A complex question came over the electronic transom this
morning. It has at least two parts: (1) Is persistent sin (e.g., sexual sin or
desire) our identity, who we are; (2) Does the Lord want us to offer this sin
to him? The question arises out of the recent Revoice conference and other sources, where it
has apparently become fashionable (1) to identify one’s self by one’s
persistent sins; (2) to offer that identity to the Lord as a sacrifice as
though one is giving up something truly valuable in order to follow Christ.
First, Christians do struggle with persistent sins and a
disordered, misdirected sexual desire (e.g., a same-sex desire or a sinful
heterosexual desire) is among those sins with which Christians struggle. The
traditional Reformed understanding of Romans 7 tells us that, in verses 14 and 15, the
Apostle Paul was speaking about his Christian experience:
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh,
sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I
want, but I do the very thing I hate (Rom 7:14–15; ESV).
It is in light of these verses and
others like them that the Reformed churches confess, in Heidelberg Catechism 60, “I have grievously sinned
against all the commandments of God, and have never kept any of them, and am
still prone always to all evil…”. There is much speculation about Paul’s “thorn
in the flesh” (2 Cor 12:7) but
given his use of “flesh” as a figure for our sinful nature, we might just as
well think of it as a sin. Nothing humiliates the Christian quite like sin.
The first thing must do,
however, is to identify sin as sin and not as something else, e.g., as a virtue
nor as our identity. When one is born into a Christian home he is ordinarily
baptized. This is the Christian’s outward
identification with Christ. Just as we, under the types and
shadows, were commanded in Genesis 17:7–10 to apply the sign of the covenant
to believers and to their children, so Christians have always done with
baptism. Like circumcision, however, baptism does not itself confer salvation
or righteousness or new life. It is the sign and seal of those realities, which
are received only by grace alone (sola
gratia), through faith alone (sola
fide), in Christ alone. Baptism, however, does recognize our
external (Rom 2:28–29)
relation to the covenant of grace.
In 1 Corinthians 1:13 Paul says, “Is Christ divided?
Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” He is
trying to persuade the Corinthian congregation to give up their factions and to
find their identity in Christ. Sadly and remarkably he did not succeed. We know
from 2 Corinthians that there were those in the congregation who called
themselves “super apostles,” who denigrated Paul’s apostolic ministry. We know
from one of the earliest post-apostolic documents, 1 Clement, dated from the
very late years of the 1st century to the early years of the 2nd century (I
favor the latter), that factionalism continued in the Corinthian congregation
for more than fifty years after Paul’s ministry among and to them. Sin is a
tenacious and vicious plague.
Notice, however, that
Paul associates baptism with names. The point of appealing to our baptism is to
sort out our identity. Our baptism tells us our identity. Thus, traditionally,
at baptism, the child was named. His first name is his Christian name (the last
name or surname is his family’s name). His identity to the world, then, was
conferred upon him at baptism. He is, outwardly at least, a Christian. When the
Lord grants him new life and true faith (see John 3) and he embraces by faith all that was signified
and offered in his baptism, then he is longer merely a nominal Christian (i.e.,
in name only) but in truth. That is true identity. His name
really is “Christian.” For obvious practical reasons we cannot all, however, go
about using the same baptismal name but that is who we are. It transcends all
other identities, our ethnicity, our nationality, our sports affiliations, and
our sexual desires.
The world, however, tells us
a different story. By world I
mean I mean the biblical sense of that entity which is opposed to Christ and
his kingdom (e.g., John 3:16). It
wants, were it possible, to re-baptize us. It wants to change our identity. It
tells us and wants us to think that our disordered and sinful desires are our identity. Of course
that is a lie. However much a believer may struggle with sinful desires they do
not become his identity. Twice, in 1 Corinthians 6:20 and 7:23, Paul says, “you were bought with a price.”
Indeed. The one who buys a slave (which is what the Christian is) names him.
Our identity is “purchased by the righteous, suffering obedience of Christ.”
The shorthand way of saying that is “Christian.”
Romans 7 is brutally realistic about the ongoing
effects (and affects) of the fall. They are real but our sins do not define us.
They mark us, they scar us, but those who are united to Christ through faith,
by the Holy Spirit, who are adopted sons, by grace alone, through faith alone,
are defined by those realities and truths not by their sins. Our culture wants
to change that. Worse, our culture tells us that our sins are not only our
identity but seeks to turn the world upside down by making vices into virtues. This
is not a Christian approach to sin.
The biblical approach to sin is to name it for what it is, to
repent of it, and to die to it. That is, we must recognize what the truth is. Paul puts
it this way: “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God
in Christ Jesus” (Rom 6:11; ESV). That is our identity.
This is how we must reckon ourselves. This does not mean that Christians do not struggle with
sin or that “entire perfection”
is a possibility in this life. It is not. It does mean, however, that our relation
to sin has been fundamentally altered. We are no longer under its dominion (Rom 6:14). We are under God’s favor (Rom 6:15). We struggle with sin but we are not
controlled by it. That truly is not who we are. We are able to die to sin
because it has been put to death and we have been made alive in Christ.
—R. Scott Clark, Escondido
