Significance, humility, comfort. A fourth benefit of being known by God is moral direction for living.
My crisis of identity back in the 1990s left the door open to major changes in my life. If you don’t know who you are, how you live is an open question. I had been a Christian since I was a young man. And even though I was no angel, I had sought to live a Christian life for some twenty years. But then I was left wondering about all sorts of behaviors that had previously seemed out of bounds: dishonesty, greed, malice, anger, pornography, casual sex. For me, being known by God as his child confirmed the shape of my life and steadied its course.
The idea that an identity carries with it a certain character or set of behaviors is widely accepted. Nationality, gender, and social class all form the basis of who we are and, at one level, how we are expected to behave. Americans typically behave one way. The English, another. Australians, yet another. Men behave one way. Women, another. And so on. The point can be exaggerated, as if no individual differences exist. But naïve stereotypes aside, ethicists of almost every stripe will tell you that who you are will have a big impact on your conduct.
In chapter nine, we considered in depth the identity of believers as children of God and how imitating God our Father and Christ his Son is meant to flow from that identity. As children of our heavenly Father, we are to love our enemies (Matt 5:44) and to follow God’s example as dearly loved children by walking in the way of love (Eph 5:1–2). And we are to be conformed to the image of God’s Son (Rom 8:29). As brothers and sisters in God’s family, we are to live in harmony with each other and express mutual care and support. The identity of those known by God as his children carries with it a distinctive lifestyle.
This chapter builds on chapter ten where we looked at the role of memory and destiny in forming identity. There we saw that, as important as our own individual life stories might be, there is a bigger narrative in which we find our true selves. We are part of a bigger story. And our shared memory of Christ’s death and resurrection, and remembering our share in his glorious destiny, defines who we are in the present. Specifically, we remember that we were in slavery to sin, but God has set us free through the death of his Son. We remember that we died with Christ and to living purely for self-interest. We remember that we rose to new life in him. And we remember that we belong to the day of final redemption and the glorious unveiling of the Son of God and of us as God’s children.
Here we focus directly on the relationship between identity and conduct. How does our new identity in Christ, as someone known by God as his child, affect our behavior? How does our shared memory and common destiny teach us to live in the present? To answer these questions, we look at three key ideas, each of which regularly appear in current discussions of identity and character: (1) authenticity, and the question of whether you should be true to yourself; (2) the way in which someone’s identity is formed by a defining moment in that person’s life; and (3) the way in which someone’s identity is expressed in a person’s signature move. In addition, we focus on Colossians 3 as a major case study of how being known by God gives moral direction to our lives.
How important is authenticity for a person’s identity and conduct according to the Bible? As noted in chapter one (see “Be True to Yourself”), our world puts a premium on being true to yourself and following your heart. Charles Taylor states it well: “Modern freedom and autonomy centres us on ourselves, and the ideal of authenticity requires that we discover and articulate our own identity.”1 What are we to make of this major cultural shift?
On the one hand, psychologists generally regard authenticity as a basic requirement of mental health:
Authenticity is correlated with many aspects of psychological well-being, including vitality, self-esteem, and coping skills. Acting in accordance with one’s core self—a trait called self-determination—is ranked by some experts as one of the three basic psychological needs.2
“Authenticity is one of those motherhood words—like community, family, natural, and organic—that are only ever used in their positive sense, as terms of approbation.”
Andrew Potter3
It is hard to argue with the call to live authentically if the alternative is to live disingenuously. Who wants to be a fake or a phony?! “Authenticity points towards a more self-responsible form of life. . . . at its best it allows for a richer mode of existence.”4 Authentic living can mean behaving in a way that is honest and open, not overly concerned with the impression you are making on others nor second-guessing what others make of you.
However, taking authenticity to be the sole or chief criterion for human behavior and the main way to direct our lives raises significant concerns. The urge to self-fulfillment can lead to a shallow and destructive narcissism. And on its own, the urge to be true to ourselves ignores the social fabric of our existence. Relationships can easily become disposable if they stand in the way of self-expression: “Our ties to others, as well as external moral demands, can easily be in conflict with our personal development.”5
Indeed, ignoring factors outside of ourselves is both limiting and unrealistic. As Charles Taylor notes:
I can define my identity only against the background of things that matter. But to bracket out history, nature, society, the demands of solidarity, everything but what I find within myself, would be to eliminate all candidates for what matters.6
Worse still for those committed to following their hearts, Jesus issues this sober word of warning: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander” (Matt 15:19). Following our heart can lead to the terrible abuse of other people.
“The notion that each one of us has an original way of being human entails that each of us has to discover what it is to be ourselves.”
Charles Taylor7
Ecclesiastes 11:9 tells young people to “follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see,” but not without adding a warning: “But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.”
Ironically, self-deception is also a danger. Gregg A. Ten Elshof’s insightful exploration of the phenomenon of deceiving ourselves, aptly entitled I Told Me So, explains that the rise of authenticity and being true to yourself as supreme values in today’s world has meant that being self-deceived has been increasingly seen as a vice: “To the degree that we value authenticity, we will be averse to the suggestion that we are self-deceived.”8 But with only myself to measure myself against, it becomes increasingly difficult to judge my behavior as anything but admirable. As Obadiah 3 warns the Edomites, “The pride of your heart has deceived you.” Paul warns the Galatians of the same delusion: “If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves” (Gal 6:3).
Perhaps the greatest problem with looking to the ideal of authenticity to provide direction for our lives is its naivety. While it is true that who you are affects how you behave, it is also true that what you do changes who you are. The sixth-century philosopher Boethius put it well:
Whatever loses its goodness loses its being. Thus wicked men cease to be what they were. To give oneself to evil is to lose one’s human essence. Just as virtue can raise a person above human nature, vice can lower those whom it has seduced from the condition of men, beneath human nature.9
As well as having your identity drive your behavior, your behavior can alter your identity. As C. S. Lewis observes: “Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.”10 Authenticity is a two-way street: we act out of our identity, but our repeated acts can alter that identity. Our character, which is formed by settled habits of action and feeling, is both fed by our identity and feeds that changing identity. Following our heart can turn us into a different person, and not necessarily for the better.
Does the Bible espouse the ideal of authenticity for believers in Christ? Should you aim to be who you are? How important is self-expression? If authenticity is acting in accordance with who you really are, the answer is a resounding, “Yes!” A frequent strategy for moral transformation in the Bible is the call to live in accordance with our new identity as those known by God as his children.
In Colossians 3:12, Paul calls on Christians to act in keeping with who we are in Christ: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Believers in Christ are to be true to themselves, that is, their new selves in Christ. The Christian life is about knowing who you are in relation to God and “dressing appropriately.”
The catalogs of virtue and vice in the New Testament offer lists of behaviors to acquire or relinquish. But these descriptions of behavior must be read in context. They are not “rules for living.” Most such lists make it clear that the conduct enjoined is that which fits our new identity. Or in the case of the vice catalogs, they are behaviors that are not in keeping with who we are in Christ.
In Galatians 5, for example, the fruit of the Spirit are the behaviors appropriate to those who belong to Christ, have died with him, and are raised to new life by the Spirit:
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. . . . Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (Gal 5:22–25)
Commentators regularly describe the fruit of the Spirit as the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the evidence of the Spirit’s presence and activity.11 However, this is only part of the story. Behaviors like self-control flow out of those who carry around in their bodies the death of Jesus and have crucified the flesh. A shared memory and a new belonging work together, along with the new life of the Spirit, to give believers powerful motivations and effective resources to live in ways that befit a Spirit-indwelt person.
Similarly, the rationale for avoiding the vices in 1 Corinthians 6 is the fact that they are not in keeping with the believers’ new identity:
Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor 6:9–11)
If in Galatians 5 the appeal to our new identity is based on the shared memory of being crucified with Christ, in 1 Corinthians 6 the appeal is to a shared memory of being washed, sanctified, and justified in Jesus’s name by God’s Spirit, as well as the defining destiny of inheriting the kingdom of God.
Christian teaching recommends being true to yourself, your true self, as someone known by God as his child. As children of God, we are included in God’s story and tell Christ’s story as our own story, reckoning ourselves as having died with him to self-interest and seeking to live in the light of sharing his glorious future in the kingdom of God. This is seen nowhere more clearly than in Paul’s teaching about the Christian life in Colossians 3.
In chapter ten, we noted that in Colossians 3:3–4 the identity of believers in Christ is tied up with our shared memory of having died with Christ and our future hope of appearing with him in glory:
You died [our shared memory], and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory [our defining destiny]. (Col 3:3–4)
To have our life hidden with Christ in God is synonymous with being known by God. Both refer to our personal identity as a gift from God and acknowledge that our lives are kept safe by him.
In this section, we consider how our secret identity relates to our everyday conduct in Colossians 3:1–14. A patient reading of this text will help us to answer the question: How does being known by God as his child and finding our identity in Christ provide moral direction for living?12 The passage is worth reading in full:
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Colossians 3 is full of both profound identity statements for believers in Christ and practical instructions about how to behave. With respect to our identity, believers in Christ are those who died with Christ and have been raised with him and whose destiny is tied up with his glorious appearing (vv. 1–4). We have made a break with the life we once lived and have taken off our old selves (vv. 5–9) and have put on our new selves, which involves being renewed in knowledge and in God’s image (v. 10). We are God’s holy, dearly loved, chosen, and forgiven people (vv. 12–14).
In terms of conduct, we are to live lives that are free from sexual immorality, greed, and unwholesome speech (vv. 5–9) and to act tender-heartedly and with love towards each other (vv. 12–14). Paul carries on with further directions for moral living in Colossians 3:15–4:6, with sections on gratitude and prayer and instructions for wives, husbands, children, fathers, slaves, and masters.
Several questions of interpretation must be answered in order to grasp the teaching of Colossians 3 concerning our identity in Christ and its relationship to Christian living:
First, what does the change of clothes language in Colossians 3:9–10, 12, and 14 signify?
The change of clothes metaphor reinforces the idea that our new identity calls for a new lifestyle. Or, to run with the metaphor, a new identity means sporting “a new look.” Any identity brings with it characteristic behaviors, and a change of identity necessarily means a change of behavior. So in verse 9, believers, having “taken off your old self with its practices,” need to put something on in its place. Having put on the new self, believers must clothe themselves (= behave consistently with that new identity) with compassion, kindness, and so on (v. 12), and “over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (v. 14).13
A tradesman wears overalls, not black tie; a firefighter “turnout gear,” not shorts and a t-shirt; and a judge wig and robes, not smart casual. In the same way, a child of God must take off the garb of the old self and instead put on love. “Know who you are and dress appropriately” is a good summary of the Christian life.
Second, what are the old and new selves in Colossians 3:9–10? Are they our old and new natures? Or are they some kind of corporate identity? How do they relate to Adam and Christ?
The old and new selves in verses 9 and 10 are not old and new natures, but rather the old humanity associated with Adam and the new humanity associated with Christ.14 The key to understanding the old self (Greek ton palaion anthrōpon) and the new self (ton neon [anthrōpon]) is to recognize that they are corporate rather than individual concepts. Verse 11 makes this clear: “Here [in the new self] there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” In this light, it would be better to translate the expressions as “old humanity” and “new humanity,” which fit the Greek anthrōpos (translated “self” in the NIV) and refer to the image of God in verse 11.15
For Paul, the old humanity is first of all a reference to Adam, and the new humanity is a reference to Christ. Hence it is no surprise that elsewhere Paul can speak of “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27; see also chapter eight) as another way of telling his audience to put on the new humanity. It follows too that Christ is your life (Col 3:4) if you have put on the new humanity, another way of speaking about faith in Christ. Adam and Christ, as representatives of the old and new humanities, are associated with rebellion against God and obedience to God, respectively, and are associated with contrasting lifestyles. Moo is right that
the contrast of “old self” and “new self” alludes to one of Paul’s most fundamental theological conceptions: the contrast between a realm in opposition to God, rooted in Adam’s sin and characterized by sin and death, and the new realm, rooted in Christ’s death and resurrection and characterized by righteousness and life.16
To put on the new humanity is to enter a new sphere of existence in union with Christ.
Third, how does our ongoing renewal in Colossians 3:10 relate to knowledge and to the image of God?
In terms of ongoing behavioral transformation, the new humanity is “being renewed in knowledge and in the image of its Creator” (v. 10). As James Dunn notes:
Here the exhortation makes more explicit use of the motif of Adam and creation, in terms both of knowledge and of the image of God, an unavoidable allusion to Gen 1:26f. For knowledge was at the heart of humanity’s primal failure (Gen 2:17; 3:5, 7), and humankind’s failure to act in accordance with their knowledge of God by acknowledging him in worship was the central element in Paul’s earlier analysis of the human plight, of “the old self” (Rom 1:21). Renewal in knowledge of God, of the relation implied by that knowledge (see on 1:10), was therefore of first importance for Paul.17
The growth in knowledge that is both the goal and means of the renewal in question is knowledge of God and of Christ and also knowledge of ourselves in relation to God and Christ; we are those whose true identities are hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3). Renewal into the image of God is the outcome of the process, and it is no accident that Paul has already said in the letter that Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15); “It is Christ who supplies the pattern for the renewal of the new self.”18
Fourth, are the racial, ethnic, cultural, and social distinctions of Colossians 3:11 obliterated or just relativized by Christ?
The new humanity renders obsolete the divisions of the old humanity:
Here [in the new humanity] there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. (v. 11)
Paul lists eight ways of categorizing human beings that are surpassed by the new humanity in Christ. Jews divided the human race into “Jews” and “gentiles,” or “circumcised” and “uncircumcised.” Greeks, on the other hand, tended to classify people into Greeks and “barbarians,” a derogatory term referring to “a speaker of a strange, unintelligible language.”19 If these first five terms indicate racial, ethnic, and religious divisions, the last two terms in the list which are also a pair, “slave” and “free,” pick up the major social or class division of Paul’s day. The reason for the appearance of the term “Scythian” in the list is less obvious. It can refer simply to a person from Scythia. However, it is likely that “Scythian” is “an extreme example of a barbarian.”20 If barbarians were thought to be culturally inferior, Scythians even more so.21 The list of eight groups in Colossians 3:11 makes it clear that the racial, ethnic, social, and cultural distinctions of the old humanity are not relevant for the new humanity in Christ.22
“Central to Paul’s theology is the claim that God’s ultimate gift (the gift of Christ) is given regardless of worth—the worth of ethnicity, status, knowledge, gender, or virtue. . . . Grace means not just liberation from individual guilt, but freedom also from prevailing cultural systems of value.”
John Barclay23
However, it is not the case that such distinctions are removed entirely in the new humanity. The household code in Colossians 3:18–4:1 indicates that “the Christian community is comprised of people who maintain their gender, familial and social identities.”24 Yet such earthly identities are not all-important in the new humanity where people “bear the image of the heavenly man” (1 Cor 15:49b). As Paul concludes at the end of Colossians 3:11, “Christ is all [-important],” and Christ is “in all [believers],”25 bringing unity to all by giving them all the same high status as God’s chosen people, even “slaves,” “barbarians,” and “Scythians” (see v. 12).
Fifth, according to Colossians 3, how does our identity in Christ give our lives moral direction?
Colossians 3 demonstrates how the identity of believers in Christ gives moral direction to our lives. If authenticity refers to living in accordance with who you are, those whose life is hidden with Christ in God the Father are to put on their new identity and dress accordingly.
To give the Christians in Colossae moral direction, Paul could simply have said the following and no more:
Get rid of sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, idolatry, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language and lying. Instead, show compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness and love.
But to read these instructions in isolation from their context is to misread them entirely. For Paul, conduct and character are firmly anchored in our identity in Christ and in our shared memory and defining destiny. This can be seen at a number of levels.
Colossians 3 opens in verses 1–4 with a powerful description of the Christian’s secret identity; believers died and rose with Christ, and when the powerful Son of God is revealed in glory, they too will be revealed as God’s children. Then in verses 5–14, Paul gives instructions for Christian living. How the two sections are related is made clear by the word “therefore” at the beginning of verse 5: “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity,” and so on. Christians are to infer from their heavenly identity that they must put to death what belongs to their earthly nature.26 The behavior that Paul enjoins in Colossians 3:5–14 is a logical inference of the identity that Paul describes in 3:1–4.27
In Colossians 3, our new identity as those who died and rose with Christ and whose life is now hidden with Christ in God gives moral direction to our lives. However, the focus is not merely on our present identity. Should you be true to yourself? Believers in Christ are to live out their new identity by looking in three directions:
Christian Self-Expression
1. The Future—Be who you will be in Christ—As one who died and rose with Christ, and will appear with Christ in glory, behave in a Christ-like manner (Col 3:1–4).
2. The Past—Be who you were intended to be—As a member of the new humanity, which is being renewed in the image of God, rid yourself of sexual immorality, anger, and lies (Col 3:5–11).
3. The Present—Be who you are in Christ—As a child of God, “holy and dearly loved,” put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and love (Col 3:12–14).
Should we be true to ourselves? According to Colossians 3, Christians are to live in accordance with our new identity in Christ.
A defining moment is a point at which the essential character of a person is established. It is an identity-forming event, something that makes someone who they are and flows through to their behavior. It can be an achievement or a failure, something you do or something done to or for you. It can also be something that happened before you were born, such as some national event or family experience.
Authenticity is living in accordance with your defining moment and performing your signature move.
A signature move, on the other hand, is behavior that sums up and expresses a person’s identity. Its performance distills someone’s character. It is a repeated action that has “your name written all over it.” It is not necessarily original to you, but doing it is the purest expression of who you really are.
Both concepts regularly appear in discussions about the lives and achievements of prominent individuals. Sports stars often seek to define themselves with reference to some crowning achievement and by some move for which they have become famous and will be remembered. Both are also of relevance to understanding groups of people who have shared experiences of one sort or another:
• A defining moment of people born in the 1920s might be growing up in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Accordingly, one of their signature moves throughout their lives would be thrift and frugality.
• A defining moment for Mohandas Gandhi was his part in the 1930 “Salt March,” a nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly in India. Accordingly, his signature move became passive resistance, which against all the odds led to Indian sovereignty and self-rule.
• A defining moment for Mohammed Ali was winning the world heavyweight boxing title against George Foreman in 1974 in Zaire, the so-called “Rumble in the Jungle.” Accordingly, his signature move was feats of against-the-odds athletic prowess, or to borrow a line from one of his poems, “floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.”
• A defining moment for Nancy Reagan was her “Just Say No” speech. Accordingly, her signature move was steely determination.
• A defining moment for Margaret Thatcher was her response to the Falklands Crisis. Accordingly, her signature move became expressions of courageous fortitude.
• A defining moment for Barack Obama was his “Yes We Can” speech. Accordingly, his signature move was optimistic action on tough issues.
• A defining moment for Nelson Mandela was his unjust twenty-seven year imprisonment, principally on Robben Island. Accordingly, and perhaps surprisingly, his signature move was the posture of forgiveness and reconciliation.
• A defining moment for Marilyn Monroe was singing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy. Accordingly, her signature move was attention-grabbing actions and performances.
What events define you? And what signature moves express your identity and character?
I could point to several defining events in my life: My upbringing in working-class Sydney, my father’s Austrian heritage, becoming a father, and the opportunity of a Cambridge University education have all undoubtedly left their mark. I’m sure that all of these things have flowed through to my identity, attitudes, and behaviors. Some of the consequences of those “moments” might be my ability to relate to people of all backgrounds, my taste for wiener schnitzel and enjoyment of the odd game of chess, my fondness for “dad jokes,” and my love of learning.
“The secure attachment of being known by God as his child fosters moral development and a direction towards others that is characterized by a propensity for forgiveness and a more humble understanding of one’s own and other’s frailties.”
Loyola McLean and Brian Rosner28
But in the deepest sense, the core identity of being known by God as his children and being in union with Christ brings its own defining moment and signature move. According to Colossians 3, the defining moment of all believers in Jesus Christ is something that happened two thousand years ago: we died and rose to new life in union with Christ (Col 3:1–4). It is that “moment of truth,” the memory of which defines us forever. It changes everything for us. And we would not be who we are were it not for Christ’s death and resurrection.
And the signature move that grows out of that identity is acts of love. Our conduct is to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient, and forgiving, all of which grow out of “love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Col 3:14). Just as our identity as children of God was forged through an act of amazing love, so too we are to live lives of costly, selfless, other-centered love. The defining moment of believers in Christ is our identification with the death and resurrection of Jesus, the ultimate expression of God’s love. Accordingly, our signature move is putting on love.
Indeed, the cross of Jesus Christ is the key not only to who we are, but also to how we must behave. If Jesus said to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27), too often we seem to have things upside down: us first, our neighbor when convenient, and God what’s left. Our new identity in Christ sets us on a different course:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)
Christ died not only as our substitute, to secure our forgiveness with God, but as our representative. In Christ, we died to living purely for self-interest. Jesus’s death sets an unforgettable example of loving sacrifice as the pattern for our lives. But it’s more than just an example that he has set. By faith we believe that we have died with him. The direction of our lives is set by that defining moment. Living authentically then becomes the task of living in accordance with our new identity and regularly performing our signature move.
“Paul’s metaphor of adoption for salvation . . . is a biblical metaphor that shows us an astonishing state of affairs: the high King, the Lord of the Universe, desires for us to be his adopted children. Thus, while God is holy and transcendent, he is not at a convenient distance. God’s gracious, loving call is, in fact, a threat to our autonomy, our deep and pervasive strategies to keep hold of our lives rather than losing them for the sake of Christ.”
J. Todd Billings29
It is not that other identity markers and what you do with your life are of no consequence for your personal identity if you are a believer in Christ. Your race, gender, family, occupation, marital status, and so on are important, but they are not all-important (see chapter three). Obviously, life events and experiences can have a lasting impact on your identity and conduct. But at the most profound level, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, what sets the course for your life and keeps it on track is your identification with Christ and imitation of him, and being known and loved by God as his child. Putting on that identity will determine the sort of man or woman, worker, friend, neighbor, father or mother, and son or daughter that you will become.
1. In terms of identity, what are both the positive and negative aspects of the current emphasis on living “authentically”?
2. As well as having your identity drive your behaviour, your behaviour can also alter your identity. Discuss this.
3. Belonging to Christ and participating in both his death and resurrection by the Spirit leads to changed behavior. Have you seen evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit—his presence and activity—in your life?
4. What is a “defining moment” in your life? Do you have a “signature move” that expresses your identity and character? Does the fact that your personal identity is a gift from God and your life is kept safe by him change your perception of these in any way?
1. Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (London: Harvard University Press, 1991), 81.
2. Karen Wright, “Dare to Be Yourself,” Psychology Today (May 1, 2008): 72.
3. Andrew Potter, The Authenticity Hoax: Why the “Real” Things We Seek Don’t Make Us Happy (New York: Harper Perennial, 2011), 6.
4. Taylor, Ethics of Authenticity, 74.
5. Ibid., 57.
6. Ibid., 40. The ideal of authenticity can lead to “anthropocentrism, which by abolishing all horizons of significance, threatens us with a loss of meaning and hence a trivialization of our predicament” (ibid., 68).
7. Ibid., 61.
8. Gregg A. Ten Elshof, I Told Me So: Self Deception and the Christian Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 12.
9. Cited by Peter Kreeft in “Identity,” peterkreeft.com, June 6, 2005, http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio/30_lotr_identity/identity_transcription.htm.
10. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: HarperCollins, 2012), 86–87.
11. See also Matt 7:17a: “Every good tree bears good fruit.”
12. The centrality of being God’s children to the identity of believers in Colossians can be seen in four references to God as Father (1:2, 3, 12; 3:17) and in their description as “faithful brothers and sisters” in 1:2 (see also references to other believers as siblings in 1:1; 4:7, 9, 15).
13. Some argue that Paul has baptism in mind in light of Gal 3:27 (“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ”) and the custom of putting on fresh, white clothes after being baptized. However, the Greek verbs for “taking off” (apekduomai) and “putting on” (enduō) are commonly used by Paul in a figurative sense (e.g., Rom 13:12, 14; 1 Cor 15:53–54; Eph 4:24; 6:14; Col 2:15; 1 Thess 5:8). Moo adds, “A ritual change of clothes as part of Christian baptism comes from the mid-second century” (Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, PNTC [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008], 266).
14. See the expression “the new man Jesus Christ” in Ignatius, Ephesians 20:1.
15. Moo notes that Pauline usage adds further support for this corporate sense: “The language of Colossians 3:11 strongly suggests that the ‘new self ’ is not a part of an individual or even an individual as a whole, but some kind of corporate entity. This suspicion finds strong confirmation in Ephesians 2:15, where Paul speaks of God’s intention to incorporate both Jews and gentiles in the church: ‘His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity (kainon anthrōpon) out of the two, thus making peace’ (see also Eph. 4:13). Similarly, we should recall that Romans 6:6 follows closely Paul’s discussion of the corporate significance of Adam and Christ in Romans 5:12–21” (Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, 267).
16. Moo, Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, 268.
17. James D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 225.
18. Moo, Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, 268. See also Rom 8:29a: “Those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.”
19. Dunn, Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, 227.
20. Moo, Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, 269. Emphasis original.
21. Dunn states: “That a note of contempt is intended is confirmed by the addition of ‘Scythians,’ tribes which had settled on the northern coast of the Black Sea and which in earlier centuries had terrorized parts of Asia Minor and the Middle East. Their name was synonymous with crudity, excess, and ferocity. . . . Josephus no doubt cites the common view when he refers to Scythians as ‘delighting in murder of people and little different from wild beasts’ ” (Contra Apionem 2:26). GNT quite properly renders the term as ‘savages’ [in Col 3:11]” (Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, 226).
22. Paul makes the same point in 1 Cor 12:13 and Gal 3:28 with comparable lists.
23. John Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 435, 567.
24. Moo, Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, 271. See my discussion of the traditional identity markers in chapter three.
25. Greek en pasin is neuter and could mean that Christ is “in all” things. However, the context favors taking pasin as masculine meaning “in all” people.
26. We could translate the Greek word in question, oun, “so, therefore, consequently, accordingly, [or] then” (BDAG 736) to bring out the logical connection between the two sections. The same logic appears in verses 9 and 10 in connection with the memory of conversion to Christ: “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self.”
27. The vices and virtues that Paul lists are attached to two identities: “the life you once lived [Greek zaō]” (Col 3:7; see also 2:20b) and “your life [zōē] now hidden with Christ in God” (3:3–4). The two contrasting identities that Paul sets up both have a defining destiny that shapes their respective conduct. The conduct of believers, on the one hand, is formed by the prospect of appearing with Christ in glory (3:4). The behavior of unbelievers, on the other hand, is marked by the wrath of God that is coming upon them (3:6).
28. Loyola McLean and Brian S. Rosner, “Theology and Human Flourishing: The Benefits of Being Known by God,” in Beyond Well-Being: Spirituality and Human Flourishing, ed. Maureen Miner, Martin Dowson, and Stuart Devenish (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2012), 79.
29. J. Todd Billings, Union with Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 21.