But if you say to many people who call themselves Christians, “What does it mean to become a Christian?” they do not know. They have a vague notion that somehow or other you sometimes think about God and about religious matters, and then you try to do a bit of good and live a good life, and, well, that is it—you are a Christian. Or perhaps you were taken to church when you were young and you have just gone on from there.
They think Christianity is a spirit of friendship and benevolence and a desire to do good. As we have seen, some modern writers say that whenever you find love or kindness, you find God. But I repeat, that is far removed from what we find in the book of Acts. Here is something entirely different. Here are 3,000 people who passed from there to here, from this to that. What happened to them?
The first thing is that the 3,000 people underwent a complete change. Their whole position was revolutionized. Their thinking, their actions, their outlook were all changed. It is as complete as that—and that is Christianity. There is nothing more definite than being a Christian, according to the New Testament; and people who do not know what it is to be a Christian or cannot tell you why they are Christians are by definition not Christians at all. There is something unique, special, specific about being a Christian. You can find many men and women who are not Christians who do a lot of good, think noble thoughts, and are ready to make great sacrifices. But they will tell you they are not Christians, and they are not. The so-called humanist will say, “Everything you people stand for and do, I can do, without any of your doctrine and your shibboleths, without all your accretions and all those myths that you add on to your teaching.”
I was reading an article recently by one of the leading humanists at the present time in which the author was commenting on the programs she listens to on the radio and watches on television. She said, “I notice that they [Christians] are very shy about mentioning God and the Lord Jesus Christ. They are all so anxious to show that after all what they have got is so much like that which is best in the world”—and she is perfectly right. It is not surprising that the vast majority of people are outside the church. But none of that is Christianity. As we have seen, Luke starts off the book of Acts by saying, “The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up.” It is all about Him. And if you do not speak about Him but simply talk about good ideas and good thoughts and how to do this and that, what you are talking about is not Christianity.
So we find here that these people underwent a complete change. How did it happen? It was not the preaching of Peter. If you read Peter’s sermon, you see that he quotes Scriptures, he develops certain arguments. Quite right. Logically sound. He makes his case, and you cannot contradict it. But Peter’s sermon, read in cold print, does not account for the fact that something vital happened to 3,000 people! What accounts for that is the action of the Holy Spirit. “They were pricked in their heart” (Acts 2:37). The men and women standing there and listening to an exposition of certain Old Testament Scriptures were in trouble. They were disturbed, and they cried out. This was the work of the Holy Spirit, and there would never have been a Christian church but for this. This is what makes her; this is what causes her to persist. This is the explanation of the revivals and reformations down through the centuries.
Now this is something that we cannot understand. It is something that happens to us, something that takes place in us, and we ourselves are amazed at it. It is not something we do. Let me make this perfectly clear. You cannot “take up” Christianity. You can take up Christian Science; you can take up many cults; you can take up many movements; you can even join a church. But you cannot take up Christianity. By definition Christianity is something that takes you up. It is not primarily something you do, but something that is done to you. You cannot explain it. You cannot dissect it or analyze it. It is the power of the Holy Spirit.*
*Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (2000). Authentic Christianity (1st U.S. ed.) (48–50). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.
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