In order to be true Dangerous Heretic, you need to know who you are in Christ. To the enemy, your identity in Christ is the most dangerous thing about you. Christians who are rock-solid in their understanding and belief about their true identity are unbeatable, because an accurate knowledge of your identity is far more important than your perfect behavior or your flawless thought processes.
Identity is so important that I wanted to make this the very first series of posts for Dangerous Heretics. If your identity is truly based in who Jesus is and in doing the things that Jesus called you to do, you will be labeled a Dangerous Heretic. It comes with the territory. And those who use that label are not the unsaved community. These accusations will, unfortunately, mostly come from fellow Christians. It’s part of operating in true Christ-like identity.
But what exactly does it mean to know your true identity?
We are born again, which means we have been saved by the gift of salvation bought by Jesus, through his death and resurrection:
“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:10).
But it’s way more than that.
We are eternal creatures, because we have been united in our spirit man with the Holy Spirit. The bible says that a new creature was created when we were born again, one which did not exist before. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
But it’s much more than that!
We have not only been placed in Christ but Christ has been placed in us through His Spirit. Being in Christ, that’s the only thing God sees when He looks at us. He does not see our sin. The Bible is clear that our sin has been removed, and God does even count our sins against us:
Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account (Romans 4:8).
For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And I will remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12).
And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more” (Hebrews 10:17).
In essence and in literal truth, God is not sin conscious. All your sins have been paid for completely, even the ones you have not yet committed. Paid in full. What this means is that if we sin, we don’t have to ask for forgiveness. It’s already done. Why would you ask someone for something they already gave you? It makes no sense. What we do is confess our sins, acknowledge that we did wrong, thank God for forgiving our sins, and ask Him for help so we don’t do it again.
There’s a big difference here, this is not just semantics.
We are already forgiven. God has forgotten all our sins. He has separated them as far from us as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). Sin is NOT the issue between you and God any longer. The issue now is renewing your mind in order to become more and more like Christ (Romans 12:1-2).
So this brings us into the topic of our identity. After understanding all this, who then are you at your core?
You are a perfect and blameless human being. The bible says that you are “…blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15).
This is not talking about our perfection in the sweet by and by, it’s talking about you, right now. There is no crooked and perverse generation in heaven. And it clearly says as such we will appear as lights in the world.
It’s biblical. I just read you the scripture that said it, so don’t disagree with me, you’re going to have to disagree with God.
But there’s more:
“He has now reconciled you in His body of flesh through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach” (Colossians 1:22).
“He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him” (Ephesians 1:4).
Spotless and blameless not in the sweet by and by after we get to heaven, but here “in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.” This means that right now, as you are, even if you consciously sinned this morning, you are perfect and blameless in God’s sight because when he looks at you he can only see the perfect sacrifice of Jesus. He has chosen to ignore the rest.
God ignores our sin? Now I can feel some of you may be getting hot under the collar. But that’s the literal truth. Your individual sins are not an issue with God. His goal was to cure you of your sinfulness, or your sinful nature. This is what Jesus did on the cross. And this is why Romans 8:1 is perhaps the most triumphant verse in the bible:
“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
No condemnation. None. If you’re feeling condemnation, it’s either coming from the lies of the enemy or from your own flesh or your unrenewed mind, but it’s not coming from God.
Am I saying that your sins are inconsequential? Of course not! Paul asked “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Romans 6:1). The answer if of course not!
Sins do not affect God’s love for you or the way He sees you, but they most certainly affect your ability to hear God’s voice, and they most certainly damage your horizontal relationships. Sin can destroy your health, your marriage, your relationships, your ability to work and hold a job, sin is nasty stuff! Like my friend Fred says, “sin makes you stupid.” I’m not saying sin does not matter, what I’m saying is that your individual sins do not matter to God relative to how he views you.
You are saved. Period. The battle for your soul is over. If you think you have to get re-forgiven, or if there is anything at all that you can physically do to “get back in good standing with God” or to sway his judgement against you for some sin you committed yesterday, then you are saying, literally, that Jesus did not suffer for you quite enough.
Think about that. This sin you just committed needs more than just the blood of Jesus to cover it, it requires some kind of action on my part as well.
This is, of course, nonsense. Jesus paid the price for ALL your sins forever. There’s nothing more you can do. This is real grace. It’s a free gift.
So we’ll end part one here, but please come back for part two. We’re going to discuss the biblical fact that your sins are not what condemn you. In fact, your sins really don’t matter that much to God. If that makes me sound like a heretic, well, you’ll have to come back to see why this is a perfectly sound, and powerful biblical truth!