Identity in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17)

 

We seek to take every thought captive to Christ – 2 Cor.10:3-5. To do that we need some grasp of our times – 1 Chron.12:32. Blaise Pascal: ‘When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in an eternity before and after, the little space I fill engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified … The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me.’

  1. The Christian is in Christ.
    • the word ‘Christian’ is only found in the New Testament three times – Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Pet.4:16. The believer in Christ takes on the name of Christ, and is a new creation (2 Cor.5:17).
    • In A.D.177 Vettius Epagathus in Gaul was asked: ‘Are you a Christian?’ He answered: ‘I am.’ And so he was martyred.
  2. The curse of identity politics.
    • In the 1950s Herbert Marcuse discovered a new set of victims: dark-skinned people, women, and homosexuals – ‘Marx’s stepchildren’ (Noel Weeks). This confuses virtue and victimhood.
  3. Who am I?
    • Gen.1:26-27. Augustine lamented: ‘I could not find myself, much less find You.’ Christ is the visible image of the invisible God (Col.1:15).
    • Eph.4:22-24; 2 Cor.3:18. In July 1944 Dietrich Bonhoeffer was in write his poem, Who Am I?:
      Whoever I am, You know, O God, I am Yours.