How To Define A Christian

The largest religion in the United States is Christianity. According to a religious identification survey in 2008 over 76% of Americans identify themselves as Christian, with over 56 million Roman Catholics and over 116 million other Christians for a total of over 173 million. 20% either claim no religion (the Nones) or refuse to answer the survey, with just under 4% claiming some other religion. The numbers for mainline Christians are rapidly falling as the numbers of non-denominational Christians rise. The Catholic population grew by one percent since the last survey ten years prior, but is still a percentage point lower than it was 20 years ago. Check out the tables for further information about the growth of Eastern religions like the Muslims, for instance.

One question remains in all of these numbers. How do you define or identify a Christian? The Bible gives a clear and forthright answer in two passages:

"By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already" (1 John 4:2-3).

"Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says "Jesus is accursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3).

Here's what I'm seeing in these blunt statements:

1. A Christian believes in the Incarnation, that is, in what we just celebrated during the Christmas season. God came among us in human form, born as a man child from the womb of the Virgin Mary.
2. He was not conceived through the union of a man and a woman. Rather he was conceived by the powerful working of God's Holy Spirit who overshadowed and enveloped Mary (Luke 1:35-37).
3. This child was named Jesus, a name that means "The LORD saves from sin." The name points to Jesus' office or calling to be the messianic king foretold by ancient prophecy (Matthew 1:19-23). 
4. Not only is Jesus the Messiah, the king descended by lineage from David, he is also true God, the Son of God, in fact God with us (Isaiah 8:8-10 and Isaiah 9:6-7). 
5. Those who have been reborn by the working of God's Spirit acknowledge and accept this. For them Jesus is LORD, that is, the God of the First Covenant, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the great I AM. This was the claim of Jesus himself (John 6:48-51; John 8:12-19; John 8:57-59; John 10:6-14, etc.). 
6. Moreover, this LORD offered up His life as the full and complete sacrifice and final payment for the sins of all mankind (Hebrews 9:11-16) and rose victorious on the third day. 
7. He lives now, is ever with us and will return at the end of this age (Matthew 28:18-20).  

Those who deny these truths or who try to make Jesus merely an example of how a pious person should live are not Christians. They who wish to call themselves Christian, but who deny the divinity of Jesus are led by another spirit. The Apostles called this the spirit of the antichrist. Much has been and will continue to be written and taught about this spirit. For my purposes here it is sufficient to point out that this is an attitude and a belief opposite to everything the Bible and historic Christianity has ever taught.

We Christians quarrel and argue among ourselves about many details of our teachings, but if we are Christians at all we accept what is written above.