What is Christianism?

By Christianity, we should say, we mean that which is set up of God through Christ, called “the faith,” that which is real and not merely profession.

I know not that I need multiply passages, after these I have quoted. What you will remark, is, that it is not a question of expressions as to which criticism may be exercised, but the doctrine and system of Scripture. It is Christianity, as it is given to us in Scripture. I take up Christianity as the truth, and that is Christianity. A religion is what it professes itself to be, and that is what Christianity professes itself to be - the revelation of God, and eternal life in the Person of Christ.

Christendom stands for those parts of the world where Christianity is the professed religion in contrast to heathen lands. In that profession there is a mixture of good and evil. In it is found much reality alongside of a vast amount of insincere profession with no reality behind it. The Word of God may be ministered in all its purity on the one hand, and that same Word of God neutralized on the other by traditions, superstitions, ritualistic practices, and doctrines far removed from the Word of God.

Christianity stands for pure Christian doctrine and practice. No person can have part in Christianity save those who have sincerely accepted the Lord Jesus as a personal Saviour, and who are indwelt by the Spirit of God. It represents Christ’s building, which is on the rock foundation of the confession of His name as “the Son of the living God.” Against this building the Gates of Hades shall not prevail. Upon this rock foundation every true believer is built as an integral part of the Church of God.

Christianity is the life of Christ communicated to the believer — dwelling in him — and flowing out from him, in the ten thousand little details which go to make up our daily practical life. It has nothing ascetic, monastic, or sanctimonious about it. It is genial, cordial, lightsome, pure, elevated, holy, heavenly, divine. Such is the Christianity of the New Testament. It is Christ dwelling in the believer, and reproduced, by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the believer's daily practical career. This is Christianity — nothing else, nothing less, nothing different.

First as to the terms. By "Truth" I mean revealed truth — that record which God has, in infinite mercy and wisdom, given to us in the divine Scriptures. "Pyrrhonism" I adopt as a term expressive of doubtfulness of mind — "what is truth?" without the heart to prosecute the enquiry. By "Dogmatism" I mark the profession of truth without the practice. "They say [and say rightly perhaps] and do not." By "Christianity" I understand the living expression of gospel-grace — the apostle's "faith, hope, charity."

“Philip went down to Samaria and preached Christ to them” (Acts 8). This brief and simple statement embodies in it a grand characteristic feature of Christianity — a feature which distinguishes it from every system of religion that now exists or ever was propounded in this world. Christianity is not a set of abstractions — a number of dogmas — a system of doctrines. It is preeminently a religion of living facts, of divine realities — a religion which finds its center in a divine Person, the Man Christ Jesus. He is the foundation of all Christian doctrine. From His divine and glorious Person all truth radiates. He is the living fountain from which all the streams issue forth in fullness, power and blessing. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Apart from Him all is death and darkness. There is not one atom of life, not one ray of light in all this world except what comes from Him. A man may possess all the learning of the schools; he may bask in the most brilliant light that science can pour upon his understanding and his pathway; he may garnish his name with all the honors which his fellow mortals can heap upon him, but if there is the breadth of a hair between him and Jesus — if he is not in Christ and Christ in him — if he has not believed on the Name of the only begotten Son of God, he is involved in death and darkness. Christ is “the true Light which lightens every man that comes into the world.” Hence no man can, in a divine sense, be termed an enlightened man except “a man in Christ.”

Thus, then, we see that the standing of the Christian is in Christ. "Found in him." This is Christian standing. Nothing less; nothing lower; nothing different. It is not partly in Christ and partly in law — partly in Christ and partly in ordinances. No, it is "Found in him." This is the standing that Christianity furnishes. If this is touched, it is not Christianity at all. It may be some ancient ism, or some medieval ism, or some modern ism, but most surely it is not the Christianity of the New Testament if it is anything other than this — "Found in him."

There had been many kings sitting on David's throne; and God will bestow more abundant dignity and honour on that throne when Christ deigns to sit on it, asking for and receiving the heathen for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. But this will be the future kingdom; it is not Christianity. Christianity is founded on Christ dead, risen, and glorified by God's will, as it sheds on the believer the light of heavenly grace and glory in Christ, and puts the soul into living relationship with God the Father on the ground of redemption, according to the efficacy of Christ's blood which shall abide for ever. Oh! beloved brethren, that you would only learn your own Christianity. How much more would you then know Christ, and better estimate His work!

That the Father has been revealed in the Person of the Son, that there is a divine Person on earth, the Holy Spirit, and that there is a Man in heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the essence of Christianity. All blessing for the Christian rests on the great work of redemption accomplished by the Lord Jesus on the cross, but we never could have received the divine blessing procured for us through the death of Jesus apart from His resurrection from among the dead. One of the great truths of Christianity is that there will be the raising from the dead of all who have died. The fundamentalists among the Jews believed in the resurrection of the dead, but it was not until the Son of God came into the world that the truths connected with resurrection were revealed.

The faith is the whole body of Christian doctrine that was once committed to the saints. We can think of it in its parts, in its foundation truths, or in relation to its topstone in the purpose of God concerning His Son; but in whatsoever way we view it, it brings Christ before us as the One in whom we learn all that God is, whether in His nature of love, His disposition of grace towards men, or as the centre of all God’s thoughts, both in relation to His present place at God’s right hand, or in relation to the coming day, when everything shall be headed up in Christ for the pleasure of God.

While the faith is primarily concerned with the revelation of God, and with Him in whom He has been revealed, the teaching of divine grace at once brings out the blessing that God has for those whom He has called, and the present place of privilege enjoyed by Christians. Everything in Christianity belongs to the realm of faith, so that faith in the individual is required to apprehend the body of doctrine in which “the faith” consists. Moreover, the faith must be held with a good conscience, or shipwreck of the faith may follow, as in the case of Hymenaeus and Alexander, of whom we read in 1 Timothy 1:19-20.