THE USE OF THE NAME CHRISTIAN
D. J. Hutson
Acts 11: 26; 1 Peter 2: 20–25; 4: 14–16; Acts 26: 1, 2, 24–29
The use of the title Christian in the world has become very commonplace. I suppose if you were to go out into the street and ask a person what his religion was he would probably tell you he was a Christian, unless, of course, he might be a Muslim or Hindu or something else.
But the Holy Spirit of God is very sparing in the Scriptures in the use of the title Christian, and a Christian, according to the Word of God, is no ordinary person; he is not a professor, that is he is not one who just professes to belong to a certain religion; he is a very real person, and identifiable for what he is, in a sense you would not have to ask him what he is.
Regarding these disciples in Antioch, we could have read earlier, that when Barnabas went to Antioch, first of all it says he arrived and saw the grace of God (Acts 11: 23), as was referred to in the reading—that would be something that he saw there, the grace of God. That is, the grace of God had had a certain effect upon them, and that effect was evident, and so he saw the grace of God. Then he went to Tarsus and sought out Saul and brought him along, and they continued for a whole year gathered together in the assembly and taught a large crowd; then it says, “the disciples”, so that is one thing, “the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch”. Now that would be a question for us as to whether we are disciples. We are sometimes reminded that the word disciple is connected with the word discipline, so that disciples are persons who are instructed; followers of Jesus were known as disciples because they learnt from Jesus.
The first disciple, I suppose, in the Scriptures not called a disciple but by the meaning of his name, was Enoch, and it says he walked with God (Genesis 5: 24). What he must have learnt as he walked with God, and he was so pleasurable to God that God took him. That is the kind of person a disciple is; one who accepts the ways of God with him in discipline, and who learns as a result, not in stoical acceptance but in going through it with God, walking with God and learning; as a result something is formed in him, and what is formed in him is Christ.
Therefore he is called a Christian; these disciples were first called Christians. That is there was something that whoever it was that called them Christians could identify in these persons that was like Christ. That immediately brings in its own challenge to us as to whether there is anything in us which persons can take account of as being the features of Christ as a result of discipline, as a result of God’s ways with us, as a result of our simple subjection to the will of God and His ordering for us. Is the result of His grace toward us which is seen in those exercises that there is something formed in us which is after Christ? That is one thing about Christians. I can say to every one here on that basis. Are you a Christian? Not that you profess Christianity over against Mohammedanism or anything else, but. Are you a Christian? Is there something in you which is evident that it is the features of another Man, features of Christ?
An aspect of the sufferings of Christ for us perhaps we do not sufficiently think about or appreciate is what Peter speaks of where I read, “for Christ also has suffered for you, leaving you a model”. The sufferings of Christ, how many ways in which He suffered, blessed Saviour! To be here in the world surrounded by sin and sinners; to be tempted of the devil; to be tempted was suffering to Jesus as we have in the epistle to the Hebrews, “in that himself has suffered, being tempted”, Hebrews 2: 18. We suffer, alas, as we yield to temptation; Jesus never, He suffered being tempted. Blessed and glorious Man, the very fact of being tempted was suffering for Jesus, and He endured it. He suffered, “leaving you a model that ye should follow in his steps”. His whole pathway was a pathway of suffering, a pathway in which He was leaving us a Model. He did not come into the world and immediately effect that great work of atonement without which none of us would be here today, but He suffered, and one reason for His suffering was for us, that is He suffered for us to leave us a Model. As we take account of the pathway of Jesus, as the Holy Spirit would bring it before us, and as He would give us power to follow in His steps—not simply to follow in His path, but to follow in His steps, that is the detail of that pathway—do we appreciate that Jesus suffered in order that we might have that Model? He suffered for us to leave us a Model that we should follow in His steps. Peter says here, “but if, doing good and suffering”. Jesus went about doing good, healing all that were under the power of the devil, for God was with Him. He has suffered for us and has left us a Model that we should follow in His steps. Where has He left it? I believe He has left it with the Holy Spirit to bring it before us so that we should follow in His steps.
Then it gives us some of the steps. He “did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when reviled, reviled not again; when suffering, threatened not; but gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously”. Is that you? Is it me?—“who did no sin”. Dear fellow believer, do you feel you often fail? And who of us does not have to own to failure?
We cherish the word of the apostle John who says, “Whoever has been begotten of God does not practise sin, because his seed abides in him, and he cannot sin, because he has been begotten of God”, 1 John 3: 9. Do you believe that there is something in you that cannot sin? The work of God cannot sin. We have to view these things abstractly because of the mixed condition in which we are; but the Holy Spirit of God would help us to identify what we are, what we sometimes speak of as in the epistle to the Romans, the I myself, that is what we are before God and the other has gone, and there is that in each one that cannot sin. The Holy Spirit would keep the Person of the Lord Jesus before us so that we might have faith in the Son of God, that we might get the victory over the world and all that is in it. But He did no sin, “neither was guile found in his mouth”, it does not say untruth but guile; something which we are, if I may speak for others, prone to when perhaps we say something which we know is not untrue, but the person who hears it might well put a wrong construction on it which we want them to put on it. But “neither was guile found in his mouth”. O, the perfection of Jesus! He could say, “Altogether that which I also say to you”, John 8: 25. These, beloved, are some of the steps of Christ who suffered for us, leaving us a Model that we should follow in His steps. They are the features of a Christian, a person who is following in the steps of Christ, following the Model that He has left for us, which the Holy Spirit would keep before us. Such a person, I believe, is a Christian.
Then, “who, when reviled, reviled not again”. Do we answer back sometimes? Do we feel ourselves getting irritated? He “when reviled, reviled not again”. Another feature of a Christian in the Model that Jesus has suffered to leave us is, “when suffering, threatened not”, there was no vindictiveness; “but gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously”. He has not been publicly vindicated yet, the last that was seen of Him publicly was on the cross; He awaits the day of vindication from “him who judges righteously”. It says prophetically that His judgment is with His God, and He still awaits the day of His public vindication.
Then Peter adds something which does not relate to Him as Model, but I believe Peter adds it to touch our affections afresh as to the reality of the sufferings of Jesus, the way that we owe everything to Him. It is not out of place to bring in a word here as to it—“who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree”. Believers can say that. I ask all you young people, I would ask everybody. Can you say that; He bore my sins in His body on the tree? It was real—I speak very carefully about this holy subject—it was not something that He bore only in His mind. He bore it in His body, the reality of the sufferings of Jesus on the tree, “in order that, being dead to sins, we may live to righteousness”. That is another feature of a Christian, as it says, “being dead to sins, we may live to righteousness—by whose stripes ye have been healed”. That was suffering of another kind which was unique to Himself. It was not, as we are called upon, as it says in chapter 4, suffering as a Christian. What an encouragement it is to us to be Christians; what greater encouragement could there be in the course of the testimony here in our lives.
Then the word is, “if ye are reproached in the name of Christ”, that is another feature of the Christian. When they were called Christians, maybe it was a term of reproach, but “the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you”. Is that not wonderful? Of course, absolutely unique, is the blessed Person of our Lord Jesus. Think of that secret pathway, those first thirty years of His life; the Creator of the universe come into the world that His hands had made, and as has been said, working with tools, with a plane and a chisel, in a carpenter’s shop; then at the end of that secret pathway, the voice of approval from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight” (Luke 3: 22), and the Holy Spirit descending in bodily form as a dove and abiding upon Him. He was absolutely unique! How near, may I say very carefully, “the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you”. Would you not like to provide in this world where Christ is rejected, where the general course is fast running on to apostasy, a resting place for the Holy Spirit of God? What is the way to it? Suffering as a Christian, “on their part he is blasphemed, but on your part he is glorified”. He speaks of these other things which none of us would want to have our part in, then it says, “but if as a christian, let him not be ashamed”. This is another time when the Holy Spirit of God in the divine record uses the title Christian—“let him not be ashamed, but glorify God in this name”. This would have some link with what we were speaking of in the reading, the grace of God which Barnabas saw in those at Antioch, it is to be seen in us as we are here suffering as Christians, and God is to be glorified. There is to be something returning to the God of all grace who has called us to His eternal glory, after we have suffered for a little while. There is a present result for God from the operations of His grace as we suffer as Christians—“if as a christian, let him not be ashamed”.
Paul was a Christian in the sense in which we are speaking. Paul stretched out his hand and answered in his defence, “I count myself happy, king Agrippa, in having to answer today before thee concerning all of which I am accused by the Jews”. He was able to give account of himself. That is another thing that a Christian is to do, always be ready to give account of the hope that is in him. What hope do you have in you? John says, “And every one that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure”, 1 John 3: 3. It does not say he ought to purify himself but he does. So if we are not purifying ourselves it is a question as to how much we have this hope in us. The hope is that we shall see Him, and when we see Him we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. What a hope! A hope that does not make ashamed, a hope which will very soon be realised; “every one that has this hope in him purifies himself”.
So Paul is here and he is reviled, “Thou art mad, Paul”, but when reviled he reviled not again. What respect he had saying, “I am not mad, most excellent Festus”. There was no question of reviling or back answering or anything of that kind, he was suffering as a Christian, and he addresses Agrippa with sobriety, saying, “King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest”. And Agrippa said to Paul, “In a little thou persuadest me to become a Christian”. It might have been in irony, we do not know, but I like to think that Agrippa saw something in him that he could not resist. Would you not like to be like that, that there is something there that others can take account of, that people wish they were like you? Not because of what you are in yourself, but because you are like Christ. You may say, though we would hardly speak of it as being little, he would like Agrippa to have his sins forgiven. That would be a start, but he wanted him not only “in little”, but he wanted him “in much”. Paul could speak of it, “But the grace of our Lord surpassingly over-abounded with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus”, 1 Timothy 1: 14.
He wanted Agrippa and all those who heard him to have much; he wanted them to come into all those blessings, “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ” (Ephesians 1: 3); “and has raised us up together, and made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”, Ephesians 2: 6. These are the things that a Christian has. They are the things that govern him, the things that lift him above this poor weary world, and enable him to be here in faithfulness to the One who has loved him and given Himself for him.
Well, these are the three distinctive references that the Holy Spirit gives in the Scriptures to a Christian. We can think of Paul in this august company; Agrippa, Festus, Bernice, and as they stood up, what dignity was there, standing up in the presence of Paul. Then it says, “having gone apart, they spoke to one another saying, This man does nothing worthy of death or of bonds”. What a testimony to a Christian, they had to admit it, even as others had to admit in relation to His Master, that they found nothing in Him that was worthy of death and yet they crucified Him. And yet Paul was taken, in the ways of God, to Rome to bear witness there.
What does he say of himself as to his testimony there in Rome? ‘The Lord stood by me’; No, ‘the Lord stood with me’ (2 Timothy 2: 17). Is that not wonderful, suffering as a Christian, is it not attractive? Does it not make you want to be a Christian in the way that Scripture speaks of it, in the way that the Holy Spirit of God records it. The Spirit of glory and of God finding a resting place, and the Lord with you as you seek to stand here faithfully to Him. I feel as to experience I can say to my shame I know very little of it, but it is very attractive to know more of it.
One other reference that Mr. Darby gives in this translation, which he does not put in the French translation, possibly not in others, where it speaks in Corinthians of the one who fills the place of the simple Christian (1 Corinthians 14: 16). I love it that Mr. Darby has put that in the English version, “he who fills the place of the simple Christian”. How encouraging that is. Dear young people it is not beyond you, you can fill the place of a simple Christian. Would you not love to be a simple Christian, one who is following in the steps of Jesus, in the Model that He has left for us that we should follow in His steps? That is the Model that the Holy Spirit would ever keep before us so that we might be here for God’s pleasure and that we might glorify God in His name. May the Lord bless the word.
Address at Grangemouth
20 September 1997