What does “Christian” mean? Watching the media, you wonder. Some who think they are Christian get in front of a camera and say nasty, hard-hearted things about others. On the other hand, there are people who reduce the essence of Christianity to being nice. Miss Manners or Scrooge? Those representations of Christianity will continue, but deep down, who are you as a Christian?
Christians serious about their faith are not hard-hearted toward others. We can’t be, it’s not in us. “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). Notice the word “I.” This is what Martin Luther called “passive righteousness,” God promises to get you on the operating table and do a transplant, hard heart will come out, new heart of flesh will be put in.
Or did God already do this to you? The preceding verse said, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you” (Ezekiel 36:25). That’s Old Testament, so you might quickly jump to Baptism. Ah, look before you make that leap! The promise of this mysterious heart transplant makes us sensitive to how we have lived, and how we live now. “And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. …Then…” Note the sequence: when, then. When we have been purified, then we see our uncleanness. “Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good…” (Ezekiel 36:31). It’s after the mysterious transplant that we realize how impure we have been. “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance” (Romans 2:4). Off the mysterious operating table, out of the font, but we remembering, “how diseased my natural heart!”
True Christianity is being nice, akin to Miss Manners, but deeper. And like Scrooge, we are changed deep down when the Spirit has shown us our naturally nasty, sick hearts. Now we can make the leap from Ezekiel to Baptism, the daily leap of repentance to newness of life. “Baptism…now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:21). That, I think, describes a Christian.
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