It’s a relatively well-known fact that every guy imagines he has some secret superpower. Jerry Seinfeld has a bit where he explains that men don’t see superheroes as cartoons, we see them as… options. In the 2000 movie Unbreakable, Bruce Willis plays David Dunne, a guy who has an awesome superpower – but doesn’t know it. He never gets sick. He survives a horrific train crash – without a scratch. In fact, he’s the only survivor! But David doesn’t recognize what he is. He believes he’s just an ordinary security guard.
Believe it or not, you may have the same identity problem as David Dunne. You’re probably defining yourself all wrong. You think you’re a normal, fallen human. That’s understandable – most people are. But when you became a believer, you were given an entirely new identity. In Greek, it looks like this: ?? ?????? It means “In Christ” and it’s one of the most significant terms in the New Testament. It’s a term that must be particularly significant to Paul as he’s writing to the church in Ephesus, because he uses “in Christ” or some similar variant in verses 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 and 11 – six times in the 11 verses we’re looking at and 39 times overall in the 6 chapters of Ephesians.
This is understandable: as Saul, his identity was as a Pharisee, a scholar, a zealot for his race and nation. He described how he once defined himself in Philippians 3:5-6
“…circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”
But then Saul met Christ on a stretch of Syrian highway, and his very identity was changed:
“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” (Phil. 3:7)
Looking at what followed, obviously this change in how Paul defined his identity had a pretty dramatic effect on how he lived out his life! But honestly, it hasn’t been as dramatic for me. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around what it means to find my identity “in Christ.” More often than not, I define myself based on what I do, how I perform and what I achieve. But this reveals just how much I find my identity apart from Him. So when I read what Paul has written to these believers in Ephesus, it hits very close to home.
Take a look at just the first couple verses:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies,
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
God blessed us in Christ and God chose us in Christ – He adopted us, changing forever our identity – so that we would be holy and blameless. In Satan are no spiritual blessings, no holiness. In Christ are the promised blessings, and so it is only in Christ that we will find those blessings.
In Christ. In Christ is the place for believers. In Christ is where God’s will for us is made real. In Christ are all the blessings of heaven; love, acceptance and salvation are found in Christ alone.
If you’re a believer, then you are already In Christ. You have been adopted, chosen, and – having been found in Christ and made part of His body – you have been given the Holy Spirit as proof. And now – because you are in Christ, sealed by the Spirit – you are being made to look like Christ himself. You cannot fail, because your identity has been forever changed. You are in Christ, and He will not let you go.
These are the biblical facts. But they’re hard to truly grasp, aren’t they? What would this look like in a normal day? How would this change how I see myself in relation to my coworkers? To my family? What if – instead of finding my identity in what I do and how I perform – I defined myself in terms of what Christ has done and is doing?
Of course, all of this assumes that we’ve put our faith in Jesus in the first place, that we define ourselves not on what we are doing – good behavior, showing up at church – but instead on what He has done for us on the Cross. If you have not trusted in Christ and bound your life to His – if you have not thrown away your old identity and discovered your new identity in Christ – then the blessings of heaven, the salvation that is the gift of God – is not yours. You are not in Christ. And that is tragic, because you cannot be made holy and blameless unless you are in Christ.
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