As the Italian monk, Benedetto da Mantua, wrote in the early 16thcentury, “The Bride says, overwhelmed by joy: The realms and kingdoms of my beloved spouse are mine. I am queen and empress of heaven and earth. My husband’s riches—that is, his holiness, innocence, righteousness, and Godhead, together with all his virtue and might—are at my disposal. Therefore, I am holy, unblemished, righteous, and godly, and there is not a stain on me.”[2]Because of this we can wake up in the morning, remember who we are in Christ, and spend the day in light of our new status and nature. 

Remember Who You Are

“Who is it who can tell me who I am?” cried King Lear as he faced the disconcerting overturn of his world, the uncertainty of everything he had considered true, and the dread of his loss of reason. Today more than ever, this has become a common cry.

I grew up in the hippy generation when we tried to “find ourselves” mostly by introspection. I have never been good at that. Today, we are encouraged to go beyond self-discovery. We can reinvent ourselves, rebrand our businesses, or try out new identities on social media. The problem is, the same social pressure, anxieties, and uncertainties that motivate us to change who we are can easily survive reinventions. 

Who We Are in Christ

As Christians, we find our true identity in Scriptures. It’s not a superimposed identity, such as a code that is required in order to belong to a particular society, much less a forced identity that overrides our personalities (Stepford-Wives-style). It’s also not a reinvented identity, a self-creation we devise in order to cope with circumstances or to support our life goals. We simply arenew creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17). God made us so by the direct, loving intervention of his Spirit who has freed us from the bondage of sin, liberating us to be all that we were always meant to be.

Our identity in Christ is as factual as any other aspect of Christian theology. Our faith is based on historical facts that are much easier to prove than they are to disprove. Because Jesus Christ was born, lived a perfect life, died for our sins and resurrected, the course of history has been changed forever. And because God’s Spirit applies the effects and benefits of these historical facts to our lives, we are new creatures, united to Christ by an indelible bond.

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