Wordwatch - IDENTITY

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Identity! The issue is popping up all over!

I recently read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald saying that Donald Trump's Presidential campaign is based not on rational reason and facts, but on emotions, feeling and people's sense of identity!

The Gospel Coalition website has had two articles on the topic of recent days - One by Isaac Adams and another by Keith Getty about their great song on the topic 'My Worth is not in what I own'.

Interestingly our church bible study group has recently chosen the topic of 'Identity in Christ'.

The 'I' in S.H.I.N.E. Africa Project (the banner over all our honour/shame ministry) - stands for 'Identity'.....because Shame and Honour are intrinsically linked to IDENTITY

THE WORD

According to Dictionary.com the word originated from Latin around 1560.  In 'psychological terms' it relates to our distinctive characteristics, how we view ourselves, our uniqueness, our position in relation to others of our social group, our beliefs and qualities.

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In SCRIPTURE

It's not a word you will find in the Bible but it's a concept implicit in much of Scripture - not least in the Apostle Paul's epistles when he talks about being 'in Christ' and a 'new creation' and 'dead to sin' and 'alive in Christ' and ...

It's about a question of "Who Am I?". 

The three issues of SHAME, HONOUR AND IDENTITY when combined embrace the issue of Significance or Value - or another word which means the same thing - WORTH.

Worth is a matter of honour and it forms our identity.  In fact Dictionary.com lists 'honorable' as a synonym for 'worthy'.

From whom we seek honour, determines how we obtain worth, which then defines our identity.

Put another way - our identity is formed by what we think gives us worth/significance/value which results from in whose eyes we long for honour.

Yet the reverse is also true: Where we see our primary identity being, is the place (and people within that) from where we will desire a recognition of what we see as our worth, through the gaining or keeping of the honour we determine is needed to maintain that worth and thus our identity.

If we seek honour from people around us, we will do the things that they expect of us because its through their acceptance of us that we feel valued and significant and of worth.  We are essentially desiring identity as one of that wider group. Wikipedia describes identity as being both "relational and contexual" - in other words it is dependant on that which is outside of ourselves.

As much as the West promotes individualism as their mantra, every human being is essentially 'collective'.  No-one on this earth since the creation of Adam has ever been in existence without the presence first of other human beings.  We all enter this world in relationship with others and in a context. Eve came from Adam and we all came from the union of our mother and father.  As Stuart Briscoe says "When God created Adam he created an individual, when God created Eve, he created community".   We simply do not exist of ourselves or for ourselves or by ourselves.  We enter this world as helpless babies and exit this world this world as weak and aged, both needing to be totally dependant on others.  And all the years in between we live in inter-dependance with others.

I sometimes wondered why God created Adam and then Eve and not both of them at once together.  Scripture doesn't explicitly tells us in Genesis, but it does tell us in the Epistles ....that it reflects Adam's headship.  We also see God helping Adam to see he was made for companionship of other humans and so God was showing Adam that he needed Eve. Adam's time on earth as the only human being also gave him the opportunity to understand that his first and foremost relationship was not with his wife or other human beings but his spiritual relationship with God his Creator, Friend and Provider.

REPLACING THE MIS-PLACED

In our sinfulness, however we look to fellow human beings as our primary source of identity, instead of looking to our Creator.  We seek fulfilment, significance and worth from other human beings instead of from God.  We primarily seek identity 'horizontally' rather than 'vertically'. 

Its not that we should ignore those around us, but in God's order of things we are meant to have human relationships as secondary to our relationship with God.  Separated from God through sin, we are only left with the 'secondary' relationship with other human beings through which we desperately seek,  but never properly find, 'primary' fulfillment.

And thus our problem is that from the Garden of Eden to now, we have usurped  God's place in our lives.  Instead of primarily seeking to give God glory and honour and in return knowing the reward that only he gives of honour in His eyes as Creator, we are busy seeking to get glory for ourselves from others.  Glory for ourselves as an end in itself is never going to come from God. But we don't cease to seek the glory we now don't have access to, we instead seek it from others around us. But its an empty and fleeting glory.  Whether its beauty that passes or wealth that vanishes or material possessions that rust and moth destroy (Matthew 6:19-20), it will never fully satisfy as much as we pretend it does.  Whether its a desire to gain identity through physical 'assets' or psycho-social positions its all empty in the end.

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We were created to find our identity and worth in being God's child, sharing his life.  It is not until we turn to Christ in repentance and dependance, do we once again find our true identity and significance.  Until we cease seeking honour for ourselves and seek to honour God, we will never know the honour God wants to give us in Christ and as a part of His family.

Isaac Adams, an African-American, said in his article: "While I cannot concretely define what it even means to be black, I can say with confidence that any human identifiers (race, gender, etc.) cannot satisfy or save. God pushes back on our proclivity to over-treasure identity, reminding us that "there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). Paul is not abolishing the constructs of ethnicity, gender, and class. He's simply saying Jesus so exceeds these identifiers—he so defines and unites his people—that to hold any allegiance to them above him is unthinkable."

We have to be willing to 'lose our desire for personal honour' in order to honour God, 

if we want to receive the honour we so desire.

In our sinfulness we reflect our father the devil who Scripture tells us sought to 'elevate' himself.  He wanted honour for himself.  His pride and self-focus and desire to be as God and gain the honour that only belongs to God, however only got him sent 'down'.  His desire for 'up' ended in 'down'.

In contrast we as Christians are to be reflecting Christ who instead was willing to let go of 'up' and was willing to go 'down', but which God turned around and exalted him.  Christ's willingness for 'down' resulted in 'up'. (Philippians 2:1-11)

While we seek 'up' we will only get 'down'. 

We won't get the sense of fulfilment we hope for in this life and we will receive the ultimate down in eternal shame and rejection and 'nothing' to enjoy.

When we are willing to 'lower' ourselves, we will find God will exalt us. We will enjoy the fulfilment we were created for as we share in Christ's identity and we will enjoy eternal exaltation and honour and all the glories of heaven forever.

"He who seeks to save his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will find it".  Mark 8:35

Hear the words of Keith and Kristyn Getty's simple and profound hymn "My worth is not in what I own"

My worth is not in what I own
Not in the strength of flesh and bone
But in the costly wounds of love
At the cross

My worth is not in skill or name
In win or lose, in pride or shame
But in the blood of Christ that flowed
At the cross

Refrain:
I rejoice in my Redeemer
Greatest Treasure,
Wellspring of my soul
I will trust in Him, no other.
My soul is satisfied in Him alone.

As summer flowers we fade and die
Fame, youth and beauty hurry by
But life eternal calls to us
At the cross

I will not boast in wealth or might
Or human wisdom's fleeting light
But I will boast in knowing Christ
At the cross

Refrain

Two wonders here that I confess
My worth and my unworthiness
My value fixed - my ransom paid
At the cross

Refrain

By Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty, and Graham Kendrick
© 2014 Getty Music Publishing and Make Way Music (admin by MusicServices.org)                                                                                                                                                                        

Dressed for Supper: What's covering your shame - Fig Leaves, Filthy Rags or Faith's Robe of Righteousness?

photo credit - Creative Commons cropped

As we come toward Easter in our calendar, we are once again given the opportunity to ponder on the awesome gift God has given us in Christ - in His death and resurrection. Our sins have been forgiven and we have been reconciled with God.  But this is only because we have been positioned and clothed 'in Christ'. 

As a woman I am so conscious of the pressure in our world today to 'look good'. Fashion is a major driver in our society.  I just have to take a look at how many shops in a large shopping mall are taken up with clothing.  

As human beings we need clothes and they can be great helps for a covering to keep warm and protected as well as opportunities to reflect the creativity of our Creator and exhibit items of beauty. But the first clothes which human beings ever attempted to make had nothing to do with keeping warm, protected or being creative or appreciating beauty.

The first clothes were to achieve a covering for another reason. And interestingly the final clothes we will wear for eternity are also not about warmth, protection, creativity or beauty.

The first clothes

The first clothes were loin-cloths made by Adam and Eve of sewn together fig-leaves in an attempt to cover their shame.  They were trying to hide themselves.

Something had gone horribly wrong.  The relationship they enjoyed with God had taken a nasty turn.

They had done something which caused them to suddenly find themselves afraid to be in God's presence because of this feeling of shame that had come upon them. They instinctively felt exposed.  The honour they had enjoyed was lost. 

They had an intense desire to cover their exposure so they tried sewing a few fig leaves together, but even with their attempts to cover-up they still felt exposed so they then tried to hide.

It was not until God killed the first animal to make skins for them as a covering that there seems to have been any sense of release from their fear and shame.

This is interesting on a couple of counts:

1. Their own attempts at a covering was not enough

- though they became aware of their need, their own creativity, innovation, ideas, efforts, skill, resourcefullness neither made them feel any better nor gained any acceptability with God.

2. The death of the first animal for the benefit of some sense of restored relationship with God was for a covering 

- this was not for substitutionary death for guilt. Though they stood guilty as accused before God (and refused to admit it), they still felt shame and separation.  What God did for them was to solve their sense of naked exposure and 'cover' their sinful state so that they could walk once again with God if they were willing.  We often read of this being a first image of the later pattern of the Mosaic laws which demanded an animal sacrifice for sin and that it was a glimpse of the future 'substitutionary' death of the lambs and then The Lamb to cancel our guilt.  

But this does not seem to be primarily about an animal death for the shedding of blood for the cancelling of sin's guilt - this was an animal death for the provision of skins for the covering of sin's shame.

From the beginning Sin is about shame, and from the beginning sin's remedy is about shame removal.

Our further attempts at clothes manufacturing

Interestingly we have continued to try to do what Adam and Eve couldn't - to try by our own efforts to 'dress ourselves' in what we hope will be acceptable.  People hope to get to heaven because they believe they have been a 'good person' and done lots of 'good things'.  But Scripture tells us that even our 'righteousness' is like being dressed in filthy rags.  There isn't anything even slightly acceptable in our own efforts.  Just as being dressed in filthy rags would prohibit a person from entering a Buckingham Palace garden party with the Queen of England, they would also prohibit entrance to heaven for the eternal celebration.

What is interesting is that once again the terminology used is that of 'covering'.  Our efforts are not described as 'debt reducers' though we might think of them as that, but as a form of covering - another attempt at self-covering, just like Adam and Eve.  Again covering is about shame, not guilt. 

Eternal Clothes

A hundred years ago in the great houses of England, the family got especially dressed up to go downstairs to dinner (what Americans and we here in Botswana call supper).

As part of God's family, we have been invited to dinner, to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb....and we need to also be 'dressed' appropriately.

Neither Fig Leaves nor Filthy rags will suffice.

 Matthew 22:11-13 says

 But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there ca man who had no wedding garment. 12 And he said to him, d'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?' And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot and ecast him into the outer darkness. In that place ethere will be weeping and gnashing of teeth"

Our own efforts cannot provide what is needed for acceptance before God.  God is the one who sets the standard for acceptance and nothing less than the honour of total purity and holiness will suffice - something that is impossible without a new birth and and thus a new identity.  It is Christ's righteousness imputed to us in the New Birth that provides us with a covering not just for what we have done but for our very selves.  In Christ, God sees us differently - no longer shamed but honoured in His Son.

Easter is not only about sin's guilt forgiven important as that is, but is also about sin's shame covered.  At the cross Jesus bore both the guilt and the shame of sin - the physical death was the picture of what was happening spiritually for eternity - he was falsely accused and wrongfully shamed so that we could escape rightful accusation and legitimate shame. He endured spiritual death - total separation from the life and relationship of the Father, so that we don't need to. 

photocredit - Creative Commons

Our Lord Jesus won for us the clothing - the robe of righteousness - that will allow us to be properly and acceptably 'dressed for supper'! Hallelujah! What a Saviour!

Man of Sorrows what a name

for the Son of God, who came

ruined sinners to reclaim:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

Bearing shame and scoffing rude, 

in my place condemned he stood,

sealed my pardon with his blood:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

Guilty, helpless, lost were we;

blameless Lamb of God was he,

sacrificed to set us free:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

He was lifted up to die;

"It is finished" was his cry;

now in heaven exalted high:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

When he comes, our glorious King,

all his ransomed home to bring,

then anew this song we'll sing:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

(Phillip Bliss)