Your True Identity

Who are you in Christ? What is your truest identity? Do you know? Has anyone in the Church taught you?

I ask these questions in all seriousness. I spent the majority of my Christian life going to church every Sunday. I heard a plethora of messages on sin, judgment, God’s wrath, and punishment. I heard a ton of sermons on the Ten Commandments, and how we need to act right to keep our place in heaven. There were lots of Bible studies on how much God hates sin, and how we need to zealously pursue a godly life. I attended many conferences where apologists got into fiery debates with unbelievers and where I was told that “defending the faith” was a crucial part of being a disciple of Christ. I attended more services than I can count where I was taught how much God wanted me to serve. The emphasis seemed to always be on cleansing, eliminating, avoiding sin, and working very hard to "be righteous."

However, outside of the Sounds Family, I can count on one hand the number of sermons or teachings I’ve heard on my identity in Christ. I think this is a travesty in the church, a complete failure of good discipleship. Without knowing who we are in Christ, we can really only experience a relatively small portion of the gospel. We need a deep, abiding revelation of who we are in Christ Jesus in order to experience the abundant life God offers us.

Understanding who I was in Christ was pivotal for me. I can honestly say that I didn’t start experiencing real growth until I got hold of my identity in Christ. It released me from thinking that the Christian life was more about doing things for God instead of being who I am in Christ. I learned that, in Christian discipleship, doing first comes from being, not the other way around. There is an order in which God does things, and getting this order wrong can have catastrophic consequences.

So let me take some time to talk about our new identity after we come to Christ.

Your Identity in Christ

One of the first things you need to know to experience freedom in Christ is that you are already righteous.

"...you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God," (1 Corinthians 6:11).

When you confessed the Lord Jesus, you were born again. Your spirit was regenerated in holiness and joined to Christ’s Spirit. When I realized that I was already God’s righteousness because of Christ, I could live from that identity, instead of always trying to strive towards that identity.

The second identity truth: You are holy. When Paul starts his letter to the Colossians, he says this in the greeting:

“..To God’s holy people in Colossae…,” (Colossians 1:1).

Later, Paul writes to them,

“But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—,” (v. 22).

And to the Corinthians,

"It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption," (1 Corinthians 1:30).

St. Peter, in his First Universal Letter (meaning that its teachings apply to the entire Church), says the same thing:

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a *holy nation*, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light,” (1 Peter 2:9).

Salt and Light

Jesus told us that we are both salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16). Salt has many properties, but one is that it purifies things that it is put in. Here’s a question for you: If salt is a purifier, how can it not itself already be pure? The real you—your spirit in union with Christ’s Spirit—is already pure. That’s why you can be a purifier of others.

Salt is also a preservative; it is often put in food to keep it fresher longer, to keep it from spoiling. But if salt keeps things from spoiling, it can’t also spoil itself, can it? There is no such thing as “spoiled salt.” If it is salt, then it keeps from spoiling; that is the very nature of salt.

One of the definitions of “salvation” is “being preserved.” You are saved. You are preserved, and a preservative for others. You cannot spoil. There is an incorruptible Seed within you that can never spoil. This Seed, the Holy Spirit, is what can keep others from spoiling, as well.

"[you] have been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever," (1 Peter 1:23).

Jesus also said that we were the light of the world. Like salt, light also has many properties, but one of these is that light illuminates things in the dark. But if light illuminates, must it not also be illuminated? The real you—your spirit in union with Christ’s Spirit—is already light. You already have been “enlightened” with the truth of Christ and the Gospel. Therefore, you shine forth that truth from your identity. How can you be light to others if you are not already light yourself?

Being salt and light are about your identity. And your identity doesn’t change based on the clothes you wear or your outward conduct, or on any external reality.

A New You

The gift of regeneration means that your very nature has been changed. Remember what Paul taught a couple chapters earlier, in Romans 6?

“We know that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin,” (Roman 6:6).

Your old self—the old, unregenerate spirit enslaved to and indwelt by sin that you inherited from Adam—was crucified. In its place, God gave you a new spirit, one made in holiness and righteousness. This was prophesied hundreds of years before Christ by Ezekiel:

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh,” (Ezekiel 36;26).

When you came to faith in Jesus and were baptized into Him, God became your Father and birthed a new spirit in you. As if that wasn’t amazing enough, He also made you his child. Paul tells us in Acts that we are God’s offspring:

“28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring,’” (Acts 17:28).

What is an "offspring?" Is it not a being that has the same DNA as its parents? Once I learned that I had that same "spiritual DNA" as God the Father, I could begin to stand a bit more upright. In the Kingdom of God, you can only do what you first know.

Get your identity in Christ solidified, and you will see God manifest wonderful transformation in your life.