What Is a True Believer

Recently I was somewhat attacked for using the term “true believer” in a comment I had made on a Facebook post. It wasn’t a non-believer who attacked my use of the term, it was someone who claimed to follow Christ. This morning as I was spending time studying God’s Word, I happened to be in John 8:30-36, in which Jesus addresses this very topic.

Look at the scriptures:

John 8:30-36
As he was saying these things, many believed in him.  So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”  Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.  The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Jesus has once again been preaching and teaching and the reading says that because of His preaching, “many believed in Him.” But Jesus is not content with that fact, because as my point was when I got attacked for suggesting there are two types of believers, true believers and false believers, He makes a direct reference to this truth. Listen to him:

“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

There is a test to determine if we are “truly” His disciple. Paul gave us a warning and an instruction in 2 Corinthians 13:5, saying, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”

According to both Jesus and the Apostle Paul, it is possible to be deceived into thinking one is a true follower of Christ. Still not buying this? Here are some more scriptures that speak to the test of true discipleship from God’s Word:

Matthew 12:50
“For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

John 14:15
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

John 14:21
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

John 14:23-24
Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.  Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.

John 15:10
“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”

John 15:14
“You are my friends if you do what I command you.”

1 John 2:4-6
Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,  but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him:  whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

1 John 3:24
Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.

1 John 5:3
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

Yes, there is a test of what defines us as a true Christian. The Bible is clear; it is the test of our faith that if we keep His commandments, we are His. If we think we can simply go to church, hear a preacher tell us to “accept” Jesus, walk down the isle and say a prayer, get baptized, but then go back out into the world and just keep living the same life we had before, we are deceived by the devil and are in eternal peril.

I’m not passing judgment upon any one, I’m merely sharing the truth of the Bible. Each of us are called to examine ourselves, to take this test of faith. True Christians, listen carefully, are not saved by their good deeds and by ceasing to sin, they are saved only by the grace and mercy of God through faith in the atoning work of Christ, who paid the penalty of our sin on the cross. But according to scripture, that faith is proved by our obedience to the commands of the Word of God, and we are commanded to test that faith.

I close with another passage from Jesus, in which we see the importance of following this command to test ourselves.

Matthew 7:21-23
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

Jesus teaches that there is a difference between a disciple and a true disciple. And that truth is what determines our eternal destination.