Published December 16, 2025
The website merriam-webster.com lists several possible definitions of the word martyr:1: a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion
2: a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle; a martyr to the cause of freedom
3: victim; especially: a great or constant sufferer
Martyr is a Christian word, at least in origin, with the basic meaning in Greek of “witness.” It became used to describe a life that is a witness to Christ—that death is chosen rather than giving up faith in Christ. There is no stronger way to give witness—not with words only, but by valuing the confession of Christ more than our life in this world. Our life in Christ is beyond this world and cannot be taken from us. This strictest sense of martyrdom is binary in the sense that death can be avoided if Christ is denied.
The confession of Jesus Christ as Lord of all and Savior is explicitly the external motivation in this narrowest understanding of the word. The implication is that death could be avoided by denying Christ verbally. Christ links our words to our salvation so that our public witness is tied to the belief in our heart: “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Rom. 10:10). Christ confesses us as we confess Him, but to deny Christ in words to save our bodies is unfaithfulness. So there is no simple way out for the believer facing persecution. Being a martyr is a glory for the Christian, to be accounted worthy of being Christ’s own witness. It gives glory to Christ. There is no other earthly benefit—since the martyr leaves this world forcibly and violently, it seems—but this becomes a small, trifling thing compared to the glory of Christ entered into by the believer. To die for Christ becomes a positive, rather than a mere worldly tragedy.