Allegiance to the Christ

What does it mean to be loyal to the Christ?

The only way we can answer this question is by recalling that He has ransomed us and redeemed us and we are therefore no longer our own. We belong to him and have been separated unto Him and it is His will that we be transformed into His likeness. In this context, loyalty to Him must mean, at the very minimum, that we must be like Him – Paul commanded us, "be ye imitators of the Christ".

It is not very difficult to work out what it means to imitate Christ. It means, among other things, that we hold the other cheek, go the second mile, give to them that ask, lend to them that borrow, do not return evil for evil, but forgive 490 times (which means endlessly). It also means that we must see ourselves as the worst of sinners and hence that we must not seek to pluck a mote out of our brother's eye while ignoring the beam in our own and therefore that we do not judge or condemn others.

Being transformed into His likeness also means that we put up our sword (not only the sword of metal, but equally, the sword of our tongues) and that while we must be willing to submit to persecutions, abuse, harassment, etc, for His Name's sake. We must also pray for them that persecute us, abuse us, harass us and despise us, and never return evil for evil.

Above all, being transformed into His likeness requires that we recognize that we have been crucified in Him, that it is no longer "i" who lives but the Christ, and that we are now partakers of the divine nature and are the Temple of the Holy Spirit and must therefore manifest Him in our lives.

Speaking for myself, being deeply conscious of my many infirmities and considering myself the worst of sinners, I do not for a moment pretend that I am even close to that awesome goal. However, the confession that I am indeed the worst of sinners is at least a good place from where to start the long ascent to Christ-like perfection.

The truth underlying all the above is that our Adamic self, the ego, cannot ever expect to meet any of the demands of the Christ, and that it is only in proportion as the ego dies through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus, that we may hope to be like Him. The ego and Christ are incompatible. In fact, ego is antichrist.

We forget that while we may be regular churchgoers, regular partakers of the Eucharist, active evangelists, important officials of the church hierarchy, learned theologians, and call ourselves "born-again Christians", we may yet be bursting with ego. In my experience, this has been more often the case than otherwise. In fact, it is quite amazing how church and so-called evangelism have been ego's chosen vehicle for extending ego's empire.

The history of Christianity is replete with evidence that supports this claim. For example, the structure and conduct of some of the Councils of the 1st to the 3rd centuries, the manner in which heresies were been put down in the first few centuries, the Crusades, the schisms and religious wars following the Reformation, the Spanish Inquisition, the brutal evangelizing of Latin America, and the silent war that still persists between denominations, all attest to the aggrandizement by ego, in the name of Christ.

There is another important aspect of what it means to be loyal to Christ. Just as loyalty to a particular denomination, tradition or theology should never transcend our loyalty to Christ, neither can loyalty to a piece of land or territory, or allegiance to a particular history or race, be allowed to conflict with the Christ. Which means that so-called "patriotism", the philosophy "my country, right or wrong", and nationalism, can have no place in a Christian's life, and certainly, recourse to war as a means of resolving conflict must be seen as antichrist in action.

For that matter, neither can loyalty to family, kith and kin be allowed to transcend loyalty to Jesus Christ. He said, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple”. Jesus underscored this again when He said, “ Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.” This does not mean that we go about being traitors to our country or desert our families, but that all our loyalties must be placed in the context of the overarching demand of the Christ on our lives.