Are You Really a Christian? Then Finish Well!<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
 
"Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord? "Have you invited Jesus into your heart?"
Have you ever heard these questions? Here's my question: Are these biblical ways of discerning whether a person is truly a Christian? In other words, are these biblical questions?
In scripture, one's spiritual walk was identified not by his initial commitment to Christ, by some decision to accept Christ as his personal Savior and Lord, or by saying some prefabricated "sinner's prayer." Now, I'm not knocking anyone who prayed one of those prayers with a sincere heart. I am one of them. But whenever the Bible assessed of a person spiritual condition, it was evaluated by how he conducted his daily life and how he finished.Twice in the New Testament, Paul compared the Christian life to a race, in 1 Cor. 9:24-27 and 2 Tim. 4:6ff. Let's look at 2 Tim 4:6-8:
 
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
Notice that Paul spoke of the crown of righteousness having been laid up for himself in this passage. What is this crown of righteousness? In 1 Cor. 9:24-27, Paul writes:
 
So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.  But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
Apparently, receiving the crown of righteousness is contingent upon remaining qualified to win the prize at the end of this race of life. Therefore, I think it is a logical conclusion that this very crown of righteousness IS the prize for which Paul is determined to remain qualified. If this is the case, then the critical question is this: is this crown of righteousness referring to eternal life itself or to some other reward beyond eternal life? In other words, was it possible that the Apostle Paul himself might be disqualified from his inheritance of eternal life if he failed to finish the race? Let's look at some other passages.The Apostle James, in 1:12 says, "Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him." In this passage, James, in a fashion similar to His Master's great Sermon (Matt. 5-7) encouraged his listeners to remain steadfast, and that enduring the various trials he must undergo will result in him receiving the crown of life promised to those who love God. This is an amazing statement. "Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial" is a conditional phrase. The man who remains steadfast under trial is blessed. James' promise here is like Jesus' Beatitudes – "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven..." The sentence structure is identical. It is a promise. But James' promise here has an additional clause: "which God has promised to those who love him." So while the promise is conditioned upon the believer's endurance to the end, it is also a guaranteed promise already made by God to His beloved. Those who love God will receive the crown of life because God promised (past tense) it to them. But the only assessable manifestation of our love for God is our steadfast endurance to the end. In other words, the only way that we can be assured we are beneficiaries of God's promise to those who love Him, the only way to know for certain we are in this fold of promise-recipients, is if we indeed stand the test of our faith. Putting this all together, and scripture plainly demonstrates in other places as well, only those who stand the test (finish the race, endure to the end, etc.) love God, and only those who love God are known by God, i.e. born again (cf. 1 Cor. 8:3; 16:22; Eph 6:24).
Our Lord Jesus spoke to the Apostle John in Rev. 2:10, saying,
 
"Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.
Strictly speaking, the context of this passage is referring to persecution unto death, and how those who remain faithful unto death will receive the crown of eternal life. But the passage can also be applied to all believers. We must be faithful to the finish line, our physical death, or we too are disqualified from the crown of life.
Here's my question. If this passage, along with previous ones we've looked at here demonstrate that the crown of life, a.k.a. the crown of righteousness, is given to those who endure to the end, who remain faithful to their death, can it be inferred that those who do not endure to the end, those who do not remain faithful to their death, will not receive the crown of life, and therefore not inherit eternal life?
Hebrews 10:28ff says,
 
Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.  How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?  For we know him who said, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay." And again, "The Lord will judge his people."  It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
The book of Hebrews is written to believers. It is, in fact, a sermon written by the author to believing Jews in the Roman Empire. And in this chapter, the writer warns the readers that if they "go on sinning deliberately after receiving a knowledge of the truth" (verse 26), they will receive the same condemnation awaiting "the adversaries" (verse 27). What condemnation awaits them? Eternal damnation – a "fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire."Verses 36-39 of the same chapter says:
 
36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. 37 For,
 
"Yet a little while,
and the coming one will come and will not delay;
but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him."
But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
Notice these phrases from verse 36: "you have need of endurance" and "when you have done the will of God," "you may receive what is promised." What is promised? The crown of life. Eternal life.
And so, the true mark of a Christian, of being born again, is not how you begin, whether you can remember "when you invited Jesus into your heart." It's not how and when you accepted Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord. These have no weight upon your eternal destiny in and of themselves. No one wins a race by having a great start. No, a race is only won at the finish line. No, the true mark of one born of God is not what they've said or done in the past, but how they live and how they endure faithfully to the end. It truly is about the finish. (see Heb 12:1).