WHO ARE WE IN CHRIST?

How do we define ourselves? What is our predominant motif? These are not easy questions to answer, but their answers are essential. The way we understand and define ourselves is also how we will feel about ourselves, others, and even our Savior. For example, if we do not accept ourselves as we are, then we will project and feel that others do not accept us.

Once we accept ourselves as we are without any candy-coating, we can begin to feel accepted by others and to better accept others and even the necessary standards of our Lord.

Self-acceptance requires us to accept the truth that there is a lot of garbage in ourselves. Consequently, we will never be good enough for God, not at least in this life:

•    …we know that a person is not justified [forgiven and reconciled with God] by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. (Galatians 2:16)

It is only by the mercy of God through Jesus that we can be forgiven and wiped clean from our sins:

•    I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Galatians 2:21)

What a joy to know that God loves us despite our unlovable-ness! How do we “nullify the grace of God?” By believing that we can be good enough for God through our performance. Instead, we have died to the requirement of the Law which had required our death for any sin. We have been bought and now belong to our Savior:

•    For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:19–20)

Consequently, we are new creations in Christ, since our sins have been paid for, and now we belong to Christ:

•    “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name [according to who you are], you are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1)

While this must remain our primary identity, we have a secondary “identity”—the sin within and resisting it.

•    But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. (Galatians 5:16–17)

This struggle is more intense within us since we see our sins, resist them, and our new nature is grieved by them:

•    But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment [through the OT saints’ knowledge of the law], produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. (Romans 7:8–9)

Nevertheless, in Christ, we struggle to resist sin:

•    Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:24–25)

•    And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. (Galatians 5:24–25)

How do we crucify the passions of the flesh? A genuine faith of the Holy Spirit pursues love:

•    For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. (Galatians 5:6)

So are we merely saved sinners? Not exactly:

•    Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. (Romans 7:20)

The real “I,” the redeemed “I,” prefers faithfulness to Jesus. It is like having a pit bull on a leash. If it bites someone, we must take full responsibility, but it is no longer I who sin but the pit bull, since it longer originated from the redeemed “I.” Consequently, although we continue to struggle against sin, in God’s eyes we are the righteousness of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21), and, above all else, that’s what counts.