Dear Ben, You have asked an interesting question. What makes someone a Christian? For centuries people who have declared themselves Christians have equally certainly declared that others were not Christians, and the others have returned the compliment. What then is the certain test? What is the minimum level of knowledge and response necessary to make a person so?

It is not an easy question to answer. The simple answer, of course, is ‘to believe in Jesus’. That is what Scripture says. "To those who received Him to them He gave the right to become the children of God, even to those who believed on His name" (John 1.12). But certainly what is required is more than intellectual belief (see John 2.23-25). When Jesus speaks of ‘believing’ He clearly means a genuine response of the heart to Him and His teachings, a response that changes lives. As He said elsewhere, "by their fruits you will know them" (Matthew 7.16-20).

So there is no doubt that without such a response there can be no acceptance by God, and where there is such a response who will deny the privilege of salvation? Certainly not God.

But while the belief must not be just an intellectual belief, but a response to a Person and His teachings, what is the minimum intellectual content required for that belief to be genuine? While there are some who confidently assert a number of doctrines that they suggest are necessary to salvation they do so on their own authority, for Jesus Himself made the simple claim that all that was needed was a genuine belief in Him that produced a change of heart and response to Him and His teachings.

Notice the combination. It was not enough just to accept His teachings in a general way. He challenged men to recognise in Himself the One uniquely come from God.

The thief on the cross was a wrongdoer and knew little about Jesus (Luke 23.40-43). But on his cross he recognised that here was One sent from God Who in some way could offer him mercy. We must probably accept that he had earlier heard Jesus’ teaching, and had indeed refused to respond to it (otherwise he would not have been there). But now with his life almost gone he responded, and learned that his salvation was assured. Are we to believe that he accepted the full divinity of Christ? The answer is almost certainly no. Such a question would hardly have sprung to his mind. Did he understand the mystery of the atonement? Again the answer is no. Little had yet been said of such a mystery. But he recognised that Jesus was from God in some special way, and was able to offer him forgiveness and salvation, and in a genuine response he accepted it.

Missionaries on the mission field, contending with minds which found Christian concepts difficult to grasp, have recognised that they must not be too dogmatic before allowing baptism as a confirmation that converts have passed from past darkness into the life of Christ, otherwise they would exclude those whose response was genuine. If those people recognised the ‘otherness’ of Jesus and that He had died on the cross for them, and responded to His words in their lives, who could deny them acceptance by God, even though their theology was still in primitive form?

When the early church of the third and fourth centuries was torn by the question of whether Jesus was ‘fully divine’ the vast majority believed the answer was no, that in some way He was inferior to the Father (although of a high and unique status). Yet these were men who had suffered terrible torture for their faith in Christ, and who bore the visible scars and mutilations inflicted by those who sought to turn them from Christ. They lived for Him, and were ready to suffer and die for Him. Was their theological misunderstanding enough to separate them from the Christ they loved and even worshipped? Surely the answer must be no. They did recognise the ‘otherness’ of Jesus, and that He had died for them, and they had responded to Him. Their faith was genuine, it was only their understanding that was limited.

We can search the literature of the early church and we will find that, once the Apostles had gone, even their teachers had an inadequate understanding of the doctrines of the Gospel. We must remember that early Christians were in the main illiterate. They could not read the Scriptures, and in the vast majority of cases even where they could, they had little or no access to what were scarce resource. Bibles were expensive and not just available to anyone, even where they were available. Usually a church would have only a small part of the Bible (there were large numbers of scrolls required, or large quantities of skins). So they were very dependent on the spoken word.

We have only to read the teachings of early Christian teachers such as Ignatius of Antioch and even Irenaeus (the most Biblical of them all) to recognise that their knowledge was inadequate, clearly because they were unable to enjoy the study of the word of God in the in depth way that we can enjoy today. They did what they could with what they had to hand. Ignatius was writing on his journey to terrible martyrdom. His faith and commitment to Christ were unquestionable. His recognition that Jesus Christ as God had died for Him is certain. But his theology was less so. So those early Christians unquestionably did not fully understand the intricacies of doctrine that Christians argue about today. They were not in a position to do so. They grasped certain basic truths of a limited nature, and in their response to Christ and His ‘otherness’ and to His death and teachings, and to the word of God in so far as they knew it, they were surely ‘saved’.

We need to remember it is not we who determine who God will accept. His is the decision, and we try to make it at our peril. We rightly try to safeguard what we consider to be the truth, and stand firmly for it, but we should beware of demanding from people what God does not specifically require, and making it a condition of salvation. Almost certainly many today who have ‘sound ideas’ will be rejected because their response to Jesus and His teachings was not equally sound. As Jesus Himself said, He will ask them, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things which I say?” They will be known by their fruits. It is not enough just to believe a body of doctrine. There must be a responsive life.

‘Will there be Roman Catholics in Heaven?’ you ask. Within this church are a large multitude of people, many of whom are very simple in their ideas, who have little knowledge of evangelical doctrine. Yet they know of Christ, and recognise His otherness and that He died for them, and many love and worship Him and genuinely seek to respond to Him and to His teachings. They do not understand the complexities that have led astray the better educated. Will God reject those whose heart and reponse is genuine because they are a little mixed up in their doctrines? Is it a statement of belief that God judges men by, or a genuine response to such truth as they know when it includes that Jesus is the Son of God and died for them?

Notice we do not suggest that all Roman Catholics are Christians. There are those who trust solely in the church, or in doctrines and ideas that are palpably false, whose very belief closes their minds and hearts from response to Christ. And this may well exclude a large number of Roman Catholics (and others also) from God’s saving mercy, because it is outward not inward. But it is God Who will decide the genuine response of the heart, not us. And it is a brave man (or a foolish one) who makes the decision for Him.

Will there be Mormons in Heaven? Again we suggest that among those who are bound up in its false teachings there are some simple souls who have made a genuine response to Christ and His teachings in spite of the falsity of Mormonism. Is it God or man who would exclude such from his mercy?

Yet this does not mean that what Roman Catholics or Mormons teach is the full truth. Only that there are those who among them, in spite of the lack within those teachings, find their way to a genuine response to Christ.

Men can believe many wrong things, and still be saved, otherwise none of us would be saved. But we have no confidence in the salvation of any who do not fully respond to Christ and His teachings in so far as they know them.

’What about Muslims?’ you ask. Here we are on more difficult ground. They do not accept the ‘otherness’ of Christ, seeing Him only as a prophet whom they virtually ignore. But Romans 2.14-16 may indicate that there is hope for those who have never really been taught about Christ but who through Muslim (and other) teaching find a genuine response to God and His truth. We do not suggest that they will be a numerically large number, nor would we dogmatically assert what their position is, but we recognise that it is God Who will decide and not us.

However what is certain is that we must do our utmost to help them to faith in Christ, for whatever the possibilities, we can have confidence in nothing less. Salvation is in the end found in Christ through the benefits of His death. And we can be equally sure that any who are truly faced up with Christ and reject Him will by it be condemned.

Indeed the fact is that whenever a church asserts itself to be the only church through which salvation can be found, they act with blasphemy. God is not so resticted. But there may be many in those churches whom God can reach.

We are right to seek to understand and present the truth as we see it, but we must beware of doing God’s selective work for Him. In the end we must stand by this. Those who genuinely believe in and respond to the otherness of Christ and to his teachings, recognising that through His work on the cross He has somehow made a way of access to God, will find acceptance with Him. We must be concerned to ensure that our faith is not just a bundle of doctrines, but such a genuine response. Then we can have confidence in our salvation.

IS THERE SOMETHING IN THE BIBLE THAT PUZZLES YOU?

If so please EMail us with your question and we will do our best to give you a satisfactory answer.EMailus.

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THE PENTATEUCH

GENESIS ---EXODUS--- LEVITICUS 1.1-7.38 --- 8.1-11.47 --- 12.1-16.34--- 17.1-27.34--- NUMBERS 1-10--- 11-19--- 20-36--- DEUTERONOMY 1.1-4.44 --- 4.45-11.32 --- 12.1-29.1--- 29.2-34.12 --- THE BOOK OF JOSHUA --- THE BOOK OF JUDGES --- PSALMS 1-17--- ECCLESIASTES --- ISAIAH 1-5 --- 6-12 --- 13-23 --- 24-27 --- 28-35 --- 36-39 --- 40-48 --- 49-55--- 56-66--- EZEKIEL --- DANIEL 1-7 ---DANIEL 8-12 ---

NAHUM--- HABAKKUK---ZEPHANIAH ---ZECHARIAH --- THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW ---THE GOSPEL OF MARK--- THE GOSPEL OF LUKE --- THE GOSPEL OF JOHN --- THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES --- 1 CORINTHIANS 1-7 --- 8-16 --- 2 CORINTHIANS 1-7 --- 8-13 -- -GALATIANS --- EPHESIANS --- COLOSSIANS --- 1 THESSALONIANS --- 2 THESSALONIANS --- 1 TIMOTHY --- 2 TIMOTHY --- TITUS --- HEBREWS 1-6 --- 7-10 --- 11-13 --- JAMES --- JOHN'S LETTERS --- REVELATION

--- THE GOSPELS

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