What Is a Christian? Meaning, Beliefs and How to Become One

A Christian is someone who follows Jesus Christ, trusting him as Savior and Lord. The word comes from the Greek Christianos, “a follower of Christ,” and the Bible records where it began: “the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch” (Acts 11:26).

What does the word “Christian” mean?

Christianos is built on Christos, the Greek word for “anointed.” The Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, used Christos to translate the Hebrew mashiach, “anointed one,” which English spells Messiah. The Gospel of John gives both words side by side when Andrew tells his brother Simon, “We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ” (John 1:41). “Christ” is a title, not a surname, and a Christian is one who belongs to the Christ, the Messiah whom Christians identify as Jesus of Nazareth.

Dictionaries give the same sense in modern terms. Thayer’s Greek lexicon defines Christianos as “a Christian, a follower of Christ.” Merriam-Webster’s first definition of the English noun is “one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ.” The churches add more: what a Christian believes about Jesus, and how a person becomes one.

Where was the name “Christian” first used?

In Antioch, a city on the Orontes River in Syria. The church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas there, and he went on to Tarsus to find Saul, later known as Paul. Acts continues: “he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch” (Acts 11:26).

The word appears only three times in the New Testament. Besides Acts 11:26, King Agrippa tells Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian” (Acts 26:28), and Peter writes, “Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf” (1 Peter 4:16). Acts far more often calls the believers “disciples.” Thayer’s lexicon says the name “was first given to the worshippers of Jesus by the Gentiles,” and that from the second century onward the Christians “accepted” it “as a title of honor.” The old Catholic Encyclopedia suggests it was “perhaps originally intended as a nickname by the witty Antiochenes.”

Outsiders did use it. The Roman historian Tacitus, describing how Nero blamed the great fire of Rome on “a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace,” added: “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus” (Annals 15.44). Christians soon used the name themselves. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, who died a martyr at Rome between 98 and 117, told the church at Magnesia, “let us learn to live according to the principles of Christianity.”

What do Christians believe?

The most widely shared statement of Christian belief is the Nicene Creed. It began at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, and its standard form was approved in 381 at the Council of Constantinople. Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that it is accepted by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican and major Protestant churches. Its central section, on Jesus, reads in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer:

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God; Begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God: Begotten, not made; Being of one substance with the Father; By whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man: And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried: And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures: And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father: And he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end.

The Nicene Creed, Book of Common Prayer (1928), pages 15–16

The creed carries the beliefs that the churches hold in common:

• One God in three persons. The creed confesses “one God the Father Almighty,” “one Lord Jesus Christ” and “the Holy Ghost,” who “with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.” This is the doctrine of the Trinity.
• Jesus is both God and man. He is “Very God of Very God,” and he “was made man.”
• His death and resurrection. Paul summed up the message he had received: “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). This message is the gospel, from the Greek euangelion, “good tidings.”
• The Bible as Scripture. The creed says the Holy Ghost “spoke by the Prophets,” and every church reads the Old and New Testaments as the word of God. The churches differ on how Scripture relates to the Church’s tradition.
• Christ’s return and eternal life. The creed ends, “I look for the Resurrection of the dead: And the Life of the world to come.” Paul called this the “blessed hope” of “the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

One phrase divides East and West. The Western text says the Holy Ghost “proceedeth from the Father and the Son.” The Orthodox text, as printed in Isabel Hapgood’s 1906 translation of the Orthodox service book, says only “Who proceedeth from the Father.” Britannica explains that the Latin words for “and the Son,” the filioque, entered the Western creed gradually from the sixth century, and that the Eastern churches have always rejected them as an unauthorized addition.

How does someone become a Christian?

The New Testament answers with repentance and faith. Jesus began his preaching in Galilee with the words “repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). The Greek word for repentance, metanoia, means “a change of mind,” and Thayer’s lexicon explains it as the change in those who “have begun to abhor their errors and misdeeds, and have determined to enter upon a better course of life.” Paul put faith in a sentence: “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9).

Baptism comes with it from the start. At Pentecost Peter told the crowd, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38), and Jesus sent the apostles to baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19). Jesus called the change a new birth: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

The churches agree on these passages and differ on how they fit together:

• Catholic and Orthodox Christians confess in the creed “one Baptism for the remission of sins” and treat baptism as the way into the Christian life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls baptism “the basis of the whole Christian life,” through which “we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ” (paragraph 1213).
• Lutherans baptize infants. The Augsburg Confession, the Lutheran statement of faith, teaches that baptism “is necessary to salvation,” and that people are “freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith” (Articles IX and IV).
• Baptists and many other evangelical Protestants stress a personal conversion first. The Baptist Faith and Message (2000) calls the new birth “a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit,” to which “the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.” It defines faith as “the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour.” Baptism follows, as “an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith.” Many evangelical churches invite a person to express that faith in a short prayer in their own words, often called the sinner’s prayer.

Who counts as a Christian?

The World Council of Churches, whose members include most Orthodox churches and many Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed churches, describes itself as “a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the scriptures.” The Catholic Church gives a similar answer. Its Catechism says, quoting the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism: “All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church” (paragraph 818).

The Catholic Church also holds that “the sole Church of Christ” subsists in the Catholic Church, “which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him” (paragraph 816). It recognizes “many elements of sanctification and of truth” outside its visible bounds, among them “the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity” (paragraph 819), and it says those who “believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church” (paragraph 838).

Some groups call themselves Christian but reject the Nicene teaching on God. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Latter-day Saints both do. Jehovah’s Witnesses answer “Yes” to the question of whether they are Christians, and say that Jesus “is the Son of God, not part of a Trinity.” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that “each member of the Godhead is a separate being.” Neither group accepts the Nicene Creed. In 2001 the Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that baptism given by the Latter-day Saints is not valid.

How do Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants differ?

About 2.3 billion people were Christians in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. They belong to three main families of churches: the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Protestant churches, which include Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals and many others. Each states its position in its own documents:

Can a Christian have doubts?

The Bible records doubt among Jesus’ closest followers. John the Baptist, in prison, sent disciples to ask Jesus, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” (Matthew 11:3). Jesus sent back word of what they had seen and heard, and then said of John, “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11). When Peter began to sink on the water, Jesus “caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” (Matthew 14:31). Thomas refused to believe in the resurrection: “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). Eight days later Jesus appeared again and told him, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands” (John 20:27).

One father in the Gospels put belief and doubt in a single sentence. When Jesus told him that “all things are possible to him that believeth,” he “cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24), and Jesus healed his son. For those troubled by guilt, Paul wrote, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

How do Christians live?

Jesus named two commandments as the center of the law: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37–39). He made love the mark of his followers: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).

The first Christians in Jerusalem kept four practices: “they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). Christians today still read the Scriptures, gather as a church, share the Lord’s Supper and pray. Paul described the change the Holy Spirit works in a believer as fruit: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22–23). He also wrote that “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Related reading

• What is a born-again Christian?
• Christian denominations explained
• Facts about the Apostles’ Creed