Christianity 101: What Does It Mean to Be a Christian?

Christianity 101 is designed to help you quickly understand the basics of Christianity… the first question you may be asking is What does it mean to be a Christian? Well, I am glad you asked because when I was preparing this blog, I believe God told me to include this section on Back to Basics.

A Sturdy Foundation

When you build anything, you need to build a sturdy foundation. A weak foundation accounts for many building collapses. In Christianity, Jesus is our sure foundation and the cornerstone, He is the central most important part of all truth and He is the head of his household – the body of Christ (Isaiah 28:16, 1 Peter 2:4-6, Ephesians 2:19-21).

When Jesus asked Simon Peter in Matthew 16:17-18 who he thought he was and Peter answered by saying He was the Christ, the son of the living God. Jesus then said he was Peter (Petra, a piece of the rock) and that he was blessed because only God the Father could have revealed it to him. He said that He would build his church upon the rock and that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

The rock is referring to the revelation that Peter had – the fact that He was the Christ. The rock is not Peter but Jesus and we are the church that He is talking about here and He wants us to build our lives on the revelation that He is the Christ, the Messiah. When we do, we cannot be shaken during the storms of life.

‘he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.’ – Luke 6:48

What does Christ the Messiah mean?

Contrary to what many may believe, Christ is not Jesus’ surname (last name). It’s His title and it comes from the greek word Chrīstós. It means the anointed one or chosen one (Daniel 9:25). The Hebrew equivalent is Mashiach or Messiah. So Jesus Christ means Jesus, the anointed one or Jesus, the Messiah. Christianity beliefs start with Christ.

Why do we need a Saviour?

Jesus was sent by God to deliver His people and to become their King. We all inherited sin through our ancestor Adam’s disobedience. In Genesis 3:1-24, we read that Adam and his wife Eve were living in the garden of Eden and they directly disobeyed a command that the Lord had given them.

They rebelled unknowingly against God when Eve allowed the serpent to entice her and then she convinced her husband to transgress God’s law. I say unknowingly because I don’t think they understood what rebellion was before they committed the sin. The Bible text says that the snake was the shrewdest of all the wild animals God had made. If only they understood that God’s rules were there to protect them.

God had said they could eat from any tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent told them that God was holding out on them and didn’t want them to know how to discern good and evil. He got them to doubt God and His intentions towards them.

When God looked for Adam for their daily walkabout, He found both of them hiding. Adam said they hid because they were naked. God asked them how they knew they were naked, and if they ate from the forbidden tree. The first thing Adam did was blame Eve and she in turn blamed the serpent. They ended up being booted out of the garden for their own good.

Adam’s disobedience invoked the law of sin and death and its wages (Romans 6:23). What is interesting to note here is that although Eve was the one who got Adam to partake in the forbidden fruit, Adam was the one who was ultimately responsible for the sin. Eve and all women after her would experience painful childbirth as a result and the serpent would crawl on his belly and eat dust. God said He would put enmity between the woman’s seed and the snake, that the woman’s seed would one day ultimately crush his head.

We inherited sin through Adam (Romans 5:12). Since Adam was made in God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27) and we are his descendants, we are made in the same likeness. So when we were born, we were born into the sin he committed. With that sin, we inherited the judgement and consequences that come with it (Numbers 14:18, Jeremiah 32:17-18).

King David lamented in Psalm 51:5 that “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me”. David inherited sin from his parents. Even the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:25 attributed the sinful things he did to his sinful nature or his flesh (gk sarx). The flesh here is denoted as an unregenerate and sinful state – immoral thoughts and desires. It is our nature that is bound in sin. We are moral beings with choices to make.

RELATED: Change Your Narrative: 3 Ways To Change Your Life!

Throughout the biblical timeline – the Old and New Testament, we can see how people consistently rebelled against God. This was a result of their sinful nature.

“The acts of the sinful nature (flesh) are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” – Galatians 5:19-21

Christ became our Saviour

As we can see, sin is an evil slavemaster. We needed a ransom to be paid for our freedom. In Leviticus. 4.1-35, God allowed His people to make ‘sin offerings’ to Him for the purpose of securing atonement through offering an animal sacrifice on the altar in the temple – usually a ram.

This was only a temporary solution. People needed true freedom and that could only come through someone who knew no sin. It had to be someone born into the world as a man. Jesus was one who knew no sin. He wasn’t born through the lineage of Adam, His father was God (Luke 1:26-38). Joseph was Jesus’ stepfather. He married Mary while she was pregnant with Jesus.

Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice and when he died on the cross, all our sin was imputed upon Him. Our sickness and infirmity came through every lash he endured with the whip. When He died, we who receive Him as Lord and Saviour, died with Him and when He rose on the third day, we rose with Him. We arose into a new life in Christ, we are now new creations (Romans 6:4-18). We became born-again into the second Adam – Christ (John 3:3, John 3:7).

So from now on we regard no one according to the flesh. Although we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation… –2 Corinthians 5:16-18

Conclusion

Once we understand why we need a saviour and realise the enormous price Jesus paid for us on the cross and in His resurrection, we realise that we have freedom through Him. Jesus said that He is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). He is the only way, He paid the ransom in full for us.

Christian (gk Christianos) is a name that pagan people gave to the followers of Christ who followed Christ’s teachings. Since Christ means the anointed one, Tian means little we can say ‘Christ-tian’ means little anointed ones. Acts 11:26 is the first time we hear this name being given to Christ’s followers. It’s important to note that Christianity is not actually a religion and neither is it for the faint-hearted because it is not always widely received. All in all, Jesus is the cornerstone and foundation on which we build our lives. When we receive Christ, we become adopted as sons into God’s family and secure our place in Him.