The process of becoming a Christian has been one of the most debated topics in the Christian faith since the earliest days of the church. The various schools of Augustinianism, Pelagianism, Arminianism, and Calvinism all have had their strong proponents over the centuries. There are many good books on these topics and I will not go into them here. However, I want to briefly discuss the notion of being called to be a Christian.
There are at least thirty definitions of the word call. We use the word to describe a phone call, a football play call, a demand to repay a loan, or a visit such as a business call. As a physician, I am frequently "on-call," meaning I am responsible for taking phone calls for patient care, and may even be "called" in to see them.
In theology, we use the term call to describe the means by which God reaches the unbeliever to draw him to become a Christian. There are usually two ways in which this is delineated, the general, or external call, and the effectual, or internal call. The general call is that message of the Gospel and the Word of God to all men. This is a call that can be resisted and frequently is. As Jesus said in Matthew 22:14, "For many are called, but few are chosen."
There are many reasons that man resists the general call. "For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh." (Romans 8:5), and "...the carnal mind is enmity against God" (Romans 8:7). Paul tells us in I Corinthians 2:14 that, "...the natural man does not receive the things of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." As Christians, we are to participate in the spread of the Gospel, the general call, realizing that many will hear and many will reject. "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15).
The effectual call is the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul of a person that leads them to believe and to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior. This comes from within, God moving to give the unsaved new birth and fellowship with Him through His Son. Sadly, this does not happen with all who hear the general call; only through the grace of God do some receive the effectual call and become Christians.
So far we have looked at the word call as a noun. What happens when we use it as a verb?
We are not to be ashamed to be Christians. Paul wasn't. In Romans 1:16 he said, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ," and in 2 Timothy 1:8 we hear, "Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord." We are not to deny Christ and our faith. As Christ Himself said, "Therefore, whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 10:32-33). Just as we should not be ashamed to be Christians, we should not be ashamed to call ourselves Christians.
Conversely, we should not boast about ourselves as Christians. As Paul says in Galatians 6:14, "But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." If you recognize yourself as a sinner, saved by the grace of God, you realize that it is only the work of Christ on the cross that allows you to one day enter Heaven.
It behooves us to remember that our actions and lives as Christians are visible to those who are not yet children of God. If we boast of being Christians, yet live so that unbelievers see us behaving in ways that contradict the commandments of our Lord, then we have shown them that we are no better in behavior than the unconverted. (Obviously I myself have never had this problem.) It is as if we are putting forth our own "call-blocking", a way of contradicting the general call. We preach that if only they will accept the Gospel, their lives will be changed to become Christ-like, and then demonstrate the opposite.
The non-Christians are looking at those of us who are Christians, and weighing what they see against the general call of God for them to be saved. God, through the Holy Spirit, will use an effectual call to change some of their hearts and incline their souls to Him and faith in His Son. God, all-powerful, can do this despite what our un-Godly example can do to incline them otherwise. We must pray that when we do fall into sin, as Christians do from time to time, that we will not be seen in a way that gives the unbeliever just one more reason to reject the general call. The saddest thing to be said of a Christian is that,"he calls himself a Christian."
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