Basic Christianity

by John R.W. Stott

‘Hostile to the church, friendly to Jesus Christ.’ These words describe large numbers of people, especially young people, today. They are opposed to anything which savours of institutionalism. They detest the establishment and its entrenched privileges. And they reject the church - not without some justification - because they regard it as impossibly corrupted by such evils. Yet what they have rejected is the contemporary church, not Jesus Christ himself. It is precisely because they see a contradiction between the founder of Christianity and the current state of the church he founded that they are so critical and aloof. The person and teaching of Jesus have not lost their appeal, however. For one thing, he was himself an antiestablishment figure, and some of his words had revolutionary overtones. His ideals appear to have been incorruptible. He breathed love and peace wherever he went. And, for another thing, he invariably practised what he preached. But was he true? An appreciable number of people throughout the world are still brought up in Christian homes in which the truth of Christ and of Christianity is assumed. But when their critical faculties develop and they begin to think for themselves, they find it easier to discard the religion of their childhood than make the effort to investigate its credentials. Very many others do not grow up in a Christian environment. Instead they absorb the teaching of Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam, or the ethos of secular humanism, com...

But there is evidence for the deity of Jesus - good, strong, historical, cumulative evidence; evidence to which an honest person can subscribe without committing intellectual suicide. There are the extravagant claims which Jesus made for himself, so bold and yet so unassuming. Then there is his incomparable character. His strength and gentleness, his uncompromising righteousness and tender compassion, his care for children and his love for outcasts, his self-mastery and self-sacrifice have won the admiration of the world. What is more, his cruel death was not the end of him. It is claimed that he rose again from death, and the circumstantial evidence for his resurrection is most compelling. Supposing Jesus was the Son of God, is basic Christianity merely an acceptance of this fact? No. Once persuaded of the deity of his person, we must examine the nature of his work. What did he come to do? The biblical answer is, he ‘came into the world to save sinners’. Jesus of Nazareth is the heaven-sent Saviour we sinners need. We need to be forgiven and restored to fellowship with the all-holy God, from whom our sins have separated us. We need to be set free from our selfishness and given strength to live up to our ideals. We need to learn to love one another, friend and foe alike. This is the meaning of ‘salvation’. This is what Christ came to win for us by his death and resurrection.

Christianity is not just a creed; it involves action. Our intellectual belief may be beyond criticism; but we have to translate our beliefs into deeds.

In the Bible we do not see man groping after God; we see God reaching after man.

The Bible reveals a God who, long before it even occurs to man to turn to him, while man is still lost in darkness and sunk in sin, takes the initiative, rises from his throne, lays aside his glory, and stoops to seek until he finds him.

God has created. God has spoken. God has acted. These statements of God’s initiative in three different spheres form a summary of the religion of the Bible.

God has spoken and acted in Jesus Christ. He has said something. He has done something. This means that Christianity is not just pious talk. It is neither a collection of religious ideas nor a catalogue of rules. It is a ‘gospel’ (i.e. good news) - in Paul’s words ‘the gospel of God ... concerning his Son ... Jesus Christ our Lord’.2 It is not primarily an invitation to man to do anything; it is supremely a declaration of what God has done in Christ for human beings like ourselves.

God, whatever or whoever he may be, is infinite, while we are finite creatures. He is altogether beyond our comprehension. Therefore our minds, though wonderfully effective instruments in the empirical sciences, cannot immediately help us here. They cannot climb up into the infinite mind of God. There is no ladder, only a vast, unmeasured gulf. ‘Can you find out the deep things of God?’ Job was asked. It is impossible. And so the situation would have remained if God had not taken the initiative to remedy it. Man would have remained for ever agnostic, asking indeed with Pontius Pilate, ‘What is truth?’ but never staying for an answer, because never daring to hope that he would receive one. He would be a worshipper, for such is his nature; but all his altars would be inscribed, like the one in Athens, ‘To an unknown god’.

Christianity is a religion of salvation, and there is nothing in the non-Christian religions to compare with this message of a God who loved, and came after, and died for, a world of lost sinners.

It is one of the reasons why Jesus loved children. They are teachable. They are not proud, self-important and critical. We need the open, humble and receptive mind of a little child.

Of all these hindrances to effective search the last two are the hardest to overcome, intellectual prejudice and moral self-will. Both are expressions of fear, and fear is the greatest enemy of the truth.

This utter disregard of self in the service of God and man is what the Bible calls love. There is no self-interest in love. The essence of love is self-sacrifice.

Sin brings inevitable separation, and this separation is ‘death’, spiritual death, the severance of a person from God, the only source of true life. ‘The wages of sin is death.’ Further, if in this world we deliberately reject Jesus Christ through whom alone we may find eternal life, we will die eternally in the next world. Hell is a grim and dreadful reality. Let no man deceive you. Jesus himself spoke of it. He called it ‘outer darkness’ because it is an infinite separation from God who is light. It is also called in the Bible ‘the second death’ and ‘the lake of fire’, terms which describe symbolically the forfeiture of eternal life and the ghastly thirst of the soul which are involved in irrevocable banishment from God’s presence.

Christianity is a rescue religion. It declares that God has taken the initiative in Jesus Christ to deliver us from our sins.

It is not that we should strive to live like Jesus, but that he by his Spirit should come and live in us. To have him as our example is not enough; we need him as our Saviour. It is thus through his atoning death that the penalty of our sins may be forgiven; it is through his indwelling Spirit that the power of our sins may be broken.

The Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict, half — built towers — the ruins of those who began to build and were unable to finish. For thousands of people still ignore Christ’s warning and undertake to follow him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of doing so. The result is the great scandal of Christendom today, so-called ‘nominal Christianity’.

The message of Jesus was very different. He never lowered his standards or modified his conditions to make his call more readily acceptable. He asked his first disciples, and he has asked every disciple since, to give him their thoughtful and total commitment. Nothing less than this will do.

If you are in doubt regarding what is right and what wrong, what must go and what may be retained, do not be too greatly influenced by the customs and conventions of Christians you may know. Go by the clear teaching of the Bible and by the prompting of your conscience, and Christ will gradually lead you further along the path of righteousness.

To make Christ Lord is to bring every department of our public and private lives under his control. This includes our career. God has a purpose for every life. Our business is to discover it and do it.

There are other forms of service which equally deserve the job description ‘Christian ministry’. For example, the calling of many girls to be wife, mother and home-maker is in the fullest sense ‘Christian ministry’, since she is serving Christ, her family and the community. So is every form of work — medicine, research, the law, education, social service, central and local government, industry, business and trade — in which the worker sees himself as cooperating with God in the service of man.

For Jesus Christ described his followers as both ‘the salt of the earth’ and ‘the light of the world’. The use of salt before refrigeration had been invented was largely negative — to prevent decay in fish or meat. So Christians should stop society from deteriorating, by helping to preserve moral standards, influence public opinion and secure just legislation. As the light of the world Christians are to let their light shine.

Christ can enter, cleanse and forgive you in a matter of seconds, but it will take much longer for your character to be transformed and moulded to his will. It takes only a few minutes for a bride and bridegroom to be married, but in the rough-and-tumble of their home it may take many years for two strong wills to be dovetailed into one. So when we receive Christ, a moment of commitment will lead to a lifetime of adjustment.

Are you a Christian ? A real and committed Christian ? Your answer depends on another question — not whether you go to church or not, believe the creed or not, or lead a decent life or not (important as all these are in their place), but rather this: which side of the door is Jesus Christ? Is he inside or outside? That is the crucial issue.