Identity in Christ

"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 2:20

Growing up in the church I somehow learned that once you became a Christian you turned into a clone that followed a certain set of rules, listened to a particular kind of music and behaved in a specific manner. There was a sense that you didn’t have your own personality but rather became a blank slate that was then smattered with a set of rules for living. I became zealous to stop my friends from drinking, partying, and smoking, hoping they would ignore my hypocritical behavior and accept my invitations to church. I was on a wild search for my identity and had no idea how to meld my church life with my everyday life. As I read over the book of Galatians it seemed like Paul was trying to tell the church to stop putting their energy into a set of rules (the law) and understand that their identity was in Christ. They were free from the law because of their union with Christ in His death and resurrection. I like the way the Message says it in Gal. 2:19 - “I [Paul] tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man.” Clearly, a body of clones living out certain rules or laws isn’t what God had in mind for His children or else Jesus wouldn’t have had to die. To paraphrase Gal. 2:21, if we are made righteous (holy, perfect) because of a set of rules or laws, then Jesus died for no purpose.

So, what did Jesus have in mind? What does it mean to be crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me? Are we all clones or is there something more there?

When we surrender our lives to Christ and unite ourselves with Him, He mysteriously gives us a new identity in Him; makes us a new creation in Christ. The old person is gone and the new person (spiritually) has come. Christ then gets to live out His character through us in ways that look and feel different because He has made us all uniquely. We don’t have to identify ourselves with our old ways anymore and get to claim our new identity as a son, daughter, heir… as holy, righteous and renewed. We battle with our old flesh (sin, past wounds, oppression) all the time but we can live in faith knowing who we really are. And we can stand tall and fight. As I grew in my understanding of identity in Christ I found that dying to myself didn’t mean becoming a robot. It meant that I was free to let Jesus live through my personality gifts, and abilities that He specifically created within me.

And dying with Him is not the end of the story – I get to live with Him in a resurrection like His. Romans 6:5-6, 11 says, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin…. So you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

We are alive and free. We are no longer in bondage to sin. We carry around his death in our body so his life may be revealed to the world around us (2 Cor. 4:10). We will be raised to life with Him in eternity. We are His beloved, made in His image, His works of art. We are fully accepted, fully His, and no one can take that away.

Though these thoughts just skim the surface of this verse, my prayer is that we will know that if we believe in Jesus and follow Him, our identity is a new creation in Him. God looks at us and sees who we really are in Christ and doesn’t define us by our sin. I pray that we will know we are free and that He has created us each uniquely and wonderfully, with gifts, abilities and passions that express the life of Christ to those around us. I pray that this verse will help sturdy us when life seems hard or confusing. Amen.

written by: Laura Strahl