Who is my brother in Christ?

Accord­ing to sta­tis­tics rough­ly 33 per­cent of the world’s and 2.3 per­cent of India’s pop­u­la­tion is Chris­t­ian. Would this be the answer to the above question?

Introduction

If we ask mem­bers of dif­fer­ent denom­i­na­tion­al Chris­t­ian church­es the major­i­ty of them would not agree with such a sim­ple sta­tis­ti­cal answer. They would say instead:

A Chris­t­ian broth­er is someone …
… who has been bap­tised in a Chris­t­ian church.
… who goes to a church every Sunday.
… who believes in Trinity.
… who con­fess­es Jesus as Christ hav­ing appeared as man.
… who believes in Jesus’ death and resurrection.
… who speaks in tongues.
… who has accept­ed Jesus Christ as his per­son­al Saviour.

Of course, we could con­tin­ue this list with fur­ther com­mon answers, which are often com­bi­na­tions of some or all of the above cri­te­ria. Who is right? How can I decide who my broth­er is, with whom I can have true, spir­i­tu­al fel­low­ship, with whom I can pray and praise God togeth­er and with whom I can share my life, joy, and sorrow—in the trust that we are one in Christ, con­nect­ed by the Holy Spirit?

God has revealed the answer in the Bible so that any­one who decid­ed to fol­low Jesus and there­fore has a sin­cere long­ing for broth­er­ly fel­low­ship with oth­er chil­dren of God can find out who his broth­ers are and who are not.

 Why is this question important?

The seri­ous­ness of this ques­tion was point­ed out also by Jesus when he warned his dis­ci­ples of false prophets who come in his name but actu­al­ly have noth­ing to do with him:

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s cloth­ing, but inward­ly they are fero­cious wolves. By their fruit you will rec­og­nize them. Do peo­ple pick grapes from thorn­bush­es, or figs from this­tles? Like­wise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree can­not bear bad fruit, and a bad tree can­not bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will rec­og­nize them. Not every­one who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the king­dom of heav­en, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heav­en. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not proph­esy in your name and in your name dri­ve out demons and in your name per­form many mir­a­cles?” Then I will tell them plain­ly, “I nev­er knew you. Away from me, you evil­do­ers!” (Matthew 7:15–23)

We have to be aware that there are peo­ple (many people!—verse 22) who claim to be Chris­tians who might do even great and appar­ent­ly good things in Jesus’ name but Jesus will regard them as evil­do­ers at the last judg­ment. We as Jesus’ dis­ci­ples are respon­si­ble to warn them and call them to a true Chris­t­ian life. If they do not want to change we have to sep­a­rate from them since a Chris­t­ian cannot/must not have fel­low­ship with evil­do­ers. Instead, God wants to present us real broth­ers and sis­ters with whom we can be one body and light for the world.

How can we discern who a brother is?

Jesus says that the dis­tin­guish­ing cri­te­ri­on is their fruit (verse 20) and lat­er he makes it even clear­er: only those who do the will of his Father belong to him (verse 21).

These warn­ings of Jesus show that we can­not be super­fi­cial in our dis­cern­ment of peo­ple who claim to be Chris­tians. We real­ly have to take time and make effort to get to know people’s lives, atti­tudes, way of think­ing and the teach­ings they fol­low in order to see if they real­ly do the will of the Father in heav­en or just claim that Jesus is their Lord. In our “tol­er­ant” world this exam­in­ing approach might appear some­what dis­trust­ful and might hurt some­one but actu­al­ly it should be a sign of long­ing for sin­cere rela­tion­ships and deep uni­ty. A broth­er or an open seek­er will be will­ing to test and to be tested.

What are the fruits Jesus speaks about and what does it mean to do the will of the father?

Obedience to the word of God

First of all we have to real­ize that we can­not reduce it to accept­ing, con­fess­ing, and prac­tic­ing some select­ed teach­ings of the New Tes­ta­ment even if they are true in them­selves. The entire Bible is the rev­e­la­tion of God so if some­one loves God he loves every word that comes from His mouth and wants to obey it regard­ing prac­ti­cal life as well as doc­tri­nal ques­tions. This atti­tude is the most impor­tant sign of a Chris­t­ian. Every­thing else fol­lows from it.

Jesus replied, “If any­one loves me, he will obey my teach­ing. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teach­ing. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.” (John 14:23–24)

The word of God is com­pared to a dou­ble-edged sword:

For the word of God is liv­ing and active. Sharp­er than any dou­ble-edged sword, it pen­e­trates even to divid­ing soul and spir­it, joints and mar­row; it judges the thoughts and atti­tudes of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

The con­fronta­tion with God’s word is often painful because it sheds light on things in our lives which we have to change or com­plete­ly give up. A Chris­t­ian is ready to under­go this con­fronta­tion and purifi­ca­tion through the Word and does not want to jus­ti­fy his wrong­do­ings by ignor­ing or dis­tort­ing the Word of God.

Readiness to give up everything for Jesus

I tell you the truth, unless a ker­nel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a sin­gle seed. But if it dies, it pro­duces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eter­nal life. Who­ev­er serves me must fol­low me; and where I am, my ser­vant also will be. My Father will hon­or the one who serves me. (John 12:24–26)

The readi­ness to die for our­selves and fol­low Jesus in every­thing is the pre­req­ui­site of bear­ing fruit. A Chris­t­ian is not sat­is­fied with hav­ing changed some things in his life but wants to leave every­thing that hin­ders him to fol­low Jesus.

Large crowds were trav­el­ing with Jesus, and turn­ing to them he said: “If any­one comes to me and does not hate his father and moth­er, his wife and chil­dren, his broth­ers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he can­not be my dis­ci­ple. And any­one who does not car­ry his cross and fol­low me can­not be my dis­ci­ple.” (Luke 14:26–27)

Brotherly love

Los­ing one’s life means to lay it down for oth­ers as Jesus did:

My com­mand is this: Love each oth­er as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:12–13)

A Chris­t­ian has long­ing for broth­er­ly fel­low­ship and wants to share his life with oth­er Chris­tians. This is how we know who the chil­dren of God are and who the chil­dren of the dev­il are: Any­one who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is any­one who does not love his broth­er. This is the mes­sage you heard from the begin­ning: We should love one anoth­er. (1 John 3:10–11)

Concern for the right doctrines

As men­tioned above being obe­di­ent to the word of God also means to be very seri­ous about the right doc­trines. If some­one clings to doc­trines which are not in accor­dance with God’s word or has a super­fi­cial, care­less atti­tude regard­ing the right teach­ing he does not respect the word of God and is not a dis­ci­ple of Jesus. Jesus was ready to die to reveal the entire truth to us. We see that he fought very much for it and did not agree to any­thing wrong for the sake of (super­fi­cial) peace with his fel­low Jews. John also tes­ti­fies the seri­ous con­se­quences of hav­ing false doctrines:

Any­one who runs ahead and does not con­tin­ue in the teach­ing of Christ does not have God … (2 John 9a)

A Chris­t­ian will sep­a­rate from false teach­ings and peo­ple who want to cling to them.

Conclusion

It is impos­si­ble to make a full list about the cri­te­ria of being a Chris­t­ian on a few pages. The above thoughts are just some help­ing guide­lines which we have to keep in mind if we want to dis­cern whom we can call our broth­er in Christ. John puts it in very sim­ple words which com­prise everything:

We know that we have come to know him if we obey his com­mands. The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he com­mands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if any­one obeys his word, God’s love is tru­ly made com­plete in him.

THIS IS HOW WE KNOW WE ARE IN HIM: WHOEVER CLAIMS TO LIVE IN HIM MUST WALK AS JESUS DID. (1 John 2:3–6)