Identity in Christ

Chris­t­ian Iden­ti­ty Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty is under­stand­ing iden­ti­ty based on Scrip­ture.  Chris­tians take their iden­ti­ty from God’s rev­e­la­tion and not from the sec­u­lar cul­ture. While there are many cur­rents of thought try­ing to influ­ence us, it is bet­ter to take our queue from the Gospel.  We learn the truth of who we are, which is so much more than our race, reli­gion, and gen­der.  We will also begin to move from a mate­r­i­al world­view to the holis­tic world described in Scrip­ture.  Sure we have phys­i­cal needs and these appetites are real, but more impor­tant­ly, we hunger and thirst for God’s gift of love, at the deep­est core of our being.  Our souls will not rest until we rest in God. As we enter into the Bib­li­cal view we see that there is not one race, gen­der, or nation­al­i­ty more impor­tant than anoth­er, as we are all called to be mem­bers of the same body.  So Iden­ti­ty Pol­i­tics and Crit­i­cal race the­o­ry are not aligned with scrip­ture.  Mar­tin Luther King said it best, “You can­not judge a man by the col­or of his skin, but by the con­tent of this char­ac­ter.  King under­stood the King of Kings for sure and died a mar­tyr for Jesus.  We cel­e­brate the truths he pro­claimed as these ful­ly align with Scripture.

Identity in Christ

Chris­t­ian Iden­ti­ty Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty is under­stand­ing iden­ti­ty based on Scrip­ture.  Chris­tians take their iden­ti­ty from God’s rev­e­la­tion and not from the sec­u­lar culture.

In Gen­e­sis, the first book of the bible we learn that we are made in the image and like­ness of God.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our like­ness” Gen­e­sis 1:26

The plur­al for God, “us”, is a ref­er­ence to the three per­sons of the Holy Trin­i­ty: the Father, Son, and the Holy Spir­it. From our creed, we know that the Trin­i­ty is one God with three con-sub­stan­tial persons. 

If we are made in the image and like­ness of God, what does that say about us?  It means that we can nev­er be summed up as indi­vid­u­als.  Our iden­ti­ty binds us to our Cre­ator on the first front and to the mem­bers of the Body of Christ, the Church on the oth­er. Paul makes the point.

We, though many, are one body in Christ, and indi­vid­u­al­ly mem­bers one of anoth­er. ^{Romans 12:5}

In Corinthi­ans, we get a glimpse of the diver­si­ty of the body of Christ. The ref­er­ences to nation­al­i­ty, reli­gion and social class illus­trate the point that we are one.

For just as the body is one and has many mem­bers, and all the mem­bers of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spir­it we were all bap­tized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spir­it. For the body does not con­sist of one mem­ber but of many.  ^{1 Corinthi­ans 12:12–14}

Pentecost Gives us our Identity with the Trinity and One Another

The account of Pen­te­cost illus­trates the diver­si­ty of the body of Christ. Jesus, the Son of God suf­fered and died on the cross. He rose from the dead. And on the day of Pen­te­cost, he sent the Holy Spirit. 

The Holy Spir­it serves as the great uni­fi­er.  To under­stand the sig­nif­i­cance we take a step back to the account of the sto­ry of Babel.  The peo­ple build­ing the tow­er were fol­low­ing iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics to their per­il.  They defined them­selves by their one lan­guage and nation­al­i­ty and want­ed to make a name for themselves. 

Then they said, “Come, let us build our­selves a city, and a tow­er with its top in the heav­ens, and let us make a name for our­selves, lest we be scat­tered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” And the LORD came down to see the city and the tow­er, which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one peo­ple, and they have all one lan­guage; and this is only the begin­ning of what they will do; and noth­ing that they pro­pose to do will now be impos­si­ble for them. Come, let us go down, and there con­fuse their lan­guage, that they may not under­stand one another’s speech.” So the LORD scat­tered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off build­ing the city. There­fore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD con­fused the lan­guage of all the earth; and from there the LORD scat­tered them abroad over the face of all the earth  ^{Gen­e­sis 11:4–9}

God inter­venes to crush the pride of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion based on a sin­gle lan­guage, nation state and cul­ture.  He scat­ters them to intro­duce diver­si­ty and dis­rupt the false pride in a sin­gle race, lan­guage, and cul­ture. In our own day this would be a clear con­dem­na­tion of white suprema­cy on one front, which in these days is uncom­mon.  But it is also con­dem­na­tion of Black lives mat­ter which pits one race against anoth­er.  The Scrip­tures are clear that we are all called to be mem­bers of one Body.

At Pen­te­cost we have the rever­sal of Babel. God is not scat­ter­ing the arro­gant peo­ple of a sin­gle tongue and race, rather He is gath­er­ing peo­ple of every race, tongue, and nation togeth­er to wel­come all into a rela­tion­ship with the Trin­i­ty and the Body of Christ, the Church. 

“Are not all these who are speak­ing Galileans?  And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native lan­guage?  There were Parthi­ans and Medes and Elamites and res­i­dents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cap­pado­cia, Pon­tus and Asia, Phry­gia and Pam­phylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belong­ing to Cyrene, and vis­i­tors from Rome, both Jews and pros­e­lytes, Cre­tans and Ara­bi­ans, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”  ^{Acts 2:7–11}

The crowd rep­re­sent­ed at Pen­te­cost was diverse in every way and yet all were wel­comed into God’s fam­i­ly. Peter laid out the con­di­tion for entry into the fel­low­ship of the Church.  All are to accept Jesus as Lord, repent and be bap­tized and all will be filled with the Holy Spirit.

With repen­tance we lay aside our prej­u­dice, our vices, false pride, and by virtue of Bap­tism we are washed clean from our for­mer lives by the pow­er of Jesus Christ. And we are filled with the Holy Spir­it which unites us one to anoth­er and to the Most Holy Trinity.

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apos­tles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent, and be bap­tized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the for­give­ness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spir­it.  For the promise is to you and to your chil­dren and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him.” ^{Acts 2:37–39}

Developing our Identity in Christ

The sto­ry of the Samar­i­tan woman teach­es us about iden­ti­ty. When Jesus asked her for water, she respond­ed based on iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics of her day. It was inap­pro­pri­ate for Jews to ask any­thing of Samar­i­tans and vice-ver­sa and also inap­pro­pri­ate for a strange man to ask any­thing of a woman and vice-versa.

“How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” For Jews have no deal­ings with Samar­i­tans.  ^{John 4:9}

Jesus breaks through the stereo­types to help her tran­scend her false iden­ti­ty.  One could say that the Samar­i­tan woman was caught in the trap of the mate­ri­al­ism.  She was focused on the here and now and meet­ing her mate­r­i­al needs.  This is not the iden­ti­ty Jesus teach­es. Rather he wants us to go beyond the mate­r­i­al realm and grasp the spiritual. 

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is say­ing to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have giv­en you liv­ing water.” ^{John 4:10}

Still stuck in her false iden­ti­ty she responds.

Sir, you have noth­ing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that liv­ing water?  ^{John 4:11}

Again Jesus helps the woman move from the mate­r­i­al to the spiritual.

Jesus said to her, “Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, but who­ev­er drinks of the water that I shall give him will nev­er thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eter­nal life. She con­tin­ues ques­tion­ing. “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your hus­band, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no hus­band.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in say­ing, ‘I have no hus­band’; for you have had five hus­bands, and he whom you now have is not your hus­band; this you said tru­ly.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I per­ceive that you are a prophet. John 4 13–18

Prophet to Savior of the World

She has moved on from the mate­r­i­al, Samar­i­tan and woman iden­ti­ties and now she sees Jesus as a prophet. Lat­er she begins to per­ceive that Jesus is the Messiah.

The woman said to him, “I know that Mes­si­ah is com­ing (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things.” ¶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” ^{John 4:25–26}

Moved by Jesus self-rev­e­la­tion she rush­es to her town and bears wit­ness to the advent of the Mes­si­ah. Lat­er the town lis­tened to the teach­ing of Jesus and shed their old iden­ti­ties accept­ing God’s plan.

They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard for our­selves, and we know that this is indeed the Sav­ior of the world.”  John 4:42

The woman came into the rela­tion­ship bur­dened by iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics.  She starts see­ing Jesus as a Jew and a man.  Lat­er she per­ceives him to be a prophet. As she begins to let go of her mate­ri­al­is­tic per­spec­tive, the rela­tion­ship grows and she sees him as Mes­si­ah. By the end of the chap­ter all of the Samar­i­tans from that town per­ceive Jesus to be the Sav­ior of the World.

The more we come to know God the more we come to know our­selves and shed the false iden­ti­ties, which block us from a life of grace.  Every­one has dig­ni­ty but not based on race, reli­gion, gen­der, class.  It is based on dis­cov­er­ing who we are in rela­tion­ship to our lov­ing God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

The media, gov­ern­ment, schools, cor­po­rate, Hol­ly­wood elites pro­pose crit­i­cal race the­o­ry to sep­a­rate us and con­trol us by feed­ing us a steady diet of anger and out­rage while Jesus loves each and every one of us as and invites us to become mem­bers of the one Body of Christ.

God’s Standard for the Rich and Powerful

It is eas­i­er for the poor to enter the King­dom of God than the rich man.  This would include the rich, cor­po­rate, polit­i­cal, Hol­ly­wood and sports elites. So, while the Body of Christ is open to every class there are some class­es of peo­ple which need to change their atti­tude.  They need to change the way they iden­ti­fy them­selves and others. 

This is why there is so much heat try­ing to can­cel God and the church. The Almighty can­not be can­celed for sure and those that try to do so do it at their own per­il as the Scrip­ture is clear about a day of reckoning.

And Jesus said to his dis­ci­ples, “Tru­ly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the king­dom of heav­en. Again I tell you, it is eas­i­er for a camel to go through the eye of a nee­dle than for a rich man to enter the king­dom of God.” Matthew 19:23–24

God is tougher on the rich than the poor since they are more prone to pride, greed, envy, sloth, glut­tony, anger, and lust. They are more like­ly to think of them­selves as above oth­ers and to abuse oth­ers.  So this is not a dis­crim­i­na­tion against the rich, rather it is a warn­ing of the traps asso­ci­at­ed with exces­sive mon­ey, fame, and power. 

God’s mer­cy and love are man­i­fest by chal­leng­ing the rich so that they can let go of the vices of the world, the flesh and the dev­il and sub­mit their lives to God.  In the process they acquire a new iden­ti­ty, new virtues of humil­i­ty, gen­eros­i­ty, dili­gence, tem­per­ance, patience, and chastity.

So while the Scrip­tures break down the prej­u­dices of racial divi­sion, gen­der inequal­i­ty, envi­ron­men­tal and social inequal­i­ty,  there is no pro­tec­tion for class­es of peo­ple who are liv­ing in immoral­i­ty. Only an invi­ta­tion to repent and come to the truth so that they may be saved.

God’ Standards on Sex

The Bible is very clear about sex.  Man and woman are cre­at­ed in the image and like­ness of God. So mod­ernists who have intro­duced new pro­nouns do so against the teach­ings of Christ. So much of the groom­ing indoc­tri­na­tion which is preva­lent in our school is an afront on Bib­li­cal principles. 

There has been a great deal of coor­di­nat­ed effort around iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics and it is pro­mot­ed on all cor­ners. We see it in woke cor­po­ra­tions, schools, and even some church­es who have exchanged the truth of God for lies. There is some­thing attrac­tive about being accept­ed, polit­i­cal­ly cor­rect in the eyes of the world, defined as:

Con­form­ing to a belief that lan­guage and prac­tices which could offend polit­i­cal sen­si­bil­i­ties (as in mat­ters of sex or race) should be elim­i­nat­ed. ^{[Wikipedia 03/21/2022]}

And if the def­i­n­i­tion means that man and woman should be pro­tect­ed and one should not lord it over the oth­er, the Word of God sup­ports that posi­tion. Unfor­tu­nate­ly the world­ly def­i­n­i­tions do not stop there.

Wikipedia sums up the cur­rent Cor­po­rate and Media per­spec­tive on the con­cept of iden­ti­ty politics.

Iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics is a polit­i­cal approach where­in peo­ple of a par­tic­u­lar gen­der, reli­gion, race, social back­ground, social class, envi­ron­men­tal, or oth­er iden­ti­fy­ing fac­tors, devel­op polit­i­cal agen­das that are based upon these iden­ti­ties. The term is used in a vari­ety of ways to describe phe­nom­e­na as diverse as mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, wom­en’s move­ments, civ­il rights, les­bian and gay move­ments, and region­al sep­a­ratist move­ments. ^{Wikipedia 03/21/2022}

The Scrip­ture is clear there is no pro­tec­tive class for sex­u­al per­verts. Sex­u­al inter­course was cre­at­ed by God for pro­cre­ation and the enhance­ment of the rela­tion­ship between a man and a woman.  Per­sons who iden­ti­fy as gay, straight, bi-sex­u­al, trans­gen­der do so at their own per­il. We are men and women made in the image of God. If we take our iden­ti­ty from cul­ture we are dom­i­nat­ed by the world, the flesh and the dev­il and there will be a price to pay.

One thing for sure those who are sex­u­al­ly promis­cu­ous with mul­ti­ple part­ners, men, and women, have adopt­ed a Sodom and Gomo­ra mind­set. They feed their sex dri­ve with a steady diet of pornog­ra­phy and have reject­ed their iden­ti­ty as chil­dren of God.

 

Takeaways

1. We dis­cov­er who we are when we accept that are made in the image and like­ness of God. The more we come to know the Holy Trin­i­ty the more we know who we are.
2. Defin­ing our iden­ti­ty by our race, reli­gion, social class, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion dis­torts God’s plan for our lives and can only lead to con­fu­sion. Iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics and crit­i­cal race the­o­ry are not found­ed in Scripture.
3. God loves every­one uncon­di­tion­al­ly, even the rich, per­verts and mur­der­ers. How­ev­er, by def­i­n­i­tion God can­not love sin.  If we iden­ti­fy in a way that pits us against the bible we need to repent, return to the Word of God, to the Church and dis­cov­er the