus was God – and believe that Jesus could save him:

“We deserve to die for our evil deeds, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong,” said the criminal. Then, turning his head towards Jesus, he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” And Jesus answered, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23: 41-43).

There, in this dying criminal, is the key component of what it means to be a Christian – believing in Jesus as your Lord and perfect Savior. Though we don’t know for sure, it’s a pretty good bet that this man was never baptized, never partook in anything resembling a communion (the first one, in fact, had just recently occurred in the Upper Room). He probably didn’t even know one of the commandments, for that matter. But he did believe in Jesus. And in that belief, he was given the blessed assurance and promise of spending eternal life in heaven with his Lord and Savior, Jesus.

He was and is a Christian.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not dismissing baptism or communion or anything else in the Bible as inconsequential. The Bible speaks clearly about the importance of baptism in Christ’s Great Commission to tell the world about him with part of his command included the words, “Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved.” (Mark 16:16) Christ also tells us to partake regularly of communion with him when he said in the upper room, “Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19c).

The point, however, is that to be a Christian is to simply believe in Jesus. As we dig deeper and deeper into the Bible we uncover more and more about God’s plans for us and how we should live. And as Christians, we need to continue to spiritually grow in knowledge and wisdom. God, in fact, commands it in the Bible in Hebrews 5:12-6:1a:

“You have been Christians a long time now, and you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you the basic things a beginner must learn about the Scriptures. You are like babies who drink only milk and cannot eat solid food. And a person who is living on milk isn’t very far along in the Christian life and doesn’t know much about doing what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who have trained themselves to recognize the difference between right and wrong and then do what is right. So let us stop going over the basics of Christianity again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding.”

So yes, Christian growth in the knowledge and understanding of God’s Word – God’s will for us – is part of what is means to be an Essential Christian. Who doesn’t like solid food, after all? We need to keep growing in faith and wisdom, while at the same time not get bogged down in differences and disagreements. We must not separate our unity in Christ, of which that essential core is a simple faith in Jesus as our Savior. We all know the verse that sums up the Essential Christian best:

“For God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

It is this central core, the heart of Christianity, that we must keep beating in unity as those who profess to be Christians. Instead of being divisive and allowing differences of theology and doctrine to keep us separate and detract us from going out into the world to share the message of that simple faith in Christ with those that do not have it (which were Jesus’ final words, his command, that is, to us on earth, by the way), no, instead of fulfilling Jesus Great Commission, we spend our precious time on earth locked in internal debate while the unsaved look on us while scratching their heads saying, “Yeah right, I’m supposed to believe in that? You guys can’t even agree on it amongst yourselves so why should I?”

In Ephesians 4:12-16, God tells us that we have the responsibility to equip each other “to do His work and build up the church, that is, the body of Christ, until we come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature and full grown in the measuring up to the full stature of Christ. Then we will no longer be like children, forever changing our minds about what we believe because someone has told us something different or because someone has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like the truth. Instead, we will hold to the truth in love, becoming more and more in every way like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. Under his direction, the whole body is fitted together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”

I’m looking forward to the day when I’ll be fully united with my brothers and sisters in Christ and there will no longer be divisions of faith in multiple denominations. We’ll all be one in Christ. And as long as we profess that core belief while we are still on earth, as professed in John 3:16, that simple yet powerful faith in Jesus as our savior, then I can already say that, at our core, that is, in our hearts, we ARE one in Christ.

I can leave it to God to work out the details of who gets the penthouse in heaven. It doesn’t really matter to me – as long as I’m in heaven with my savior, that’s all that matters.

So who is the Essential Christian? As I said earlier, God only knows. But believing in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, well that’s both the place to start and the place to end.