What is Me?

For those of you who follow this blog, you know that I think somewhat uniquely. Today I want to take up the challenge of defining what ‘you’ are. I’ve heard frequently about how we need to die to self, because ‘you’ are not holy. I think that we as Christians need to be extremely cautious and careful with the words and definitions of those words that we choose. In one moment we can say that God loves you, and that He accepts you just as you are, so come to Him for salvation, and then we turn right around in the next statement to say that you need to die to self, you are a sinner, the sinful nature cannot please God, and all sorts of statements like this.

I have a difficult time with this.

Why is it that Jesus would come to give us life and life abundantly, and then expect that we should only die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die and die? Are these contradictions? If they are, then why do we continue to teach them? If they are not, then what exactly is being expressed?

Lets start with a simple statement.

Salvation is based upon new birth. What does that mean? The new birth goes back to prophecies like Ezekiel 36:26 and Jeremiah 31:33. Now, if we read the context, it is quite obvious that what is being spoken of is intended for national Israel. Let’s look at these two verses in specific. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel) “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah)

When we read our New Testaments, we find the teaching of the apostles declaring that this has already broken forth. For example, “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on the tablets of human hearts,” 2 Corinthians 3:3. “He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,” Titus 3:5. “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty consciences and having our bodies washed with pure water,” Hebrews 10:22. “In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” 1 Peter 1:3.

I think that this is what we’re talking about with the “dying to self” thing. We die to self, which is to say, our old man. What is the “old man”? The old man is the person that we had become before conversion, the one destined to destruction. There were habits, mindsets, attitudes, sinful ambitions, greed, lust, anger and bitterness, and all sorts of evil built up in that old ‘you’. But when we come to Christ, when we enter the Kingdom of God, that heart of wickedness is taken out and replaced with a heart of flesh – the heart that desires only to do what is good and right. Where, then, is there room for statements of dying to self? Our self is no longer evil. Therefore, Paul boldly proclaims, “He who is in Christ is a new creation; behold, ALL things are become new.”

I actually have a problem when people say that we are continually supposed to die to self. I think it is semantics, though. We are indeed to die to the flesh – that old nature – and live from the power of God. We conform no longer to the pattern and mindsets of this world, but are instead transformed by the renewing of our minds. To this I give a wholehearted amen. My contention, then, is simply on the word “self”. What do we mean by this?

David, for example, in Psalm 56 asks the question, “What can mortal man do to me?” If we really think about it, especially when we look at the context of the Psalm, man can do a lot to David. He is already being persecuted. He is already being slandered and tormented by evil men. Obviously, mortal men are already doing something to him. So, the question can’t be about whether men can harm David physically or socially. The question seems to imply a different definition of the “me” that David is speaking of. What David is speaking of is the new man. It is who David is in the deepest depths. This is who David is in God – who the Maker has created David to be.

Let us go back to the initial difficulty.

Why is there always so much language about death? It seems to me that if you’ve died with Christ and been raised by the glory of the Father that you’ve already died and don’t need to keep dying. This is true. You’ve entered into new life, and therefore you don’t need to any longer “die to self” – unless, of course, you haven’t truly died to self. So, the question is no longer about “me” at that point, but instead about the sin that lives in me. As Paul says, “It is no longer I that sin, but the sin that dwells in me.”

The ‘you’, the ‘me’, it is speaking of who Christ has made us to be. It is speaking of that deep depth of who we are. There is nothing in that that needs to be put to death. When we come to Christ, we find that we’re not living from who God has made us to be. The essence of our being has been suppressed and cast aside – covered over with masks and supposed personality traits – twice dead. We indeed were dead in our trespasses and sins, but don’t neglect that Christ has made us alive through resurrection!

What we need to ask is two things. Does my life conform to how Scripture says I am to live and act? Am I living from who God has intended me to be, instead of someone else’s projection what what “Christ-likeness” is (including my own projection)?

To conclude, then, I hope this is freedom for some of you. Some of you have been oppressed and suppressed through language of dying and always needing to repent and surrender over to God. Have I sinned today? My conscience is clear – God is my judge; I do not even judge myself. Why should I repent of something that I don’t know about? What is the point of that? And if I repent simply because I’m “supposed to”, then is it really repentance? What is more important to me is answering those two questions in regards to everything I do. Am I living out of who God has made me to be, and have I projected a false image of what that means by misinterpreting – or completely ignoring – the Scripture? At the end of the day, those two things are truly what it all comes down to. It is all based upon living out of the core of who you now are in Christ – from the new heart – which is to say, to live out of love for your neighbor.

There is no greater love than this: to lay down your life for your friends. Paul even says that “I die daily”. But there is a significant difference between the dying to self when we enter the Kingdom and Paul’s daily death. It was self-sacrifice on behalf of others – HUGE difference. The wisdom of God is manifest in that when I die, or suffer, on behalf of others, life is imparted to them. This “death” is not about dying or suffering, but about serving. It is about taking up ultimate purposes. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:6, “If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer…”

The cross is experienced in the life of the believer once and for all to die to sins, and taken up again to give our lives as a ransom for many. Death and suffering are never glorified, but rather the life and power that come as a result of sacrifice. If we are focusing upon the death and suffering, then we have left the Christian faith. The beauty of the cross is found in the power over death itself, and not in the “Jesus died for me” alone. Why is it that Jesus’ death moves us? Is it simply because He died while I was still a sinner? Or is there something beyond that? I think that what moves us is the significance of the act, and not the act itself. Through His death, He has brought life. Through His resurrection, He has secured eternal salvation for all who come to Him. Likewise, we take up our crosses and follow Him.

Sin and Death

            Toward the end of 1 Corinthians, we find a verse that helps us to explain the connection between sin and death. Interestingly, the two words are not used as we commonly use them today. The reference is, of course, 1 Corinthians 15:56: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” Notice here that death is not necessarily the thing that happens at the end of life, for we simply don’t know if there is or is not a sting in that death. Instead, death seems to be something that we all know exactly what is being spoken of. It is a daily thing, suffering the normal aspects of life. Because the sting of death is sin, we see that sin is something that has us in its grips. Death is defined as a moment-by-moment decision to continue in the bounds of sin, or to step out through the cross of Christ Jesus to choose life. We are given the choice, and if we choose death, then we shall face death ultimately (reference Revelation 20:14).

            What shall we say of sin? If death is moment by moment because of sin, then we must ask what we mean by sin. For many, sin is the action that offends God. It is the disobedience to the law of Christ. However, we’ll see later in this section why exactly that cannot be. Sin is a power. It is a condition. We cannot relieve ourselves from the grips of sin. It takes a supernatural work to break the chains of sin. It is at work in our members so that when we were once under the law of sin and death, we found that no matter how greatly we desired to obey the law, we did the very things we did not want to do. We strove to obey God’s commands, but there is something at work within us to prevent us. This prevention is actually not some sort of human nature, but rather a sin nature. It is a secondary nature that has been put upon us.

            The actions called sins are not to be understood as the “end all be all”. Instead, we should understand that the actions are a result of something deeper. There is an inward working of death in our mortal bodies. We are increasingly being moved further and further away from God and toward death. Sin reigns in our bodies, and therefore we are stuck in the grips of death – to be absent from God. It is our sin that separates us from God, but sin of what kind? Certainly it is not the petty shortcomings that we all face, for when we are in Christ there is no condemnation. No, this sin being expressed by Isaiah the prophet is an inward reality of death having its way in our members. It is a condition, a disposition, and that without remedy.

            Now, what is meant by Paul when he says that the power of sin is the law? In Romans 7, he establishes the fact that the law is not unholy, nor evil. On the contrary, the Law is the mechanism that God used to express His heart to us. It is holy, holy, holy. When Paul uses the term “law”, it needs to be understood in the context of two kingdoms. There is a wisdom of the kingdom of darkness that says we can do on our own strength. To walk according to the law is to say that God has given us His ‘manual’ and we only need to live in accordance to it. After all, we do read the B-I-B-L-E – the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. To view the Scripture in this manner is to take the holy things of God in a carnal manner – walking out our faith by our own strength and power – and thus utilizing the wisdom of demons to achieve a preconceived notion of righteousness. Thus, we are not simply talking about the law in content, but the law in practice. It is not just the law, but the law manipulated through the wisdom of this age.

            It is all about self-preservation. Because we know what God commands, we can perform these regulations in order to attain unto righteousness. However, righteousness comes through faith and faith alone. To trust in the works of the law is to trust in sin and death, for through the law sin came. In the ever-nagging question of whether we’re supposed to obey the Torah, we want to answer question number two without asking question number one. The first thing to answer is whether we have indeed established our righteousness upon faith, or whether we in fact do have some sort of religious system and tradition to uphold a preconceived notion of righteousness. Once that has been established, we can then seek to understand the Law according to faith. For they who desire to observe a Sabbath day, do it unto Christ through faith. For they who say that every day is a Sabbath, do so unto Christ through faith.

            We do not observe the letter of the Law as was once taught. Instead, we see that the Passover is fulfilled in Christ, and so when we keep the Passover, it is through Christ and not of fleshly obligation. We see in the kosher diet as ascribed in Leviticus 11 that Christ is our clean food – the bread of truth and sincerity without leaven, and our meat in due season – thus anything clean points us to Christ, and anything unclean reveals to us what Christ was not. In all things, whether eating or drinking, we do it unto Christ. The question of whether we’re free to live apart from the law is answered as follows: Love your neighbor as yourself, for in this the whole of the law is summed up. You who are not circumcised, remain as you are. You who have not kept the kosher diet, think heavily before taking up that kosher diet. Do all things unto Christ through faith, for the power of sin is the law. Now that you have been given freedom, do not exchange that freedom for bondage. You’ve been set free for freedom’s sake.

            This is the power of the kingdom of darkness: Death being at work in us through sin, and sin being at work in us through our own attempts at being righteous. To be free from this is to be free indeed. That kind of freedom comes with a price. The author of Hebrews warned his readers, “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” It takes the Gethsemane experience of every believer to break past the bounds of sin and death and into the realm of eternal glory. It is that resurrection glory that we seek, not just at the end of the age, but to be alive within our members even now. We are of a different kingdom, and therefore we are of a different wisdom. We are not bound by sin and death – the power of the kingdom of darkness – but instead we are bound to Christ. Now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve the new way of the Spirit, and now in the old way of the written code. We are set free, not to avoid the Torah, but to find the deeper expression of it through life lived unto Christ through faith.

Egypt is System

Maybe the very first statement should be one that tells you that I am not speaking of modern day political Egypt. The Egypt in the Bible is both a symbol as well as a spirit. Just in case anyone would read this and either get offended or start proclaiming that modern day Egypt is what I have to say, I've put it forth immediately.

When we read the Bible, it doesn't take long before we find the Exodus story (second book of the Bible). From that moment onward, Egypt is recognized as the place of bondage. However, I think that we misunderstand what bondage even is. We think that bondage represents sin only. Or we think that bondage represents anything that brings stress. Or we think that bondage is something that keeps us from being able to live haply. We think bondage is oppression.

Bondage is system. To define system: System is any institution, corporation, or organization that seeks it's own perpetuation and goals over and above anything or anyone else. Lets unpack that a little bit.

System is any institution, corporation, or organization... Basically, anything that is man-made is a system. Even our systems of religion are places of bondage, and not places of liberty. Nations can be systems - certainly government itself is a system. Institutions, corporations, and organizations have one common thread: their set up and leadership. These are places that have a small number on the top in charge, and from there people of influence, and then the common person. It is a pyramid. We have set up our businesses and organizations to even model this. From our business and corporate model, many "churches" have also modeled what church should be.

When we have one man, or only a few men at the very top, we find that the system is corruptible. The reason is twofold: man and satan. Man in corruptible. Man is depraved. We are inherently sinful, meaning we are born with the condition of sin, and we tend toward sin instead of away from sin. We become increasingly sinful. Man is not perfect. Only God is perfect. But the other aspect is satanic. There is a demonic influence over systems. The first place that we find such systems in the Bible is the tower of Babel. Ultimately, Babylon resulted from this tower. Babylon is a representation of the kingdom of darkness. Satan inspired such an idea as the tower of Babel. Why? Because it is easier to jerk and manipulate one man at the top than an entire nation or people.

However, the statement doesn't stop there. System seeks it's own perpetuation and goals over and above anything or anyone else. We'll break down that first part. What does it mean to seek your own perpetuation? Think about a small mom and pop store. The hope is that they can continue their business and hand it down to their children. In a sense, there is nothing wrong with this. In another sense, this is a stepping stone to disaster. The system itself has its own hopes and desires. When you come against this machine industry, it will lash out against you. Why? What is it that would cause for such a system to lash out instead of embrace death?

This is actually at the heart of the Exodus story. Why did Pharaoh continue to harden his heart? Why does it then say later that God hardened his heart? The hardening of Pharaoh's heart is not in itself because of Pharaoh, but because of the system itself. Any threat to the existence of that system, which in the case of the Exodus was the enslavement of an entire people, is vehemently opposed. It goes back to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We know best, and therefore anything that challenges our rule is to be squashed. Yet, the tree of life is a death and a cross. It is trust in the Lord, that even if He has hidden something from us (the accusation of the serpent in Genesis 3), it is for our benefit, and not for our detriment.

Systems desire to perpetuate themselves. They will use and abuse people in order to do so. If the establishment is crumbling, the workers, the clients, the customers, the owners, and all others involved are going to get hurt by that system. It somehow seems that the system itself is what is causing the pain and toil.

On the other hand, when we're dealing with systems, we're also dealing with an abuse and misuse of people in order to reach the desired goal. That goal might be influence, it might be income, it might be growth, or it might be survival. Whatever the goal is, that goal is the ultimate, and people are only a means to that end.

I worked at Chic-Fil-A. I don't have anything against the company. But I can use this as an explanation that even Christian owned companies are not beyond this. You have at the top of the corporation a CEO, or a board, and then others that work at corporate Chic-Fil-A under them. Then from there are the owners of the franchises, and under the owners are the managers, and then finally the common staff employee. That common staff employee gets paid what they have agreed to, but in the mind of the person at corporate Chic-Fil-A (which is an office and not a restaurant), that person is only a number. They are a faceless employee. They are a statistic. They are a paycheck, and they represent income and growth. The company Chic-Fil-A is probably one of the best (if not the best) companies to work for with this as their basis. Even though the people are numbers, the people that are at the top know that those numbers represent people. That does not stop the abuse and misuse of those workers, but it does limit it. I'm willing to admit that.

So when we read of Egypt being bondage, or slavery, many times we think that it is the harsh taskmasters and the making of bricks without straw that is the bondage and slavery. We think of the slavery itself, and the lack of mercy. What we don't realize is that the slavery and bondage is only the result of a system. Egypt is system. System is Egypt. The two are synonyms.

When we want to talk about our freedom from sin, or our freedom from Egypt, or how God is going to destroy Egypt, we need to have this understanding. What it means that God will destroy Egypt is that God will destroy the system that enslaves. He will take that pyramid that looks at people as numbers and statistics, and He will abolish that. In fact, when you look at what God has ordained that we be, you find that He has actually taken that pyramid and turned it upside-down.

Instead of the idea that Christ is at the top and under Him are the apostles and prophets, and then under them are some of the giants from the last 2000 years, and then we eventually come down to the pastors, and then the teachers, and then the common laymen, God has set Jesus at the bottom. The idea that we have in our mind is that the anointing, or blessing, comes from the head and flows down the body. Just as when you anointed a man as king or priest, you would anoint their head, and then it flowed down.

However, God has said that He who is to be greatest must be the least. Jesus was not exalted because of His greatness, but because of His humility. The sin and need of all of the people flow down onto the pastors and teachers, who then are able to serve and minster those people. The sin and need of those pastors and teachers flow down onto the apostles and prophets, who are then able to serve and minster to the people. The sin and need of those apostles and prophets then flows down onto Christ Jesus, and He is ultimately the one who took up sin - became sin - so that all of our needs are met through Him.

God has set up an upside-down pyramid, where ministry does not mean teaching or preaching or educating, but instead it means discipling. Discipleship means taking someone into your life and living together with them. They can get more sermons from seeing your character than from hearing your knowledge. The idea of a pastor or teacher is not to somehow "lead" or "teach" the flock in a Greek style. The Greeks would hold lectures. The Hebrews would share life together. Jesus is our ultimate example of what it means to be a teacher or pastor. He took in His disciples. There were the initial 12 that followed Him everywhere, but then there are others that also seem to follow Him (He sends out the 72 at one point). The 12 are closest, and even within the 12 there were 3 being distinguished: Peter, James, and John.

This is how God has established what we're to be about. But any religious system that is based off of Egypt will make statements like, "No church is perfect." Of course it isn't when you take an imperfect system and call that "church." But the Bible says that the Bride is perfect. She is blameless. She is spotless. She is clean. She is beautiful. How long will we judge whether we're doing church correctly on a false system - one that looks like Egypt? I am looking for a perfect church. The perfect church is one that is able to live together in unity, and confess our faults one to another. The perfect church is one that seeks humility above order. The perfect church is one that knows we are all sinners, and we all need to repent. The perfect church takes seriously the command in James where it tells us to "confess our faults one to another." It is actually in that very thing that we find freedom. But if we aren't living together, and we fear that we'll be judged instead of cleansed, then what are we even doing?

Egypt is still around. It is still alive and well. Though God judged it millennia ago, we are still facing the same bondage that the Israelites faced. In fact, we seem to have these statements like, "What alternative is there?" What other option do we have? It takes the mighty works of God almighty in order to deliver us from systems. It takes miracles to get us out, and it takes miracles to even sustain us in the wilderness before we come unto the Land that He has promised. But if you are willing to hear that call, "Get thee out," then fear not. Cry unto God for a deliverer from your oppression. Know this: the oppression is not those circumstances; it is a lifestyle that we have allowed Egyptian culture and society to form us to.

Why are so many of us unhappy? Why are so many of us not content? It is because we are enslaved, and we don't even know it. Our enslavement is to the television, our jobs, a system that tells us we need to have a career, a system that tells us the best thing we can do is get a degree in order to "be somebody," a system that tells us what kind of house to live in, what kind of family we should raise, what area of town we should live in, and everything else in our lives is constituted upon the value system and propaganda of Egypt.

Listen closely: do not strive to "be somebody." You already are somebody. You were made in the image of God, and He is ever crying out, "Let me see your face, and let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet like honey, and your face is lovely." Waters cannot quench this love; neither floods can drown it. "Whom the Son sets free is FREE INDEED." We are called as a people to be outside of Egypt, not to become the New Egypt. In Israel's history, Solomon reformed Israel into a "new egypt." The only thing left after that was exile and judgment.

The church and the synagogue are identical. They are synonyms. They are both set up as the same system. Come out from her, my people. Remember the first message of our Lord at Nazareth, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering sight to the blind, and to release they that are oppressed."