So what is a Christian?
In short, a Christian is a believer in the person and work of Christ. This means that a Christian has concluded in mind and conscience that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who took our nature into Himself that He might live righteously for us — that is, as our substitute. Also, He died sacrificially as an expiation for us, conquered death for us by His resurrection, now intercedes for us, will come again to receive us, and resurrect our bodies in a glorified state fit for the eternal life of heaven.
This is what a Christian believes. In that work of Christ, a Christian trusts for forgiveness of sins, justification before the judgment of God, and eventual holiness when perfected in heaven. He makes it his goal to live in a way that shows a transformed and renewed mind imitating the character of God.
Because of the transformation of life that came to the believers in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians there (Acts 11:28). By the time Paul stood before Festus and Agrippa, the name had become integrated into common vocabulary. After a thick and detailed presentation of gospel truth, its transforming power, and its scriptural consistency, Agrippa rightly surmised that Paul was trying to persuade him to become a “Christian” (Acts 26:28).
As Peter encouraged those believers who were reviled for the name of Christ, he assured them that if “anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed but is to glorify God in this name” (1 Pet. 4:16).
The word “Christian,” therefore, should conform to the New Testament vocabulary and context. It refers to a person or group of people who have heard the presentation of gospel truth; by the secret, transforming work of the Spirit of God have repented of sin and embraced Christ; are known for their selfless, pure, and generous lifestyle; and are willing to suffer in bearing that name.
The new covenant (Jer. 31:31–34; Ezek.36:26, 27; Heb. 8:6–13) established a unity in the people of God based on spiritual transformation of life, not political or ethnic identity. Membership within such a covenantal community comes only through sovereign mercy in the alteration of heart and spirit by the Holy Spirit’s powerful application of truth to the conscience. We are not born with transformed hearts but are, by nature, children of wrath following the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience (Eph. 2:1–3).
• • Believer’s Baptism and Christian Nationalism
Christian nationalism is dependent on the presumption of citizenship and, thus, Christian standing at birth. Such was the eventual import of infant baptism, a saving sacrament or covenantal sign given at the birth of every child — thus, Roman Catholicism, Presbyterianism, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and others fostered their hegemony consistent with views of a state-church as well as persecution of those who dissented.
Cuius regio, eius religio — “Who reigns, his religion.” Baptists, under the plain rule and example of Scripture in this matter, have no rite for infants to initiate them into the church in infancy. Baptists insist on regenerate church membership according to the New Testament pattern and thus have no biblical warrant to pursue national “Christianity” by political methods.
Rather, we believe that “a visible church of Christ is a congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel.” We believe that this ordinance of entry into church fellowship is “the immersion of a believer in water, in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit to show forth in a beautiful emblem, our faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, with its purifying power” (New Hampshire Confession articles xiii and xiv).
Since the purity of this church depends on regeneration resulting in biblical repentance and faith followed by baptism, we believe in liberty of conscience. Neither natural birth nor government decree make Christians. None can be compelled by national laws nor by political enforcement to be a Christian — such laws and power do not create new covenant Christianity.
Baptists fully approve the first phrases of the “Bill of Rights” in the Constitution of the United States: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” These provisions were consistent with what had been adopted in Virginia in 1780: “No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship … but that all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinion in matters of religion.”
Under the religious tyranny and misguided, unbiblical zeal of established churches in colonial years, Baptists were jailed, whipped, and banished for rejecting infant baptism, and seeking to found churches based on the baptism of believers only.
• • Roger Williams vs. John Cotton
One of the illustrative exchanges of polemical engagement in that era was between Roger Williams and John Cotton. Williams wrote The Bloody Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience. John Cotton answered with The Bloody Tenent of Persecution Washed White in the Blood of the Lamb. Williams then produced another hefty volume entitled The Bloody Tenent of Persecution Yet More Bloody by Master Cotton’s Attempt to Wash It White in the Blood of the Lamb.
Williams based his arguments against forced Christianity on specific exegesis of Romans 13, Acts 25, and the nature of the “sword of the Spirit” in Ephesians 6. Also, he employed a covenantal hermeneutic distinguishing the church from Israel, the king of Israel from civil magistrates, and church discipline from the punishment of unfaithfulness in Israel. He included the doctrinal categories of the nature of saving grace — election, total depravity, effectual calling, particular atonement, and perseverance. He argued that diversity of religious expression — or no religious expression — does not endanger the present and eternal safety of believers.
Not one elect of God shall perish, for Christ has died for them. The Holy Spirit effectually gives them spiritual life and grants them perseverance in the faith. Neither the laws, nor the threats, nor the sword of the civil magistrate can rescue one sinner from his natural and intrinsic blindness and hatred of the truth of God.
• • Christians Possess a Dual Citizenship
Christians do belong to a Christian nation, however — a nation gathered and governed by God Himself whose citizenship includes persons from Adam to the last person saved prior to Christ’s return (2 Pet. 1:10; 3:4, 9, 10, 15). Peter wrote that Christians are “aliens and strangers” in this world, while we submit to a variety of political authorities “for the Lord’s sake.” Their task is civil stability, safety, punishment, and praise for all the people within the sphere of their civil jurisdiction (1 Pet. 2:13–17). Except in cases that would involve disobedience to the specific calling and revealed will of God (Acts 4:20), Christians are to submit to the authorities that exist, knowing that they are ordained of God (Rom. 13:1).
The true and lasting citizenship of Christians, however, is in the nation governed by God’s eternal purpose of grace. Peter wrote, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9). The “holy nation” to which Christians of every tongue and tribe belong, and the only Christian nation, is that purchased by the blood of Christ, rescued from corruption and eternal punishment by the grace of God, and conformed to the laws of this nation by the Holy Spirit. There is no other Christian nation.
Within this dual citizenship, Christians give fitting regard to each within their proper sphere: “Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king” (1 Pet. 2:17).
This chiasm of imperatives begins and ends with commands related to our God-given citizenship in this world.
All men are made in the image of God, and we must honor them on that basis. All authority derives from God so we must honor the given civil authority (Acts 26:2, 25). The two middle imperatives derive from salvific knowledge of God. Special affection is given to those in the holy nation, for they are our brothers by redemption and adoption. Absolute respect and obedience are given to God as absolute Authority, impeccable Governor, and compassionate Redeemer.
• • Social Striving and the Second Table of God’s Law
Christians may — in fact, must — work for, as John Adams presents the purpose of government, the “happiness of society.” The foundation of man’s happiness and dignity is personal virtue and societal virtue. Laws should reflect this goal of personal and societal virtue.
The second table of the Ten Commandments constitute absolute virtue ontologically. No society can thrive in stable happiness that ignores or contradicts these laws that define horizontal virtue, and thus happiness. Christians should work for the pervasive application of laws that reflect these God-given principles of human-to-human relationships. This is done when we preach the gospel with all its attendant doctrines in our churches — even if some call this proclamation “hate speech” — and when we seek to argue in the marketplace and at the ballot box for human happiness built on them. In this way, we may seek to advance the social thriving of all persons without creating the fiction of “Christian Nationalism.”
— Tom J. Nettles is a retired professor of historical theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.