Have you ever held a counterfeit bill? It can have all the appearances of the real thing. Most people are not able to immediately recognize one. However, a trained eye can quickly detect fake currency, because certain telltale flaws betray a bill's lack of genuineness.
United States law enforcement takes effective measures to prevent counterfeit currency activity. Strict and severe penalties are imposed on those who disregard laws against generating counterfeit money. The reason is obvious.
Left unchecked, widespread counterfeit currency would be devastating to our economy.
In a similar way, counterfeit Christians are devastating to the church. To protect its integrity the church must take the responsibility of discerning between true and false believers.
Before we can recognize an imposter, we must first be able to contrast him to his authentic counterpart. That is, we need to know how a counterfeit Christian differs from a genuine believer. Such an understanding will better enable us to discern between the two.
The Genuine Believer
The genuine believer is different than his counterfeit counterpart for at least two reasons ... who he is and what he has.
WHO HE IS
Three facts from Scripture help us understand who the genuine believer is. According to the book of Jude we know that he is uniquely embraced by the Godhead ... the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. First authentic believers are called by the Holy Spirit (v. 1). The word called means "an official summons."
Genuine believers have been summoned by God. Salvation begins with God. (If it began with us, we could lose it!) The apostle Peter reminds us that we are "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of His who has called us out of darkness" (1 Peter 2:9).
I remember when God called me. I had heard the outward call of the gospel many times before, but that day I heard the inward call. An eight year old boy came out of spiritual death into spiritual life. Like Lydia in the book of Acts "whose heart the Lord opened," God called me out of darkness into His marvelous light. We know from Scripture that every true believer has been called from death unto life.
Second, true believers are beloved by God the Father. Those who are beloved are set apart for God Himself. He called us and brought us out of the world, washed us in His blood, and now sets us apart for Himself. Love has a way of setting one's beloved apart.
When a man loves a woman and marries her, he sets her apart from all others for his very own. Although God loves all people, only genuine believers are His beloved.
Jesus alluded to this point in His high priestly intercessory prayer on the evening before His crucifixion. He prayed for us as He petitioned the Father:
"I do not ask in behalf of these alone,
but for those also who believe in Me
through their word; that they may all be one;
even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee,
that they also may be in Us; that the world
may believe that Thou didst send Me.
And the glory which Thou hast given Me
I have given to them; that they may be one,
just as We are one;
I in them, and Thou in Me,
that they may be perfected in unity,
that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me" (John 17:20-23).
An earthly parent's love is sometimes conditional. Not so with God. As His children we can do nothing to make God love us more or less than He loves us already. He does not love us because we are valuable or worthy. We are valuable and worthy because He loves us. The Bible tells us that nothing can separate us from this love.
Our Father's love is beyond comparison. His children are precious to Him.
The apostle John comments on this truth when he says, "See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God" (1 John 3:1). We parents often think about how much we love our children, and the truth is that our heavenly Father loves us even more.
Third, the genuine believer is "preserved in Jesus Christ" (v. 1) and kept by the Father. The word "kept" or "preserved" is a Greek word which means "to watch, to guard over." In its original language text, the word appears in the perfect tense, which indicates past completed action with continuing results.
It might best be translated "continually kept." So when a believer stumbles He has the assurance that God keeps him from falling.
Remember when your children were first learning to walk. They would take a step and then fall. Soon you learned that if you took their hand, they could walk without falling so long as you had hold of their hand. What a perfect analogy of how our heavenly Father helps us. Our salvation is not a matter of our holding on till the bitter end. No, He reaches down and grabs hold of us, and when we stumble, He is there to help us along. He prevents us from falling, that's how much He loves us.
The apostle Paul said, "For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day" (1 Timothy 1:12). Whereas apostates sin, fall, and suffer condemnation, true believers are kept forever.
The writer of Hebrews tells how we are kept: "Hence, also, He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:25). We believers need to take comfort in the fact that Jesus prays for us. He started His prayer for us, the evening before His crucifixion when He prayed, "And I am no more in the world, and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, the name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, even as We are" (John 17:11).
Jude sums up his epistle by saying, "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and the make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy" (v. 24). Those verses also emphasize who keeps us. It is God the Father who keeps us; not we ourselves.
At this point we should remind ourselves that an apostate is not simply a true believer who walks away from his salvation. That is impossible according to the Scripture.
To the contrary, an apostate is one who professes Christ as Savior but does not possess Christ as Savior. The apostle Peter made it clear that apostates were not like God's sheep, but instead like pigs and dogs when he said: "For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment delivered to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, 'A dog returns to its own vomit,' and 'A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire" (1 Peter 2:21-22).
We might be able to clean up a pig on the outside, take it to the country fair and show it off, but that will not change its nature. The pig will go right back to the mire and slop of the pigpen as soon as it has opportunity.
So we know a true believer by who he is. He is the recipient of God's care and protection. That is, he is called by the Holy Spirit, beloved by the Father, and kept by the Son.
What He Has
As true believers we are recipients of three important gifts .... mercy, peace, and love. All true believers receive them because they are by-products of our sanctification. These gifts are very important as we seek to evangelize the world.
Jude made an interesting request regarding those gifts. He asked God to multiply them toward us. Perhaps the only way the church is to cope with the apostasy of these last days is to have mercy, peace, and love multiplied to us. These gifts, in effect, become the weapons that help us win against imposters. I believe that the shortest way to see the salvation of sinners is to let them see the sanctification of true believers at work.
The genuine believer exhibits the gifts of mercy, peace and love continually as these gifts are borne out in the three basic relationships of life.
Our relationship with God. This is the upward expression. As a result of this relationship, true believers receive mercy from above. This is why the writer of Hebrews exhorts us to "come boldly to the throne of grace, that we might obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). God, in His mercy, does not give us what we deserve. Instead, morning by morning new mercies we see! God is rich in mercy and chooses not to withhold it from us. This is important, because it is God's mercy that continues to forgive our sin.
The gifts of love peace and mercy are also borne out in:
Our relationship with ourselves.
This is the inward expression. Because we receive mercy from God we can have peace within ourselves. The upward expression must precede the inward expression.
Many people are searching, groping, and struggling for inner peace and never find it, because it only comes after you receive mercy from God. Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful" (John 17:27).
The only way we can have peace within is first to be at peace with God. If you do not have this peace it is because you have not received God's mercy.
And these gifts are borne out in ... Our relationship with others. If we have received mercy from God and are at peace with ourselves, we can love others as Jesus commanded. The evening before His crucifixion, Jesus gave us a new commandment, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35).
This love is known as agape love. It is the bond that unites believers to the Lord and to one another.
Imposters are void of such love. They may be professors of Christianity, but they are not possessors of Christ. They simply cannot love on the agape level.
The outward expression (love) depends on the inward expression (peace), which depends on the upward expression (mercy). The only way to love others is to be at peace with self, and the only way we can be at peace with self is to accept mercy from the Father. False believers have yet to experience God's mercy.
The Basic Differences
Imposters are the exact opposites of the true believer. The believer is called by the Holy Spirit; the imposter is not. The believer is kept by God; the imposter is lost. The believer receives mercy from God; the imposter receives no mercy. The believer expresses love toward others; the imposter is self-seeking and deceitful. The believer has mercy, peace, and love multiplied to him; the imposter has no such gifts multiplied to him.
Imposters are not genuine believers. They have never known the mercy of God, and consequently live a lie without any real peace within. Because they do not know the Lord Jesus Christ personally, they cannot love on His level. In short, they are false prophets.
To "earnestly contend for the faith" it is imperative that a believer knows what he has in Christ. He is the one who can show the love of Christ to those who need God's mercy.
