“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.”
2 Corinthians 5:17
In today’s culture, there seems to be a myriad of beliefs about the Christian faith. Some pastors preach prosperity theology that God wants us to be rich or wealthy. Some churches engage in activities that are not the function of the church, like politics or secular events. Some denominations accept the practice of homosexuality and gay marriage which are clearly sinful behaviors according to the Bible. Some denominations are even calling for the outright revision or updating of Scripture as if God needed man’s advice.
This is actually nothing new. Throughout history the Christian Church has undergone many challenges to its core doctrine and beliefs. It began with the establishment of the basic Christian theology at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. So, in the beginning, there was one Christian Church that was based on Jesus’ ministry, the Old Testament, and the writings of the early apostles.
The unity of the Church was challenged first with the split of the Catholic and Orthodox Church in 1054 over divisions in theology. That was followed by the Reformation in 1517, and the challenge of the practices of the Catholic Church by Martin Luther as being outside of Scripture. That spawned the creation of the Protestant Churches, such as Lutherans, Reformed Churches, Anabaptists, and the Anglican Church. Continued differences over the Church’s role in the State resulted in more division and the growth of denominations. But there was still a unity of belief in the centrality of the Bible, just different practices and expressions of it.
But in the last 300 years there has been the growth of a liberal theology that seeks to replace the truth of God’s Word with the reason of man. This movement began in Europe with the cult of reason and the renaissance, which referred to a “rebirth” of humanism and secularism. It came about because of modern science and the discoveries that man was now making that to some negated the need for God and faith. It found its “voice” in the form of Protestant Liberalism, a belief that faith has to pass the test of reason to be accepted and that the Bible was no longer the source of Truth. It was further challenged by Charles Darwin in 1871 in his book, the Descent of Man, which theorized that man descended from apes, which directly contradicted Scripture (see Genesis chapter 1).
Today, this liberal theology continues to undermine Christian unity by arguing that the Bible is not accurate, authoritative, nor inerrant in its declarations. Consequently, many Christians are turning away from the Bible as their truth source and instead basing their faith on an “enlightened” view of Scripture based upon the reason of man. This is exactly what Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:3. He said “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” That day has most certainly come and is causing many people who would call themselves Christians to believe a false gospel and a false teaching.
The Bible must be central to the Christian faith. The Bible declares that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) John was speaking about Jesus so that God’s Word and Jesus cannot be separated. They are one and the same. So, to dispute the authenticity of the Bible as God’s Word is to also dispute Jesus as God’s Son. And if a person disputes Jesus as God’s Son, then they are not a follower of Christ and therefore not truly Christian.
In today’s world some people think that every person can self-identify themselves. In other words, if they think they are a woman, although genetically they are a man, then they can choose to be a woman because that is how they identify themself. This is absurd because it denies the facts and the reality of their actual genetic makeup. Similarly, anyone who says they self-identify as a Christian (meaning I am a Christian because that’s how I see myself) even though they do not obey Scripture nor follow Jesus commands is, in reality, not a Christian.
As Christians we do not have the choice to self-identify. The Bible is clear in its teaching that we become Christian when we identify with Christ! Paul says it this way in Galatians 2:20 that “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” If Christ is not living in us, or if we do not submit our lives to God and obey His commands, then we are merely deceiving ourselves in who we think we are. Going to church or saying that we are a Christian does not make us a Christian. We are only truly a Christian when we take on Christ’s identity, obey his commands, and are examples of His love and truth to others. As James 1:22 says, “Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”
While our outward expressions of our faith in Jesus may indicate to others that we are Christian, only God knows our hearts (Luke 16:15) and knows the truth about us. We can fool ourselves and fool others that we are followers of Christ, but we cannot fool God that we are (Galatians 6:7). When we make God in our image instead of acknowledging that we are made in His image (Genesis 1:27), we deceive ourselves and deny God and His truth.
As Christians, then, we should have no identity crisis because we have put our full faith and trust in Christ alone and willingly submit to His authority and teaching in our lives! Anything less than that only jeopardizes our salvation (Matthew 7:21-23) and draws us further away from God.