Are there two kinds of Christians?

From the beginning of the New Testament church to our own day believers have struggled with the temptation to divide the church, usually in terms of spiritual maturity. Just as the disciples clamored to be considered the greatest, so believers make distinctions to the end of elevating their own standing.

This temptation is understandable. We all start our journey from redemption to glorification at different places, and move at different speeds. It is absolutely true that some Christians are more mature than others. The problem is we either seek maturity where it is not found, or claim maturity we don’t have. Once Christianity became mainstream and acceptable under Constantine, it attracted false converts and weak believers. The more zealous believers determined to separate themselves from the less zealous. They created monasteries, something the Bible is silent about.

Before long the monasteries became places of influence and power and attracted false converts and weak believers. The more zealous determined that education would set them apart. They created the first universities. These also are mentioned nowhere in God’s Word. You can guess what happened next. Through the ages believers have come up with all sorts of distinguishing marks of the hard core and the zealous. Everything from Methodism and its promise of a second blessing to Keswick’s passive quietism to camp meeting revivalism to holy laughter to “Christian fight club,” are programs, events, experiences that the Bible says nothing about, yet are offered up as ways to juice up a person’s spiritual walk.

There aren’t “carnal Christians” and “spiritual Christians.” There aren’t “delivered Christians” and “chained Christians.” There’s just Christians, declared by God to be just in Christ, by His death for our sins and His righteousness imputed to us. There’s just Christians who continue to battle our old man, our flesh, besetting sins, who face assaults from the devil and his minions. There’s just Christians, who are called to fight the good fight. There’s just Christians who are all indwelt by the Holy Spirit, all gifted by the Holy Spirit, all bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit. There’s just Christians directed by the Word, led by the Spirit, members of the one body, availing themselves of the ordinary means of grace.

It is this same search for a “second blessing” that drives much of our theological disputes. Some of us seem to think that being correct on secondary and tertiary matters is what separates us from lesser believers. While it is always a good thing to be biblically sound, it is also always a bad thing and biblically unsound to think that our soundness raises us above other believers. Our calling, what spiritual maturity looks like is never, “I thank you Lord that I am not like other men.” Rather it is to cry out, beating our breast, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.”

Beware, however, making this mistake, praying, “I thank you Lord I am not like other men. I don’t pray, ‘I thank you Lord I am not like other men’ but ‘Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.’”

There is only one kind of Christian, the sinful kind, declared righteous because of Jesus, growing in grace, awaiting glorification at death.