Albert N. Martin

What is a Christian? Let me suggest that when we turn to the Word of God, in the Scriptures themselves, this question is answered to us in terms of three simple categories of biblical realities. What is a Christian?

The first part of the answer is this: a Christian is one who has honestly faced the personal problem of sin. Now, one of the most wonderful and amazing things about true, Bible Christianity is that it is essentially and fundamentally a religion for sinners. Listen to the testimony of the great Apostle Paul, that great spokesman of the Lord Jesus who said in 1 Timothy 1:15, “This is the faithful saying, worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world.” Not to help good people get better, not to help righteous people become more righteous, but look at the language, “This is the faithful saying, worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Until a person honestly faces his personal problem of sin, he cannot, he will not become a Christian.

Human sin and the problem that that sin brings has a million manifestations, but when you boil down the problem of human sin to its most distilled essence, the problem of human sin has but two fundamental points of focus: the problem that we all have of a bad record, and the problem of a bad heart.

Now, when I say “a bad record,” what am I talking about? I’m talking about that which the Bible sets before us with the picture of God as the Judge of the world, who keeps a record book on all of His creatures who are part of His universe. The Scripture tells us that in the last day, when men stand before God the Judge, the Book will be opened, and the dead will be judged out of the Book according to their works. (Revelations 20:11-15.) You see, it’s what is in that Book that constitutes our bad record! In the court of Heaven, the sentence of “guilty” has gone forth upon every single one of us. You might say, “Guilty for what?” Guilty, first of all, of that sin which we committed in our first father, Adam. The Bible makes it abundantly plain that when Adam took that fruit from the hand of Eve, and in open-eyed, willful, deliberate disobedience sinned against God, when Adam sinned, we sinned in him and with him.

Romans 5:12, “Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world; and death passed upon all men, for that all sinned.” When did we all sin? We all sinned in Adam. You might say, “Pastor, that doesn’t sound fair to me! How could I sin in Adam and I wasn’t even born? I’m only eight years old. Adam lived thousands of years ago! It isn’t fair. God didn’t wait till I was born and ask me to vote upon it.” Dear children and adults, it may not seem fair, and you may not be able to figure out how it can be, but the sin of the one is the sin of the race. The facts are facts, and assuming we come to reckon that we are better off where we are, you are guilty in Adam! If you don’t come to grips with that guilt, God will make you come to grips within the Day of Judgement.

The Bible goes on to say we are guilty because of our own individual and actual sins. Ecclesiastes 7:20, “There is not a just man upon the face of the earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.” We read such passages as Romans 3:10-18, where the Apostle brings verses together from various places in the Old Testament, and demonstrates, “There is none righteous, no, not one; they are all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one.” If Jesus says that anger in the heart in an unjust cause is the essence of murder, lust in the eye is the essence of adultery, and desiring inordinately is the essence of idolatry, who among us is going to dare claim our record is clean? Who is so foolish to say that every thought and intention and motive and desire and attitude has been perfectly in line with God’s Holy Law, from the time we had any being?

We have a bad record, and that bad record is not in some human court that has human authority to execute human law, or even human authority to exercise divine law. We have a bad record in the court of Heaven, the court of the God who has the power. The power to do what? To take every guilty criminal in His court who has a bad record and consign him to the just deserts of that bad record; and the wages of sin is death. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” So, in that picture of the court of Heaven in Revelation 20, it ends with these frightening words, “Whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire.” This is the Second Death. What is a Christian? I tell you, a Christian is someone who begins to take seriously that bad record. But our problem is not only the problem of a bad record.

We have the problem of a bad heart. When I use the word ‘heart’ I don’t mean that organ that pumps the blood, that has its auricles. The Bible uses ‘the heart’ as meaning ‘the real you.’ From the very moment we were conceived, our hearts, our nature, our disposition was bad. People say, “Oh well, he’s a good boy who went bad.” No. He’s a bad boy who showed what he was. There is no such thing as a good boy who went bad, or a good girl who went bad! We are conceived and born bad!

David said in Psalm 51:5, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Not that the act of sexual relationship between David’s mother and father was sin. No. What he’s saying is that when as a result of that act I was conceived, what was conceived was a sinner from conception! You see, that’s our problem. We have the problem not only of a bad record. We’ve done bad things, but we’ve got the problem of a bad heart. We are bad in our natures.

What is a Christian? A Christian is someone who has taken seriously that personal problem of a bad record and a bad heart. I must hasten on, because a lot of people come that far and they’re not Christians. A Christian is someone who has not only honestly faced the personal problem of sin, but is one who has seriously considered the divine remedy for sin. A Christian is someone who has seriously considered the divine remedy for sin! What are the major elements in that remedy? I’m just going to touch on three of them very quickly and simply.

First, that serious consideration of the divine remedy for sin is a consideration of a remedy that is bound up in a Person. Certain remedies come to us in a pill. Other remedies may come to us in a diet. Other remedies may come to us in certain forms of therapy. In terms of our maladies and our illnesses, the remedy comes in different ways. For some people it’s a change of climate. They’ve got to get away from dampness, spores, and different kinds of pollens. How does the remedy for sin come to us. It comes to us bound up in a Person. Not in a set of ideas that float by called “Christianity.” Not in a set of rules that come by saying, “Christianity.” The remedy comes to us in a Person.

The Scripture tells us, “Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” Jesus Himself said in John 14:6, “I am the way.” “Not my church, not my ministers, not even my doctrines taken away from Me.” “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father but by me.” We could go back to our old standby John 3:16, “God so loved the world that He gave a set of truths about salvation.” No. “God so loved the world that He gave a church in which there is salvation.” No. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” John could say, “This is the record, that God has given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” That’s the glory of the Christian faith! The remedy is in a Person, and that Person is the God-man, Christ Jesus Himself!

Bible References: 1 Timothy 1:15; Revelations 20:11-15; Romans 5:12; Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:10-18; Psalm 51:5; John 14:6; John 3:16

Bible References: 2 Corinthians 5:9,14,17; 2 Corinthians 4:4,6

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