FOUNDATIONS: 10 Jesus is Your Real Identity

Raji was born into a Hindu family in India. The Hindu religion categorizes people into “castes” or levels of value. Raji’s family belonged to the lowest caste, the “untouchables.” In his village his family was assigned the lowliest, dirtiest, hardest, and most dangerous jobs. Raji and his own children would never be allowed to be anything else.

When Raji became a Christian, it was initially hard for him to believe that Jesus Christ had made him equal with all other Christians. And his true identity and worth had nothing to do with what family he was born into, or what any humans thought of him at all. Through faith in Christ, Raji had been made a son of Almighty God with the Spirit of God living in him. Raji rejoiced in the truth of his new identity because:

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.

The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (2 Cor 5:17)

The real you is in Christ and Christ in you.

Your new identity is in Christ

Who are you? . . . Really, WHO ARE YOU!? The answer to that question is your identity. Most people define who they are by their relationships and possessions on Earth. What is their occupation? Are they married? Do they have children? Are they poor or rich? What have you accomplished? What have people done to you? What have people said about you?

Your answers to these things can define the value of your life and who you are to others, the world, and often yourself. Because if you have a lowly job, are single or divorced, do not have children, are financially poor, feel like you have not accomplished much, have been treated badly by people, or been told by influential people you are not valuable, then you will be tempted to think you are less valuable than others.

But “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Cor 5:17). The NT usually describes belonging to Christ as being “in Christ.” Do not underestimate the meaning of those two words. The Apostle Paul refers to who you are or what you have “in Christ” about 170 times! This is because everything good and valuable and true about your identity comes through your relationship with Christ.

Apart from being “in Christ” you are little more than a wicked worthless worm deserving and destined for the fires of Hell. Apologies if that sounds harsh, but it is true. Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), meaning nothing truly good. Paul said, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (Rom 7:18). But with Christ you are . . . Explaining that will require the FOUNDATIONS and FAITH studies in the Christian Essentials and more!

To be “in Christ” is to be given His righteousness. To be “in Christ” is to be valued by God as much as Christ. To be “in Christ” is to be given His purpose to serve God. To be “in Christ” is to have your future tied to Christ. Christ’s holy standing before the Father, Christ’s infinite value as His Son, Christ’s great purpose as God’s servant, and Christ’s eternal destiny to live with the Father have all been given to you because you are “in Christ.”

This wicked World has a value system by which people determine their identity. But when you became a Christian you entered the Kingdom of God and “You died with Christ to the fundamental principles of this world” (Col 2:20) and how it identified and evaluated you. “You died” in the sense that who you were, or what you did, before belonging to God has nothing to do with your true identity and value anymore. “You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). Everything valuable and meaningful about you is now tied to Christ. Your true identity is not in your marital status, gender, occupation, or bank account. It is “in Christ.”

Your Christian identity is who you are and what you have because God is your Dad. Who you are “in Christ” is a chosen child of God. What you have “in Christ” . . . well again, it is a lot! “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Cor 5:17). The real you is in Christ and Christ in you.

Your new creation is a new “heart”

Many Christians do not understand what happened to them when they were born again (cf. John 3:3) and made spiritually alive (cf. Eph 2:2, 5) by the indwelling of Christ through the Holy Spirit.

First, your “old life is gone” (2 Cor 5:17). Or as Paul repeatedly says elsewhere, YOU DIED (cf. Gal 2:20; Col 2:20; 3:3; 2 Tim 2:11). The old you does not exist anymore. When you were “born of the Spirit” (John 3:5) you became “a new creation,” (2 Cor 5:17 NIV), a new kind of human being. This radical change in a person’s identity was one of the reasons that early Christians commonly adopted a new name at baptism.

What is so radically different about a Christian that they can be called “a new creation” the very instant they are born again? Why would we say you are a radically different species of human compared to unbelievers? Because the Scriptures teach, and your experience confirms, God gave you a new “heart.” What God promised in the OT has happened to you:

I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations. (Ezek 36:26-27)

To get a “new heart” and have “a new spirit in you” is to “become a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17 NIV) such that your “old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Cor 5:17). What practical difference does this make? Your “heart” is the source of all your desires. That is why “your heart . . . determines the course of your life” (Prov 4:23). The desires, direction, and decisions of your life come from your “heart.” This is why Scripture refers to the human “heart” as the center of your life over 1000 times.

When God gave you a “new heart” He gave you new desires. Your old “stubborn heart” hated God and desired sin. But your new “responsive heart” desires to “follow [God’s] decrees and be careful to obey [His] regulations.” Before being born again, you had one nature, “the sinful nature, [which] is always hostile to God. . . never did obey God’s laws, and it never will” (Rom 8:7). And because this was your only nature, you were a “slave to sin” (Rom 6:6). But now you have the Spirit of God indwelling your “heart” giving you new desires that oppose your sinful nature. Sin no longer automatically controls your life. You have a new Lord living in you!

In fact, your “new heart” is the heart of Jesus Christ, and your “new spirit” is the Spirit of God in you. This is why Jesus said all born again Christian are “pure in heart” (Matt 5:8 NIV) because your “new heart” is Jesus Christ in you. Do you believe that Christian? You have a pure heart.

If all of this is true, why do you still sin? Because even though you have a “new heart” with holy desires, you have your old mind with sinful programming. This is where your sinful nature is now. Before being indwelled by Christ your sinful nature was your “heart,” your true self. Now your sinful nature only exists as a ghost in the programming of your mind.

The false beliefs in your mind about what will make you happy, trick you into acting against your true and holy desires from your new heart. But because your sinful nature resides in the old programming of your mind, you can “transform . . . into a new person by changing the way you think” (Rom 12:2). By replacing the lies that parts of your mind believe, your mind can be changed to be more united with the desires of your “heart,” which will drastically reduce your internal struggle between sin and the Spirit.

“Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Cor 5:17). A “new person” that hates sin and has a desire to please God. THAT is a radically different kind of human being! The real you is in Christ and Christ in you.

Your new relationship with sin

Your “new heart” and “new spirit in you” gives you a new relationship to sin. This is what the legalists refuse to understand. They struggle to preach and believe the Christian’s complete forgiveness of all sin and removal of all guilt. This is because they think if a person truly understands how forgiven they are, they will want to take advantage of it and sin more. Legalists fear that more grace will actually result in more sin!

This is the false teaching that Paul was confronting in Romans 6-7. He had just spent chapters 3-5 describing our complete forgiveness of all sin. He concludes chapter 5 by saying:

God’s [OT] law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant [in the New Covenant]. . . now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God (Rom 5:20-21)

Paul knew that legalists would claim that such abundant grace and complete forgiveness might tempt some to sin more. He responded:

Well then [if we are this forgiven], should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? . . . We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the [automatic] power of sin. (Rom 6:1-2, 6-7)

Through Christ’s sacrifice you have received complete forgiveness for every sin. But what the legalists don’t understand is that through the re-creation of the Spirit you have a “new heart” that hates sin and desires holiness. You have the freedom to sin. But you no longer want to sin. And it is your new love for God and hatred for sin that motivates you not to sin. You do not need the fear of condemnation for sin that the legalists want to use to motivate you to be holy.

How can Paul say that “We have died to sin” (Rom 6:2) when we still sin? Because it is no longer your true nature to sin. “Our old sinful selves” that only had a sinful nature and only had sinful desires was “crucified with Christ” (Rom 6:6). You can still give sin power because of the lies in your mind. But “we were set free from the [automatic] power of sin” (Rom 6:7) because sin is no longer your true desire. This is why even though you sin, the NT never refers to Christians as sinners, but as saints.

Still not convinced of your new, holy identity? Paul says something even more radical twice in Romans 7 to make sure you get this:

I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. SO I AM NOT THE ONE DOING WRONG; IT IS SIN LIVING IN ME THAT DOES IT.

And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I AM NOT REALLY THE ONE DOING WRONG; IT IS SIN LIVING IN ME THAT DOES IT.

I love God’s law with all my heart [the real me]. But there is another power within me [our deceived sinful nature] that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.

Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord [when He gives us a new sinless mind and body]. So you see how it is: In my mind [i.e. new heart] I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature [parts of mind with sinful programming] I am a slave to sin. (Rom 7:15-25, all caps added)

First, Paul says, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (v. 18). Recognize a hard but vital truth here. There was nothing truly good about you before Christ came to live in you. What Paul could boast about before Christ, he now called “garbage” (Phil 3:8). Likewise now, there is nothing truly good about you except Christ living in you. It is only Jesus living through you that has any value at all. Which is why everything about you apart from Christ is going to rot in the grave and be left behind for eternity. Might as well let them go now.

Secondly, there is a struggle inside of you between two opposing forces:

The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. (Gal 5:17)

Your spiritual battle is in your mind between your “sinful nature” and the “Spirit.” Paul referred to the sinful nature when he wrote: “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (Rom 7:18). The “sinful nature” is the World’s demonic programming in your mind and is completely evil. But this is not the real you. Paul distinguished the real you from your sinful nature when he wrote, “I love God’s law with all my heart [the real me].” (v. 22).

And the Apostle makes our point even clearer when he writes twice: “I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it . . . I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it” (Rom 7:17, 20). An Apostle is saying (twice), “The real me does not sin anymore.” And he is saying that anyone “in Christ” can say the same thing.

You might reject what Paul is saying because it seems that he is denying personal responsibility for his sin. However, surely the Apostle would be willing to do that. But Paul wants to tell you that there is something even more important than accepting your responsibility for sin. And that more important thing is recognizing your sinless identity even when you do sin. Your sin does not define who you really are.

You do not always live up to who you really are. But when you sin, you are not acting like your true self. Like Paul, you “love God’s law with all [your] heart” (Rom 7:22). Your real self delights in obeying God and hates sin. Therefore, the real you does not sin. Your real self now, is your eternal self who will live sinlessly forever on the New Earth. But you will have a new mind and body, freeing you to do what you really want to do, which is never to sin again.

Sin is like a disease programmed in your mind by the World. But you are not your disease. A person with cancer is not cancer. Their disease may physically limit them in ways they hate. But their true desire and real self is to be free from cancer. So it is with your sin. It is a disease that limits you spiritually in ways you hate. But your true desire and real self wants to be free from sin. If you were free to never sin again, you would not. You are no longer a sinner, but a saint who lives in a sinful world and body.

All of this is another reason why you are “holy and without fault in his eyes” (Eph 1:4). Holy is not just how God chooses to see you as He denies reality. Holy is who you really are. Some think God is just fooling Himself. He knows you are a sinner, but just chooses to ignore and overlook who you really are. The idea is that God simply chooses to view you through some distorted filter that does not reflect reality. But is it possible that God knows your true identity better than you do? Is it possible that the reason God sees you as “holy and without fault” is because that is who you really are?

One of the hardest but most important things the Christian must do is admit their sin. This is because we already feel guilty and shameful about it. But when we understand that our real identity is a saint, and sin is just a disease we have, then we are much freer to admit, face, and even resolve the lies that make us sin.

Your real self is pure, holy, blameless, and sinless. Not just because God chooses to overlook and ignore your sin. But you are no longer a sinner in reality because “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Cor 5:17). The real you is in Christ and Christ in you.

Your new identity is Christ in you

Not only are you no longer a sinner, but your real identity is Jesus Christ. Your “new heart” and “new spirit in you” is Jesus Christ in you. This is what Paul meant when he said: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Paul said: “To me, to live is Christ” (Phil 1:21 NIV). Paul said, “Put on your new nature, created [already!] to be like God—truly righteous and holy” (Eph 4:24).

You already have a perfect Person living in you! There is a God-like, holy, loving Person living in you and it is the real you. Notice that your “new self” is ALREADY “created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.” You already have a completely mature Jesus Christ living inside of you!

Many Christians define spiritual growth as becoming more like Christ or learning how to be more loving and holy. But this perspective ignores the fact that your “new self” is ALREADY “created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.” You already have a complete Christ in you. When the Holy Spirit is controlling you, then Christ lives through you.

At any moment in your life, either all of Jesus controls you or none of Jesus controls you. When God’s Spirit controls you all of Christ controls you and people will not see a partial Jesus because all of Jesus lives in you. Spiritual growth is not gradually having more of Christ in you. It is letting the complete Christ in you more consistently control you.

When Christ controls you, you are being the real you. That “new self, [already!] created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:24) is who you really are. When you do not act like Christ you are not acting like your real self. Paul said “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20) and “To me, to live is Christ” (Phil 1:21). Your old self has died. You are a new creation that not only has Jesus Christ living in you, but is Jesus Christ living in you. Anything you do that is not Christ, is not your life, nor matters in this life, nor will be remembered and rewarded in the next life.

“Anyone who is in Christ has become a new creation. Their old self is gone and their new self has begun!” (2 Cor 5:17). The real you is in Christ and Christ in you.

► Return to the beginning and answer the questions there.

► Recite 2 Cor 3:18 and John 15:15 from memory.

► Memorize 2 Cor 5:17 in the translation above or another.