Identity (Part 1): Who Are You?
“Who are you?”
How would you answer such a question?
Whatever you say, you are identifying yourself—as an individual, a worker, a son or daughter, a foodie. You are telling who you are, what you are, and maybe even why you are. All of it is founded upon your understanding of yourself, your identity.
Identity is crucial.1 Identity not only defines how we introduce ourselves, but also dictates how and why we live. Through our identity, we interpret the world, understand relationships, choose our actions, have stability, and worship. We all have a picture in our minds of who we are, what we do, what we like, why we exist, etc.
Our problem is that there are a billion voices clamoring to define who and what we are. Teachers, news pundits, influencers, politicians, CEOs, sociologists, movies, YouTube, ads, pastors, parents, friends, our own sin. It doesn’t even have to be explicit persuasion; it could be as innocuous as a question.
For example, the question, “Hey, where did you go to college?” assumes that you went to college, which may or may not be true. What if you went to trade/technical school, worked right after high school, went to the military, etc.?
That’s a somewhat harmless question, but there are much more serious questions. For example, the question “Well, what do you feel like doing?” implies that what you feel—not wisdom, not truth, not reason, not logic—matters most in decision making. A much more recent question, “What are your pronouns?” insinuates that gender is fluid and defined by the will of an individual. Both questions subtly redefine the essence of humanity.
The Modern Therapeutic, Postmodern, Secular Worldview
Phillip Rieff has identified four broad movements describing how our self-identification has changed throughout human history:
The political self (our relationship to government). “I am Roman, I am a Macedonian.”
The religious self (our relationship to a god). “I am a Hindu. I am a Muslim.”
The economic self (our relationship to economy/work). “I am a salesman. I am mechanic.”
The therapeutic self (our relationship to our feelings). “I feel like...”
But in a more recent book, Dr. Carl Trueman argues that we are mostly driving under the influence of the therapeutic, giving priority to how we feel above all else.2 As the revolution has progressed, it is morphed into a siren song composed of three parts: the therapeutic, postmodernism, and secularism.
1. Therapeutic
This is the belief that my highest good is to have my most immediate desire realized. This leads to believing that I ought to be affirmed in all of my choices, to be intimate with whoever I want, to marry whomever I want, to change to whatever gender I want, etc.
It’s the worldview that I am entitled to good things simply because of how I feel, and my biggest problem is that I have suffered and am a victim. The solution to every issue is therefore therapy. Such relabels sin as personal choice, and immorality as freedom.
The biblical words for this worldview are “selfishness” and “childishness” (1 Cor 13:11). Throwing a tantrum in public to get your way used to be frowned upon. But now, if you put your tantrum against ‘bigots’ on Twitter or TikTok, you’re a hero.
2. Postmodernism
This is the belief that all truth is relative and not absolute. What I want is good for me; what you want is good for you, a worldview summarized by the phrase, “You do you.” In reality, no one is a consistent post-modernist, which means that everyone’s a hypocrite. We all believe stealing is wrong if we’re the one being stolen from!3
Biblically, believing a lie is called self-deception (Rom 1:18-21), a suppressing of the God-given conscience that we know there is a God, that we are guilty when we break His law, and that we stand under His judgment.
3. Secularism
This encompasses both materialistic atheism (which says there is no god and that humans are merely bags of flesh) and the “spiritual but not religious” (i.e. pick and choose whatever you fancy religion.) This is both the elevation of human knowledge (i.e. science) to the highest authority and the attempt to purge God from public discourse and public life. Secularism tends to make a society not just progressive but transgressive, that is, committed to violating traditional understandings of the world and humanity.
The biblical word for someone who denies God’s existence and authority is “fool” (Psa 14). The biblical word for worshipping false gods is idolatry, and God mocks such worshippers inconsistency and hypocrisy (Isa 44).
Summary
The therapeutic, postmodernism, and secularism.—the three parts to the modern siren song of sin. In a phrase, it’s radical selfishness. The main point is that this modern worldview is morally bankrupt, opposed to Christianity, and the fountain of all sorts of ill in our world.
A Christian Understanding of Identity
But where do we go from there? More than deconstructing the modern worldview, I want to construct a positive Christian understanding of identity. Who are you really? Contrary to what the world says, you are not primarily what you feel; you are not living in world of meaningless relativity; you are not an independent, purposeless being.
To construct a positive understanding of identity, the typical move is to go to the person and work of Jesus. But, my fear is that will be almost counter productive because of the influence of the modern radical selfishness, such that when you hear the sentences like “Jesus died and rose for you” immediately your minds focus on one word: you.
You and I instinctively, naturally, sinfully, hear that sentence, “Jesus died and rose for you” and think: “Well, what good is that for me? Why should I care? If that’s true, then why is my life so hard?” We shift the spotlight from Jesus to self. Why? Because we are fish that swim and breathe the therapeutic, postmodern, secular worldview. We have taken the world’s worldview wholesale; it is the lens we wear that we don’t even realize we have. Instinctively, impulsively, incessantly you’re selfish. So am I.
When we hear “Jesus died and rose for you” we should be asking, “Who is Jesus? Why would He die and what does that mean? How did Jesus resurrection from the dead change everything?” Yet, too easily we co-opt the teaching of Scripture and make it about ourselves!
Who is God?
So in an effort to fight that, instead of starting with us, we’re starting with God. Instead of asking, “Who are you?” I want to ask, “Who is God, and who does He say we are?”
“Who is God, and who does He say we are?”
That’s the right question because the corrective to therapeutic, postmodern, secularism is the same corrective to any unbiblical worldview: a God-worshipping, God-centered, God-saturated, God-entranced, God-obsessed Christianity defined by the inerrant Word of God.
The right answer to “Who am I?” the question of identity, is “I am who God says I am.” God created reality, not you. God determines truth, not you. God demarcates good and evil, not you. God defines you, not you. Why? Because He is God! He has the right! You and I do not!
We see these truths in Psalm 100. This short psalm teaches us who God is. And through this God-saturated lens, when we see who God is, we will also see who we are.
The Lord is to be Praised (Psa 100:0-2)
100: A PSALM FOR GIVING THANKS.
100:1 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!
100:2 Serve the LORD with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!
Psalm 100 is a call to worship given to all the earth. It’s as if the psalmist is a praise leader intent on getting the entire world to join in his song!
Look at all the commands:
v1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord!
v2 Serve the LORD. Come into His presence
v3 Know that He is God
v4 Enter his gates. Give thanks, bless his name.
He urges not just his family, not just his friends, not just those he likes, but all the earth to come and shout to God in triumphant joy, to celebrate Yahweh with zeal, to worship Him with songs. Glory in Him! Praise Him with great praise! Shout His wonders from the mountain tops!
But what should the earth praise God for? Why is God worthy of songs and joy? Who is this God?
The Lord is God (Psa 100:3a)
The psalmist calls all the earth to know:
100:3 Know that the LORD, he is God!
It is he who made us,
God is the Creator God—God over light and darkness, God over the land and the sea, God over all creatures of the earth and heavenly beings, the God who made man from dust and woman from man’s side. He is the Creator King, the First Cause, the Ruler and Owner over all, even you and me.
The Lord, He is God. As God, He is the only one who can answer the identity question, “Who are you?” with “I AM WHO I AM.” (Exod 3:14). “I AM WHO I AM” means that He is the self-existent One, the only One who defines Himself by Himself, who is not qualified or limited by or moved by anything outside of Himself.
He is the source of life; everything else is derivative. He is Creator; everything else is His creation. He is God; everything else is not. If you’re into philosophy, God is the Unmoved Mover, the immovable First Cause. He alone is God.
When Satan tempted Eve in the garden, he promised her that if she ate the fruit, “...you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). Ever since then, man has been living in futility, attempting to usurp God and His authority. Pride, prayerlessness, idolatry, selfishness all stem from the delusion that we can take God’s place on His throne. But divinity, God-ness, is not something that can be achieved. No matter how powerful you become, even if you were to reach ‘superhuman status’ via fame and fortune, you would be no closer to being God than the moon is to being the sun.
The Lord, He is God. The Lord, He alone is God. He is self-existent, unique, God over all, completely other, holy/separate from creation, He who is before and above all things. As God, “from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen” (Rom 11:36, NASB).
From Him are all things. He is the fount and source, and He makes all things. That includes you.
Through Him comes everything that comes to pass. Nothing is outside His authority; nothing surprises Him; His sovereign plan encompasses all. That includes every event of your life.
To Him all things point as their purpose and end. Everything exists for Him. That includes your past, present, and future.
To Him be glory forever, because He alone deserves all praise.
This is our God, highly exalted above the heavens, glorious over all, indescribable in His perfections and beauty.
The Lord is Good (Psa 100:5)
But the Lord is not only God. He is good. Jump forward with me to v5.
100:5 For the LORD is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
For the LORD is good. “Good” here is not like “a little less than great.” It’s a moral goodness, a description of God’s whole character. He is fundamentally good, unflinchingly good, uncompromisingly good.
And as the One who is perfectly good, all that He does is good and ultimately is for good. There is no shadow to His light, no hint of imperfection in His goodness.
His steadfast love endures forever. Steadfast love is God’s loyal, covenant-keeping, faithful, relational, never-ending love. It is His love that perseveres, that endures, that never diminishes or fails even when the one He chooses to love fails and is undeserving of such love. It is His commitment to do good founded not upon the goodness of the one He loves (for who is good except God?) but a love founded upon His own goodness.
And his faithfulness to all generations. God’s faithfulness is His steadfastness, trustworthiness, truthfulness. It refers to His reliability and dependability to be what He says He will be and to do what He says He will do. He who trusts in Him will never be let down.
His steadfast love endures forever. His faithfulness is from generation to generation. God never changes. This means that yesterday, today, and forever, He is the same, and therefore He is the firm foundation that will never fail, and those who stand upon Him will never fall.
This is our God! Good in all His ways, full of lovingkindness, unfailingly faithful.
We have glimpsed at God’s perfections. Now we can ask the identity question we started with. I’ll do that in the next post.
Footnotes
The following summarizes two lectures given by Dr. Josh Kira on 2023.06.23 and 2023.06.30 at Lighthouse Community Church for the high school ministry. ↩︎
Truman, Carl. The Triumph of the Modern Self. https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Triumph-Modern-Self-Individualism-ebook/dp/B089DNYCDY/ref=sr_1_1? ↩︎
Postmodernism is a pretty easy worldview to defeat. If anyone ever says “All truth is relative” to you, just as ask, “Is that statement—“all truth is relative”—absolutely true?” Claiming that there is absolutely no absolute truth is nonsensical and self-defeating. See also https://theartofgodliness.com/blog/20151212/the-theory-of-relativity ↩︎