Who do you say that you are?

by Ling Pui Yeong

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I remember being asked this question for the first time when I was three or four years old. At the time, I wanted to be a policeman, probably because I was watching way too many police shows with my elder brother. I’m sure someone in your life, perhaps one of your parents or an elementary school teacher, asked you this question at least once when you were young. And now that you have all grown up, are you “being” what you wanted to be? How would you describe or identify yourself? Who do you say that you are?

There are a myriad of ways to describe or identify yourself, but most commonly we define “who we are” by “what we do.” Our language, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, our behaviours, actions, and profession all define, to some extent, who we are. There’s nothing wrong with that. These things are indeed part of who we are as we live life. They distinguish one person from another. They give us our individuality. But it can become problematic when these things become our sole identification and understanding of who we are.

We want to and should teach our children the skillsets and knowledge they need so that they may grow up to be what they want to be—but first and foremost, we must teach our children the Gospel, so that they will grow up to want to be faithful children and loving neighbours.

What about the world and its standards of judging and assessing people? More importantly, how does it encourage us to accept its ways and unconsciously embrace its values? Unfortunately, in today’s cultural climate many people are plagued and confused by the world. Caught between the subjectivism of postmodernism and the virtue-signaling of wokeism (among other challenges), many people have become lost in a labyrinth of ideologies and worldviews. One of the unifying principles in postmodernism is the skeptical attitude toward claims of objective truths and claims of authority. And so, since the 1960’s there has been a shift toward the self as the arbiter of truth: the self determines what is true, right, and good. More recently, another cultural development has led people to be hypervigilant of any perceived “social injustices” (on issues related to racism, minority groups, the gender gap, and so on)—something referred to as being “woke.” Anything that can even remotely be depicted as oppression is vehemently rejected, giving rise to a “cancel culture” in which those insufficiently “woke” are harassed and hounded until they leave the public sphere or are even fired from their jobs.

When you look at the impact of postmodernism and wokeism on our culture, the result has often been the promotion of evil as the highest good—especially when you look at current social issues. But where do these ideas come from? Did they grow out of nothing? Do they really represent a positive progression in human culture? The problems we see today are as old as creation itself. When Satan sowed doubt in the mind of our first parents—“Did God really say…?”—that was the beginning of confusion of good and evil. Eve was deceived by the devil’s trickery, and Adam went right along with it. Adam and Eve sought to be like God—they wanted to decide what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil. In the process, they became less than what they originally were. The original image of God in them was corrupted; they lost their original righteousness, holiness, and more. Ever since then, their children have sought to ease their guilt wherever they can.

We must be reminded constantly that the ideologies of today are not mere cultural phenomena, nor are we mere observers of them: these are spiritual battles that we are engaged in. Thankfully, Lutherans have a useful tool to help us navigate issues like this—namely, the proper distinction between Law and Gospel. This is not merely a hermeneutical approach to reading the Scriptures, but it is also a useful lens through which we see and understand the world.

Our world often confuses Law and Gospel, so that it tries to find the Gospel (or at least, a worldly version of it) in the Law. When a person becomes aware of his unrighteousness and his lack of virtue or holiness, what can he do? He will try to soothe his conscience and find comfort in his own good works. By publicly displaying his outrage against the various “oppressions,” he proves himself to be a “good” person. This is a confusion of Law and Gospel when one seeks consolation of the conscience in the Law.

And because the world also teaches that what you do is who you are, the Law therefore becomes a defining feature of people’s self-understanding. It is in this Law, then, that people begin to place their sense of self-worth. But people can never find true assurance or peace in the Law. When social trends change or when such a person realizes he is unable to fulfill the world’s demand, he will need to find something else to fill the void of his unrighteousness.

But there is a deeper reality to be found in this life— another identity by which we may be known. Against the ideologies found in popular culture today and even our own egocentric tendencies is the message of the good news of Jesus Christ. Through His death and resurrection, we receive forgiveness of sins, are reconciled to God, and obtain a new and greater identity: child of God. As Paul says in Galatians 3:25-29: “Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”

Why is this “putting on of Christ” in baptism so important? In Colossians 1:10, Paul explains it this way: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” And then later in 3:9-10, he says: “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.”

Jesus is the perfect image of God. In Him and through His baptism, we are being renewed and given a new mind, a new heart, a new status. It is an identity not based on the Law but on the Gospel. This is a reality that goes beyond ethnicity, gender, and occupation. We have value not because we have done something good or great, but because Jesus has shed His blood and washed us clean. What unbelief and self-righteousness brought upon Adam and Eve and their descendants is now restored in Jesus. And more than that, through baptism, God the Father claims us as His own sons.

This new identity affects how we act (unlike in our culture, where how you act determines your identity). Our identity in Christ affects how we interact with our neighbours and how we walk in in this world. Vocation is no longer just something we “do”; instead, it is seen as “being” and “living” as a child of God. We want to and should teach our children the skillsets and knowledge they need so that they may grow up to be what they want to be—but first and foremost, we must teach our children the Gospel, so that they will grow up to want to be faithful children and loving neighbours.

In a world that is confused and misguided by all the “isms,” we boldly confess the faith because this is the way to true life. Who do you say that you are? “I am a child of God.”

Rev. Ling Pui Yeong is pastor of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Toronto, Ontario.