REFLECTIONS

Written by Stephen Shead

How can you be your true self?

For many people in the Western world today, that’s the most important question in life – because the number 1 value in modern Western culture is authenticity. Things like kindness, patience, and honesty might be good, but what’s most important is to look inside yourself to find the real “you,” and then try to be that person.

But there’s a different question our culture doesn’t seem to consider: Do you really want to be your true self? What’s to say that it’s only the good bits of your character, or the parts you like about yourself, that are your true self? What if my true self is that I’m a compulsive liar, I take everything personally, and I’m selfish and lazy?

The gospel has a far better message, one which offers true security and hope. Jesus doesn’t say, “Live out your true self.” He offers you a brand new self – one “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

The key to that is the fact that faith unites us to Jesus. In particular, being “in Christ” means that we are joined to Jesus in his death and in his resurrection life. In Colossians 3, Paul says:

1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:1-3)

Our union with Christ means that Jesus’ death on the cross was my death – which is very good news, because his death was the full and final payment for sin. Jesus’ glorious resurrection life is our life as well. We experience the power of his resurrection life partially now, but we will experience it fully at the final resurrection of the dead.

Being united with Christ also means we now have a new identity. There’s a new “you,” and that new “you” is so closely connected to Christ that Paul can say:

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. (Galatians 2:20)

Through faith in Jesus, you have come alive to God, and that new life in you is Christ himself!

You can think of it the other way around as well: Your real life is now hidden with Christ in heaven (Colossians 3:3). The new “you” is the risen Christ! Whatever way you look at it, it’s impossible to separate the new “you” from Christ himself.

But none of that means that practical holiness is simple and easy. The reality, this side of Jesus’ return is, that there are now two “you’s,” and they are in conflict with each other.

See, here is how holiness doesn’t work: Our inner nature hasn’t suddenly become good. As we saw yesterday, practical holiness is about offering our bodies to God – but it’s not like the corruption in my body has disappeared and been replaced by pure rays of sunshine. The old you is still hanging around like a bad smell. Your natural self is still a “body of death” (Romans 7:24), infested with pride and selfishness, and headed for the grave.

Because of that, the call of the gospel is to live a constant process of putting to death the old self, and putting on the new.

22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:22-24)

Growth in practical holiness is about constantly striving to be, not your true self, but your new self. Or as writer Kevin DeYoung says:

God does want you to be the real you. He does want you to be true to yourself. But the “you” he’s talking about is the “you” that you are by grace, not by nature. (Kevin DeYoung, “The Hole in Our Holiness”)

And as we constantly put to death the old and put on the new, we look forward to the day when we will be raised in perfect bodies that are like Jesus’ glorious resurrection body. On that day, the only “you” will be the Christ-shaped one. Your new self really will be your true self.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen is our senior minister.