Christianity is not about living by a new set of rules or embracing a new set of behaviors. It is about a renewed friendship with God. When we become friends with God by committing ourselves to Jesus, we are given a new identity. The New Testament writers (such as the St. John and St. Paul) refer to our new identity with a variety of terms: “children of God,” “friends of God,” being “in Christ,” “in the Spirit,” and being made “new creations.” The New Testament writers, by using these terms, speak of a new identity given to us in Christ. Some of the characteristics of this new identity include being made 100% pure, holy, and blameless; being filled with God’s Spirit (the backbone of our new identity is the Holy Spirit in us), being given a new destiny (paradise with God and fellow Christians), and being God’s friend and not His enemy.
Our new identity contrasts sharply with our identity before we were made whole and healed in ChriSt. Paul speaks of our old identity often, such as in Titus 3.3 and Ephesians 2.1-3. While we are now holy in Christ, we were unholy before Christ. While we are now filled with God’s Spirit in Christ, we were devoid of God’s Spirit before Christ. While we are given a new destiny in heaven in Christ, we were doomed to hell without Christ. While we are now God’s friends in Christ, we were God’s enemies before Christ.
“But how do we receive this new identity?” one might ask. God is the one who gives us our new identity; we cannot achieve it (2 Cor 5.18). God does it because of His great love and affection for us (Ephesians 2.4-5). We experience this new identity when God fills us with His Spirit (Titus 3.4-5), and we receive this Holy Spirit by putting our faith in Christ (Gal 3.14). This faith is not mere mental assent to the truth of the gospel; while mental assent is a vital aspect of faith, it is not the whole deal. Even demons mentally assent to the truth of the gospel, but they are vehemently opposed to God. Faith, in the biblical sense, also involves a commitment to and trust in Christ.
When we speak of Christian ethics, the question is not “How does a Christian behave?” but “How does a Christian reflect his or her new identity?” It is critical to understand that our identity is not founded on how we live our lives, and how we live or lives does not make or break our identity in Christ. By the way we live our lives, we are not made more holy or less holy than any other Christian—holiness is a status (a gift!) bestowed on us by God; it is not attained or rejected by our own behaviors. Does this mean that we are free to live however we please? No! That is a false doctrine called antinomianism, the belief that we are free to do whatever we want if we are in Christ, and that is wrong, just plain wrong. The New Testament writers, while straying from the right-wing of legalism, are careful to avoid this left-wing radical theology. St. Paul tells us in Romans 6, “Should we keep on sinning...? No way!” With this in mind, we can look at Christian ethics in this light: “Christian Ethics is not about how a Christian should live, but how a Christian reflects his or her identity in Christ.”
St. Paul shouts in the New Testament, “Live out your new identities!” In Colossians 3, St. Paul compares our old identity with our new identity, and he tells us to cast off all the ways of living that reflect the old identity and to embrace the ways of living that reflect our new identity in Christ. The foundation of Christian ethics is given in Colossians 3.14: love. Jesus’ commandment to love God and love others sums up how a person is to reflect friendship with God: by being kind, compassionate, caring, and self-sacrificial for others, putting other peoples’ interests before one’s own.
Living out our new identities is difficult. A prime biblical example of this is in 1 Corinthians. The Corinthian Christians have a new identity in Christ, but they continue to live out their old identity by sleeping around in the streets of Corinth. Sexual promiscuity was a big deal in Corinth, and slutty girls were often called “Corinthian gals.” After confronting the Corinthians for their sin, St. Paul exclaims, “You can’t do this anymore! This isn’t your new identity! Live out your new identity!”
As we live our lives daily, we must look at our actions, thoughts, etc. and ask: “Is this a reflection of my old identity before Christ or my new identity in Christ?” If it is a reflection of our old identity, we must cast it off. This is a gruesomely difficult task. St. Paul himself struggled with it. In Romans 7, he speaks of his own struggles with living out his old identity vs. living out his new identity. He confesses that his desire and actions are at odds: he does not do what he wants to do, and he does what he does not want to do. He makes a dazzling statement in v.17: “It is not I who sin, but the sin within me.” This is no copout: he is saying, “The way I live does not define my identity. The way I live does not determine who I really am.” He laments in v.24, “Who shall set me free from this body of death?” The imagery is wonderful: “body of death” evokes an image of St. Paul dragging a corpse on his back, the corpse being the old identity that still wages against him, seeking to reflect itself in his life. He is thankful, though, that his struggles will not last forever: in paradise, his old identity will no longer tug on him. Throughout this passage, Paul acknowledges a harsh reality for Christians: while we have a desire to live out our new identities, our actions often do not match this desire.
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