In the previous two weeks of Wednesday’s Word devotionals, we’ve been considering the two identities of every Christian: sinner and child of grace. I’ve kept each one relatively brief because WW is on the shorter side, so in today’s Grace & Knowledge email, I will continue and conclude this discussion with a more extensive article. (This is the main reason we introduced G&K last year; I pray you are encouraged!)
First, it must be said that we are always living out of some sense of identity. You are constantly telling yourself who you are and what you have inherited or been given, and the identity you assign to yourself has much to do with how you respond to the opportunities and difficulties of life.
Many Christians suffer from what I call identity amnesia, and it can be an incapacitating spiritual condition. It makes us drift and wander. We get lost and we don’t know what to do about it.
A proper sense of identity as a sinner and a child of grace, held and balanced together, will profoundly shape your fundamental view of yourself and radically influence how you live, right here, right now, between the “already” of your salvation and the “not yet” of your eternal homegoing.
There are three aspects to your identity as a sinner and three aspects to your identity as a child of grace that I want to examine.
Sinner: Not as Good as You Thought
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:8–10)
I would love to believe that my greatest problem in life exists outside me, not inside. But the Bible tells me something very different. Even though my environment has been broken by sin, my biggest problem is moral.
In Psalm 51, Scripture uses three words to describe our internal moral problem: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!” (vv. 1–2)
In these opening two verses, David defines who we are and captures the true extent of our need.
1. Transgression of the Rebellious
To transgress is to know where the boundaries are and willingly step over them. I transgress when I park in a spot clearly marked “No Parking.” I know I am not supposed to park there, but in the moment, I don’t care what the law says. I am focused only on comfort and convenience. I don’t want to look for another space, especially if it means walking further to my destination after leaving the car. Ruled by selfish desires, I willingly park where parking is prohibited.
Something similar happens in many other areas of life. We know God has forbidden what we are about to do, but in the moment, we simply do not care. In that moment, God’s will and the call of his kingdom and glory are not in our eyes nor ruling our hearts. Motivated by personal wants, needs, and feelings, I step over God’s boundaries, fully aware of the wrong I am doing but committed to doing it anyway.
“But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors […] If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law” (James 2:9–11).
2. Iniquity of the Soiled
Where transgression speaks of a particular variety of sin and its motivations, iniquity emphasizes the result of sin working within each of us. Iniquity is moral uncleanness, produced by indwelling sin. Sin within us is a moral infection that corrupts everything we desire, think, say, and do. There is nothing in me that remains untainted.
It is stunning to consider, but not a single aspect of my being is morally pure. Every infant except the Lord has come into the world with an untreatable condition, the pervasive infection of iniquity, and there is nothing I can do to change that. The presence of iniquity is total (it includes all of us) and comprehensive (it reaches every aspect of our personhood).
“For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness” (Isaiah 59:3; read vv. 2–13 for a devastating description!)
3. Sin of the Weak
If iniquity is moral uncleanness, then sin is moral weakness. Sin has left me weak, foolish, and incapable of consistently obeying God. Even if I were to desire always to do what is right, I don’t have the power to follow through. In my sin, I consistently fall short of God’s standards. Sin renders me unable to keep God’s law.
“For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (Romans 7:22–23; read vv. 15–25).
Child of Grace: Better Than You Can Imagine
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved […] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2, read vv. 1–10).
By the transformational power of his grace, God reaches into the muck of this fallen world and radically transforms his adopted children from what we are (sinners) into what we are becoming (Christ-like).
If transgression, iniquity, and sin are three words that describe our greatest internal moral problem, then there are three forms of life-transforming grace available to you in Christ. (Of course, there are more, but these three in particular will give you hope and courage as you face the reality of your identity as a sinner!)
1. The Grace of Forgiveness
It is amazing to think that all my sins of the past, all my sins of the present, and all my sins of the future have been fully and completely covered by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I do not have to work to excuse what I have done. I do not have to mollify my conscience with rationalizations. I do not have to ease my guilt with arguments for my own righteousness. I do not have to try to make myself feel better about what I have done by blaming someone else. No, I can stand before God just as I am, without fear, because in Jesus Christ I am fully and completely forgiven.
Anytime I work to erect some system of self-justification, I have committed an act of gospel irrationality. It makes no sense to try to justify my sin, because each sinful act—past, present, and future—has already been forgiven by the grace of God.
But forgiveness doesn’t just call you out of the hiding of self-righteousness and self-justification. It mobilizes you. The minute you begin to grasp the magnitude of the forgiveness you have been given, you want others to experience it. You want the people around you to know the personal rest and hope that only forgiveness provides. What really brings you joy is the people around you coming to know the One who has offered you such amazing forgiveness.
Forgiveness does something else, too. It makes you want to obey. Forgiveness draws your heart in love and thankfulness to God, and in your love for him, you desire to think, do, and say things that are pleasing to him.
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases […] as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:2–12).
2. The Grace of Enablement
Once confidence in God’s forgiveness has called you out of hiding to confess that you have lived the wrong way, something new will greet you: the fear that you don’t have what it takes to live as you should. This fear is well-founded. As described above, sin not only leaves us guilty but also unable. This is why we need the grace of enablement. Along with forgiveness, we need power.
That power does not come through some impersonal force. It does not come as enhanced personal strength. The power that God gives you is not a thing. God gives you a Person. To provide for you the strength you need to live in the way he has designed, God gives you the only thing that can truly help you: he gives you himself!
The Spirit of God enables us to desire, think, do, and say the things that fit within the boundaries of his plan and purpose for us. This is how every Christian can live with the moment-by-moment assurance that God will never assign a task without giving the grace to accomplish it. He animates and strengthens me with his presence, so that I can say “no” to sin and “yes” to the call of his kingdom.
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
3. The Grace of Deliverance
There is one final thing you need to know in order to understand the grace that has been bestowed on you: you are loved by a dissatisfied Redeemer. He will not rest from his work of grace until every last microbe of sin has been completely eradicated from every last cell of every last one of his children.
And so, he wars against sin on our behalf. We are never alone in our struggle for a single moment. We never have to deal with the temptations of a situation or relationship by ourselves. He is absolutely resolute in his determination that every one of his children will experience the complete spoils of the victory he gained over sin and death through his crucifixion and resurrection.
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:11–14).
Devastated but Amazed
While it is critical to accept your identity as a sinner, you must also live abundantly, courageously, and expectantly out of your identity as a child of God’s freely given and personally transforming grace.
Grace will turn your life upside down while giving you rest you have never known. Grace will convince you of your unworthiness without ever making you feel unloved. Grace will make you acknowledge that you cannot earn God’s favor, and it will remove your fear of not measuring up to his standards. Grace will confront you with the fact that you are much less than you thought you were, even as it assures you that you can be far more than you had ever imagined. Grace will put you in your place without ever putting you down.
Grace will enable you to face truths about yourself that you have hesitated to consider, while freeing you from self-conscious introspection. Grace will confront you with profound weaknesses and, at the same time, introduce you to newfound strength. Grace will tell you what you aren’t, while welcoming you to what you can now be. Grace will make you as uncomfortable as you have ever been, while offering you more comfort than you have ever known.
Grace will drive you to the end of yourself, while it invites you to fresh starts and new beginnings. Grace will dash your hopes but never leave you hopeless. Grace will decimate your kingdom as it introduces you to a better King. Grace will expose your blindness as it gives you eyes to see. Grace will make you sadder than you have ever been, while it gives you greater cause for celebration than you have ever known.
Grace enters your life in a moment and will occupy you for eternity. The famous Newton hymn uses the best word possible for that grace: AMAZING.
God bless,
Paul David Tripp
