Identity - Hot Topics (Part 4)
The last topic for us to consider in this series on hot button issues is that of identity. So far in this series we’ve talked about human sexuality, as well as authority. The church in the west has plenty of controversy in both of these areas, and if there is one topic that could rival the vitriol, division, and dissension regarding the previous two topics, it’d be today's topic: identity.
There are a number of musical tunes that really summarize and encapsulate recent questions within western culture of identity. One of those songs is from a British rock band released in the late 70s “Who are you”. Most recently popularized by fictional television dramas such as CSI, this song has a chorus that is catchy, and repeats a question “who are you?”. Another song of a completely different variety is often sung within settings where children are the lead vocalists, it includes a line that speaks heavily to identity: “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world”.
Who are you?
Who you are is a very tricky question in today’s western world. Answering this question reveals much about the foundational assumptions of a person's worldview. I can remember talking with a friend many decades ago, and when we were talking about a mutual acquaintance we both agreed that we really didn’t know the person that well. The thing that made us both come to this moment of clarity was when we both recognized we couldn’t speak to our mutual acquaintances' hobbies, habits, or humor. While my friend and I knew that we both had shared tastes in music, entertainments, and jokes, we knew that this mutual acquaintance definitely didn’t share enjoyment of these things in the same way we did. To get to know someone often requires a reciprocal process of learning one another’s preferences, personality, and personal convictions. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were struggling with issues of identity. Our mutual acquaintance didn’t have a shared identity with us, or so we thought. We thought we had an identity that was defined by what activities we did, enjoyed, or desired. This line of thinking often prevails in western culture today. In answering the question “who am I?”, often the reply back is something related to the things we do, the pleasures we seek, or the ambitions of our heart.
We (humans) struggle with this question at large, and particularly recently among Christians within the west. Nearly every other accompanying issue besetting the western church is in one form or another related to identity. Issues relating to our other two major topics (sexuality and authority) both relate back to confusion regarding who a person is (in their desires and practice) and who may speak, correct, or inform about identity with conviction and power.
One approach to western Christian religion that seems to have taken a near stranglehold is the mixture of consumer demographics and social identifiers. Whatever someone is convinced or convicted about, there will be a group claiming the name of Christ that will cater to that persuasion. The Christian religion is so named because it is about an identity, the identity of Christ Jesus. Unfortunately, the confusion so prevalent today is because often the western church has abandoned preaching, teaching, and discipling with a sole focus on Christ. The identity of Christ has been exchanged for the identity of whatever is deemed most virtuous by the culture.
Identity is then defined by a seemingly unending list of nouns in present western society. Anything that is a person, place, or thing may be the defining summary used by someone to define themselves. This is not altogether a bad thing, as certain aspects of our human experience can be useful to get to know someone.
Descriptors are useful. But when descriptors become defining, that is when identity confusion is bound to occur.
To know a particular type of music someone enjoys, the social circles they are involved in, their family ancestry, vocational employment, and many more aspects of a person’s life can be helpful, indeed integral to getting to know someone. Yet for all the things we do, enjoy, and desire, is it accurate, helpful, or true to identify ourselves by those nouns?
Humanity at seemingly every stage of life struggles with this question today. For the surviving widower who lost his wife of 50+ years, who is he now? For the child who has always called themselves a “soccer player”, who are they after an injury ends their soccer playing days? For the Mother who has found her identity in raising small children, who is she as the young ones grow wings and take flight on their own? For the working man who has provided for his family pulling the same shift for a decade, who is he when his company is bought out and his position liquidated?
Who we are collectively, and who we are individually, these are issues which keep a great many politicians, physicians, psychiatrists, counselors, lawyers, and first responders employed. My father, a multi-decade criminal defense attorney, often shares just how often and how easily the human mind and heart seeks to justify itself, and redefine reality. Someone caught red handed in a heinous crime may quickly espouse lofty theological and judicial convictions protesting “I’m not a bad person!” or “It wasn’t that big of a deal!”.
There seems to be trouble not far behind whenever we conflate what we do, enjoy, or desire, with who we are. What we do changes, what we enjoy is fleeting, and what we desire is rarely satisfied. Our understanding of ourselves will, by necessity, be a confusing labyrinth of the mind if we use any of these things to find, evaluate, and plant our identity. This is perhaps the definitive great question of our time among a dying and lost world, “who am I?” and by association as social creatures “who are we?”. Whether the question be subtitled under any of the other great questions, it still boils down to issues of identity. Questions regarding identity tie into sexuality, political affiliation, personal religious convictions, hobbies, ethics, and geography. This cacophony of confusion is then spun into a contemporary cultural setting something akin to a blender that has been turned up to the highest possible setting. As the cultural blender of contemporary secular norms and idols mixes the bystander looks on to see an absolute mess of what used to be distinguishable ingredients with potential. After the work of the blender all that is left is an unusable mush of a mess. This is the state of the lost individual, and collective as they seek to find firm ground to root their identity. The bad news is, they won’t find anything firm on their own. The good news is, Christ offers an unchanging identity that cannot be shaken.
A proactive biblical understanding of who we are apart from Christ.
The categories of identity that are used today to self describe individuals, or generalize groups are very helpful in specific targeted sociological discussions, and really unhelpful to discuss individuals and groups in a spiritual sense. In order to know who I am individually, and who we are collectively, I need to consult the “owner's manual” of the universe. What does God have to say about human identity? Who are we in our fallen state? Who are we (collectively) after the fall of Adam? Who am I (individually) after the fall of Adam?
While there are plenty of helpful descriptions of patterns amongst human behaviors, pleasures, and ambitions, it is not what we do, enjoy, or desire that defines who we are biblically. According to God’s Word, we are rooted individually and collectively in either one or another identity. Throughout an amazing variety of biblical genres, across multiple centuries and millennia, the themes and proclaimed truth about who human beings are in their identity remain consistent. Leonard Ravenhill had a very helpful summary of multiple verses on the topic, he once said “You are either dead in sin, or dead to sin” (see Romans 6 for more on this topic).
Consider with me just for a moment this vast array of language describing the identity of humans apart from Christ:
“Dead in your transgressions and sins” (Ephesians 2:1)
“Darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God” (Ephesians 4:18)
“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:14)
“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4)
“The evildoer has no future hope, and the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out” (Proverbs 24:20)
“Whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18)
“You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent” John 5:38
“The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble” (Proverbs 4:19)
“No one understands; no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:11)
“In spite of all this they still sinned and did not believe in His wonderful works” (Psalm 78:32)
“For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive”(1 Corinthians 15:22)
“All who hate me love death” (Proverbs 8:36b)
Did you catch those descriptions? The person without Christ is not identified by their choice of pronouns, their behaviors alone, or with others, their desires or aspirations. Humans apart from Christ are:
Dead
Darkened in understanding
Separated from God
Unaccepting of the things of God
Blinded
Without future hope
Condemned
Not believing
Deep in darkness
Stumbling without knowledge
Without understanding
Known for sin, rather than belief
Tied to Adam
Lovers of death
The biblical description of human identity apart from Christ is one of hopeless death. No wonder the lost around us individually, and a lost culture around us collectively are so confused, blinded, and mixed up.
The western church needs proactive, firm, persuasive, declarative preaching, teaching, and instruction on the natural state of mankind’s identity. The biblical identity of those who are not in Christ is: dead, lost, darkened, blind, hopeless, doomed, and lawless.
Until such a time as the church recovers, experiencing reformation to reclaim the truths of scripture, we will see more drift, stumbling, and confusion on topics related to identity. The good news, as we have stated with each of these hot topic pieces, is that there is a light. That light is found in the person and work of Christ, whom we grow to know through the revealed word of God contained in sacred scripture.
A Christ-centered understanding of identity
The scriptures speak at length regarding the identity of humans who are apart from Christ, and the identity of humans who are in Christ. The chief, ultimate, and most true identity of a person who has been given grace through faith by Christ is not marked by what they do, their enjoyments, or their desires. Instead, for the believer, the Bible speaks clearly their identity is found in Christ. It is Christ who defines and determines the believer’s identity.
Examine a few passages that speak to the believers identity in Christ:
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. (Galatians 2:2)
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. (Galatians 3:27)
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)
When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:4)
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17)
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! (1 John 3:1)
And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, (1 Corinthians 1:30)
Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. (Romans 7:4)
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Hebrews 8:10)
Note the descriptions. For the believer, the locus of identity is repeatedly found in Christ. The believer is one who is so closely identified with Christ that the things Christ has gone through are spoken of about the believer! And the believers' hope for the future is tied into the meritorious righteous future of Christ inheriting eternal life and all blessing. The believer's identity isn’t anything so petty and fleeting as their own actions, enjoyments, or desires. The believer’s identity is wrapped up in the person, work, and reward of Christ.
While the unbeliever’s identity is found in death, the believer's identity is found in the everlasting life of Christ. The believer’s life is hidden with Christ, having been baptized into Christ, put on Christ, buried with Christ and raised to walk in the newness of life. The believer and Christ are so together, so unified, that when the Lord Jesus returns, the best way to describe what we will be like in eternity, is to reference Christ! The believer is a child of God. The believer’s identity isn’t owned by culture, or convenience, or contrivance. The believer’s identity is owned by the King of creation! The believer’s identity individually and collectively is bound to the covenant promise of God to dwell forever among his people.
A prescription for all messy malaise of mind numbing identity crisis in the western Christian church is a simple, proactive returning to what the Bible has to say about us. For the unbeliever, they are defined in their identity by a distance and disunion to Christ. For the believer, we are defined in our identity by the grace of God to us in union with Christ. Either way, the message remains that all identity issues and questions boil down to the question Jesus asked to Peter “‘what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’” (Luke 9:20). Your eternal and entire identity hangs on the answer to that question.
For further Bible reading on this topic, I recommend reading 1 Corinthians 6.
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