You have probably heard this one: When is a door not a door? The answer–When it’s ajar. Corny, I know but it reminds me how we say one thing while meaning another. And then, there’s this one: If you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs does it have? Five? Well, no, only four. It doesn’t matter what you call the tail. It still is not a leg. These are a couple of Dad jokes I used to torment my children with for years.
There’s another saying like them only this is not humorous: When is a Christian not a Christian? The answer–when he hasn’t been born again. Like the jokes, we say one thing when we mean another. One can say he is a Christian, professing to believe the truth of the Bible, maintaining that Jesus died on the Cross to pay the debt of sinners without having the inward change that results when one becomes a child of God. He or she may live like a Christian, act like a Christian, and talk like a Christian for a number of years without ever being transformed.
Hebrews chapter ten speaks on this issue. It warns against being one who has full knowledge of the Gospel yet does not have a life consistent with being born again. It goes on to warn of the coming judgment for all who reject the salvation offered by the living God. It concludes the discussion with this statement: It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (1 Corinthians 10:31).
This is the verse that Jonathan Edwards preached, and which became the keynote phrase of the Great Awakening that changed America just prior to the War for Independence. Like then, we need a Great Awakening now, and like then, it begins in the House of God.
But who are these Christians who are not Christians? They are ones that sit in pews every Sunday. They attend Bible studies. They endure hardships. They stand up in church and give testimonies. But they are only almost saved. They have head knowledge but have not received the living God in their hearts. They may even teach the Word of God, but the philosophies inspired by the spirit of this world fill them. They appear to be genuine, but like the rocky ground in Jesus’s parable of the sower, they have no root. The cares of this world eventually take a toll, and they fall away to adopt the attitudes and false religion of this world.
Paul, in 2 Corinthians 13:5 echoes the warning with these words: Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? We, who say we believe ought to do this very thing and ask ourselves the question, “I believe that Jesus is God and that He died for me and that He rose from the dead, but where is the evidence that He now lives in my heart?”
The statement of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-5) begins with the truth that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins. This means that we are sinners in need of a Savior. To sin is to follow the example of our original parents who took up the offer to replace God on the throne of our hearts with self, deciding for ourselves what is right and wrong. Salvation comes when we restore the living God to His rightful place in our hearts by receiving His Son. This requires more than assenting to a set of facts. It is more than me saying, “Jesus is Lord”. It is saying, “Jesus is my Lord.” It is becoming born again or born from above.
And if I am born again I am “a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (2 Corinthians 5:17).” I do not think like the world, talk like the world, act like the world, or have the values of the world. My affections have changed. I seek the fellowship of God’s people. I delight in God’s Word. I have the overwhelming desire to know Him more. I crave fellowship with Him.
All of us who claim Jesus’s name, who profess to be Christians ought to examine ourselves to see if our lives match up with statements in the paragraph above. Each needs to ask him/herself this question, “Have I truly asked Jesus into my heart to be my Lord, or am I merely fooling myself? Am I a door that is not a door?”