FALSE NARRATIVE: I AM JUST A SINNER,
SAVED BY GRACE

When we think about our identity, we often focus on the negative. Most people can tell you with great accuracy all of their shortcomings, the things they do not like, or even despise, about themselves: “I hate my nose,” or “I have no willpower,” or “I am so stupid.” Perhaps the years of accumulated criticism leave us feeling worthless and no good.

When it comes to our identity as Christians, there are many who will tell you that you are “just a sinner” or “rotten and depraved,” but thankfully God, through Jesus, has saved you. Some people believe it is right, even spiritually necessary, to think badly about oneself. They have been led to believe it is godly to dwell on their sinfulness. I have come to believe that not only is this not true, but it is a false narrative with harmful consequences.

I once saw a man wearing a bright blue T-shirt with bold white letters that said, “I am just an old sinner, saved by grace.” I asked him about it and he was eager to tell me; I think his T-shirt was an evangelism tool. He smiled and said, “Well, all of us are sinners. There is none righteous, Paul said, no not one—Romans 3:10. But God died for us sinners, and we are saved by grace—it’s a gift from God, and not because of our works. This shirt reminds me that I am just a sinner, always a sinner, but I am saved by grace so that I can go to heaven when I die.” He then asked if I was saved, and I told him I was. He smiled and said, “Good for you, young man.”

At the time, I did not have any retort or rebuttal. That was how I understood the gospel message at that time myself. I even, for a moment, wondered where I could get a T-shirt like his. Something feels right about this narrative: it provides an explanation for why we sin—we are sinners, and sinners sin. Sin is normative behavior for sinners. It lets me off the hook and takes the pressure off. Because we are saved not by our works, but by the grace of God.

There are certainly Bible verses one can quote to support this narrative, such as the one the man himself quoted that declares there is no one who is righteous. And that is true. No one can achieve righteousness, no one can keep all of the Law all of the time. We are human beings, fallen and broken, and prone to wander from the God we love; we fail to do the good we want to do, and we do the bad that we do not want to do (Romans 7:14-20). Of all of the Christian doctrines, the doctrine of the sin of humankind is the easiest to prove. Just watch the news. Or pay attention to your own heart.

The narrative “I am just a sinner, saved by grace” is very appealing. When we feel like the author writing in Romans 7, who confesses, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15), the slogan on the T-shirt seems like a welcome explanation: “I am just a sinner—sin is what I do.” And yet, the narrative brings with it a feeling of dissonance. Something inside of me is not comfortable with this confession, not because of pride, but because I know I am called to be something else. I sense inside that God has designed me and destined me for holiness. And there are dozens of passages that call me to it.

THE SOUL’S LONGING FOR PURITY

When I was in seminary, I read Søren Kierkegaard’s works. My favorite was Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing. I was so inspired to a life of holiness that I told God I was going to “will one thing”—to be “pure of heart.” But of course, I failed. I could barely go an hour without my mind wandering and falling back into my usual thought and behavior patterns. During the Christmas break I decided to get serious. I made it my New Year’s resolution: I would wear a purple string around my finger as a constant reminder to stay focused on the will of God (think of this as an early version of the WWJD bracelets). I failed, again and again. My father even said to me, “You look really sad and not well. Are you feeling all right?” I told him I was fine.

Thankfully I gave up on this practice after a week and never tried it again. But I did learn something helpful in my defeat: I felt a great deal of guilt and shame, assuming that my failure was a flaw in me. It increased my feelings of being worthless and weak. I was certain God was disappointed in me, at best. I had a longing to be holy, a desire to be pure in heart, but I was lacking the ability to do it.

One thing I learned from this experience that is absolutely true is this: we cannot be holy of our own accord. You and I do not have the ability or the strength to will the good, to be pure in heart or holy on our own. But it is not because we are sinners. It is because we fail to realize that in Christ we are saints. Our embodied souls long for purity because we are designed for holiness. You and I do not have the ability to be holy in and of ourselves. But God made us with this longing, and God provided the solution to it. We cannot make ourselves holy, but we have been made holy by the grace of God.

TRUE NARRATIVE: BY THE GRACE OF GOD,
I HAVE BEEN MADE HOLY

When I discovered the finality of the cross and the reality of the resurrection—that God, in Christ, has forgiven all sins for all time, and that Jesus rose to impart new life to those who believe—difficult teachings in the New Testament regarding holiness suddenly began to make sense. Jesus died to cleanse us and resurrected to fill, or inhabit, us. As a result, as believers we are people in whom Christ dwells and delights. And if this is so, then all of those passages in the New Testament that declare that we have been made holy make perfect sense.

Because this narrative—by the grace of God, I have been made holy—is so foreign to most of us, I had to spend a lot of time studying the New Testament to believe it. My assumption was that even in Christ our identity is as sinners, certainly not saints. But after months and months of studying the Bible, it became clear that we must as Christ-followers self-identify as saints.

To begin, look at how many of the Epistles are addressed to saints (italics added):

• To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints. (1 Corinthians 1:2)

• Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 1:1)

• Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons. (Philippians 1:1)

• To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae. (Colossians 1:2)

What is striking about this is that we will learn, from the letters themselves, that the people being addressed are not saints in their behavior. Paul rebukes the Corinthians for their claims of spiritual superiority, for suing one another in courts, for abusing the Lord’s Supper, and for sexual misconduct. As theologian Don J. Payne notes, “Paul’s Corinthian correspondence particularly reflects the fact that sanctification characterized Christians who were quite immature and, to state it bluntly, an ethical mess!” Clearly, he does not address them as saints because of their behavior—it is because of their identity in Christ.

One key verse that had puzzled me for a long time is found in my favorite epistle, Colossians. There we read: “But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:22 NIV, italics added).

How can we be holy in God’s sight? I knew that I was far from holy in terms of my behavior. If you asked me, “Are you as holy as Mother Teresa, or as holy as Billy Graham?” I would say, “Heavens, no! I am nowhere near as holy as those two luminaries.” And yet, Colossians 1:22 says that you and I are “holy in his sight.”

And not only holy, but “without blemish” and “free from accusation.” How is this possible? Certainly not by our efforts. I tried the purple string method and couldn’t last more than a few hours trying to be holy. So in what sense are we holy? And how? The answer is found in the same verse: Christ has reconciled us (the finality of the cross), and Christ has presented us to God as holy, blameless, and free from accusation. We are not holy because of what we have done, but because of what God, in Christ, has done.

This verse is not a one-off or an aberration. It is the consistent teaching of the Epistles in the New Testament that those who follow Christ have, by the grace of God, been made holy. Here is a sample:

• It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. (1 Corinthians 1:30 NIV)

• You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:11)

• And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10)

The author of Hebrews is following the same understanding of Paul—namely, that we have been sanctified, and it is by the “offering of the body of Jesus,” not our own works. But note that being sanctified is God’s will and design, and that being made holy is not temporary but is once for all time. And the author follows up that thought by stating that by the sacrifice of Jesus we have been made “perfect forever.”

• For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Hebrews 10:14 NIV)

Again, it is clear from our experience that none of us is perfect in our actions. We have been “made perfect” by the work of God. This is something you and I can never accomplish. Thanks be to God, it is something Jesus accomplished for us.

RELATIONAL SANCTIFICATION

Some have looked at these verses and declarations of our being holy or righteous and mistakenly referred to this as “positional holiness.” By this they mean that God has simply put the label “holy” on us—we have moved from one position (unholy, sinful) to another position (holy). The idea here is that Jesus has changed our outer identity, but not our inner character. This is the sentiment of the man in the T-shirt: “I am still a mess, but Jesus has declared me righteous.”

I believe this sanctification, this holiness we receive by grace, is not merely positional but is “accomplished,” as Don J. Payne describes in his excellent book Already Sanctified. And what is it that Jesus accomplished? He cleansed us and regenerated us, and he is now living in and through us. This was accomplished, it was completed—it is not still in process. It happened in and through the work of the Trinity, long before you and I were born. Jesus died for my sins before I committed even one. Jesus rose from the grave to offer me new life before I knew I needed it. He did it all; I did nothing to merit this. But upon my confession of faith and new birth, Christ is now my life (Colossians 3:4). I no longer live, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20).

Sanctification is accomplished by God. Our growth into maturity, which I will address later in this chapter, is a cooperative work between us and God; growing in grace is synergistic. But our holiness is something only God can and did accomplish for us. It is not in us, but in Jesus who lives in us. Our holiness is deeply relational in nature. Theologian Doug Moo puts it this way: “The Christian is not just called to do right in a vacuum but to do right out of a new and powerful relationship that has already been established.”

Dallas Willard used a humorous analogy to expose the futility of positional holiness—the barcode found on items at the grocery story. When we check out, the checker scans the barcode, and what registers on the screen is what the barcode says, not necessarily the contents of the package. For example, it may scan as a can of corn, when it is actually a can of beans. All that matters is what the barcode says. This is like those who assume they are made righteous by Jesus’ work—the content of their character is irrelevant. But this stands against the call to be conformed to the image of Christ. The change God works in us is not merely a new label, it is an ontological change. Ontology means “the nature of being.” Our nature is actually changed when we are in Christ. Something is truly different within us, even if our character does not yet match it.

Far more is happening than just putting a new label on us. Identity is relational, determined by who we are identified with: “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22 NIV). We were in Adam, we are now in Christ. “For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8). We were darkness, we are now light. Therefore, “walk in the light as he himself is in the light” (1 John 1:7). The relationship determines and directs the behavior. If it is just a label, there is no motivating power for ethical change.

One of the chief criticisms of the theological teaching that we have been made holy by Christ is that we are not holy in our lives. So what does it matter? Isn’t it enough just to pass the checkout line and have the barcode read “holy” when we are, in fact, unholy in our behavior? No. The New Testament teaching on our identity in Christ is this: our identity (the indicative—what we are) leads to and makes possible new behavior (the imperative—what we must do).

WHAT CHRIST HAS DONE

The change wrought by Christ was discussed in chapters six and seven: We have been cleansed by the cross (2 Peter 1:9), and we have been made all-new creations by the resurrection (2 Corinthians 5:17). Jesus is both the source and the motivation for our growth and transformation. The indwelling Christ—made possible by the finality of the cross—is a powerful motivating force for ethical behavior. Jesus has done for us what we cannot do, and the power of Christ now lives in us. What Christ has done compels us to what we can and now must do. There is both an actual holiness (Christ in us) and an aspirational holiness (being conformed to the Christ-form within us).

The best example of this is found in the sixth chapter of Romans. In chapter five, Paul states that “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). In other words, you cannot “out-sin” grace. This naturally led to Paul’s next question (which he no doubt had been asked), “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” (Romans 6:1). It is a fair question: Can we sin all we want? Grace is going to cover all of our sins, so why not sin as much as we like? The answer Paul gives is not ethical, but ontological—it is about who we are. Sin is not something fitting for our new nature in Christ. This is his argument:

The logic is clear: you have died with Christ and risen with Christ—you are in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin rule you. It does not belong with your new identity.

Notice that Paul does not say, “You can no longer sin.” In fact, the discussion implies that Christians can sin (and do). Paul’s revolutionary teaching is not that we shouldn’t sin, but that sin is not fitting with our new nature. Sin is destructive in nature. We don’t sin and think, Wow, that was great! I am so much better for having sinned. At most, we make excuses for it, but we know it is not good for us. It is not good for a non-believer either. But for a person indwelt by Christ, sin is a complete desecration, an act of vandalism on our sacred nature.

In Corinth, one of the questions among the new converts to the faith was, “Can we continue to engage in temple prostitution?” This question sounds absurd to us, but in Corinth in that day the Gentiles engaged in a kind of religious sexuality. Men would go to the pagan temple, offer a gift of money to the gods, and have sex with temple prostitutes. It was also a part of fertility rituals. So they wanted to know from Paul, “Can we keep doing this?” Paul’s answer: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!” (1 Corinthians 6:15 NIV). Once again his answer is based on an indicative relationship: Christ is in your body; therefore, the answer is no. He does not say, “No, God is against this practice.” He says, “No, it is not fitting with who you are.”

I find the words indicative and imperative helpful here. Indicative refers to what we actually are, and imperative refers to what we ought to do. The imperative, the call to be holy, is the natural outflow of the indicative, the fact that we are holy. Fleming Rutledge says it well: “The imperative is not only dependent upon but organically produced by the indicative, or declarative, proclamation.” Our growth in holiness is organic, it is natural. Sin, while appealing, is never natural in the Christ-follower. And growth in Christlikeness, while not completed, is the natural telos, or “end,” for one in whom Christ dwells and delights. Christ has cleansed us and filled us, for that very purpose. Each day I endeavor to remember who I am: Jim, in whom Christ dwells and delights. Just being reminded of this reality is inspiring and makes me want to live into my true identity in all I think and do and say.

CONSONANCE WITH THE CHRIST-FORM

This purpose is perfectly designed and built into the Christ-form of our souls. When I live into the truth that I have been made holy by Christ—not of my own making but by his—there is consonance in my embodied soul. When I discovered that by God’s grace I had been made holy in Christ, I felt tremendous release. I had felt like a fraud, claiming to be a Christian but inside feeling like I was not living as one. I began to live into the truth of who I am. The lies of the enemy—How dare you call yourself a Christian!—began to fade as the voice of the Spirit began to take precedence—“You are God’s wanted, desired, beloved, forgiven, alive, and holy child, not based on what you have done but on what God has done.”

And at the same time, I found a renewed strength to say no to temptation and sin. Believing that sin was desirable brought dissonance, while living into the truth that I am holy brought consonance. I was no longer “a sinner saved by grace” but “a saint made holy by Jesus”—that became my identity. Because, as Don Payne describes it, “to live in contradiction to that identity violates something essential. Living at cross-purposes with that identity actually creates dissonance.”

I think this truth is also essential in Christian spiritual formation. The lurking danger in Christian formation is legalism. The spiritual disciplines can easily become merit badges to earn God’s favor. But if I have been made holy by Christ, the disciplines cannot throw me back on myself. The disciplines for the spiritual life create space for more grace, to empower the already-present Christ-form in me to become more and more alive.

The other lurking danger in Christian spiritual formation, in my view, is the tendency to navel gaze. Formation folks are often contemplative and tend to isolate from others. We are also people who are easily enamored with personality types. I have dear Christian friends who spend more time studying personality types than the Bible, and who define themselves more by their type than by Jesus. This is not to say personality systems cannot be helpful. They certainly can be—for me the Enneagram has been beneficial in leading me to repentance. But these can also become an excuse for our failings.

THE PRIDE-FORM AND GRACE

In a chapter on holiness, it is important to say a word about sin. Fr. Adrian van Kaam’s understanding of sin has helped me immensely. He locates our tendency to sin in what he calls the “pride-form.” In addition to the Christ-form of our souls, we are also born with a tendency toward self-sufficiency and independence. This is often referred to as original sin. It is a kind of interloper in our souls, but a real one. Fr. Adrian uses a great word to describe it: autarkic. It is a desire for self-rule, a desire to be in control, a desire to be God.

The autarkic pride-form is the “original source of paranoid fears, excessive pleasure seeking, and anxious, overprotective, depreciative dispositions.” As much as we long for God, for the “more than” in life, we are easily led to eat the forbidden fruit that promises we can be our own god; the pride-form resists grace. Adam and Eve had no need, no lack, and no want. But within them, and within me, is something that shuts down the embodied soul’s need for connection, for true consonance, and settles for the faux connection found in most sins. The pride-form bottles up the life-giving sources of our soul in the pursuit of personal gratification.

But grace kills the pride-form: “The grace of God always kills before it makes alive,” wrote the great theologian T. F. Torrance. Grace can only be received in a state of humility—the pride-form is a clenched fist; humility is an open hand. “The grace of rescue from the treachery of the pride-form is available to every Christian,” write Rebecca Letterman and Susan Muto. The pride-form will always create dissonance, and is thus always at war with our embodied souls. Ultimately, for the Christian, “attaining a sense of self-worth means experiencing myself as fallible and frail, yet capable with God’s grace of transcending my frailty.” I am more sinful than I can imagine and I am more deeply loved than I can possibly hope. Love prevails, and when it does it is well with my soul.

And grace is the power that not only makes us holy but transforms us into Christlikeness. Many assume that grace is opposed to effort, that grace is paralyzed by any work on our part. In truth, more Christians are paralyzed by grace than saved by it. Dallas Willard writes, “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action.” Our sanctity in Christ must not inhibit our efforts to grow in holiness, but rather should inspire it. The Holy Spirit will never allow for passivity. As George MacDonald wrote,

Love is what made us holy, and Love is what is making us holy.

APPROACHING THE THRONE OF GRACE WITH CONFIDENCE

The thorn branch I wrote about at the beginning of this chapter now sits in a special place in my office. It is there because I love it. I keep it near me because it is sacred and valuable. Nearby sits one of my favorite photos. It is of John F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the late President Kennedy. It is a photo of him as a small boy, sitting in his father’s desk in the Oval Office in the White House. I love it because he is playing and he wants to be near his father, and his father wants to have him near.

What is striking about this picture is that it is taken in the office of the most powerful person in the world. You and I cannot just walk into the Oval Office, but this little boy could. Why? Because of who he was in relation to the one in power. This is a great illustration of those of us who are in Christ. We are God’s children, and the Spirit within compels us to cry, “Abba!” And God welcomes us, because God, in Christ, desires us, loves us, forgives us, lives in us, and has made us holy. This is why the author of Hebrews encourages us, “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). And it is why Paul tells the Ephesians, “In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence” (Ephesians 3:12 NIV).

Say this right now: “I was wanted by God before I existed. I am loved by God without condition. I have been forgiven forever, I have been made alive, and I have been made holy by the grace of God in Jesus. And I can approach God with freedom and confidence.” Try saying this for a week and see what it does to your soul.

That is the word of truth. It is not the word of this author, but of the Author of all things. Believe it. Trust in it. And sing and dance in the kingdom of God’s beloved Son.