“By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.”

I John 4:17

Read that last phrase again: “as he is so also are we in this world.” In Christ we have an identity that is him. Not that we are whatever he is, but we are what he is in this world. We are made a holy nation, a people for him; we are living stones built up by him to be a dwelling place for him. The passage on living stones speaks to our calling, but this passage in I John on love speaks of our identity.

Do you want to find yourself? Go ahead and try; you will find sin selfishness and plenty of mistakes. Because that’s what you are; you are a sinner. “There is no one good, not even one.” This is clearly taught in scripture.

So what is this statement that we are “as he is also in the world?” Here we find the deeper meaning of our paradoxical nature. There’s a fancy Latin phrase that Thologians like to throw around. Translated, it’s: at the same time just and sinner(it is always quoted in the Latin: simul iustus et peccatur, but I’ve never understood why theologians don’t just translate their terms). As humans who have fallen into sin it is crucial to understand that we cannot do anything about our sinful condition; that apart from the grace of God we are condemned to eternal seperation from him, and that even now we are without true life.

But this verse from I John is just as true and effective in us as that nature of sinfulness. Only this nature is a gift and is continuously sustained by God’s word in the fellowship of the body.

What is Christ in the world? He is the proclaimer of freedom from sin, and the power for that same freedom through the sacrifice of himself, bringing all people into a communion with his sacrificial presence; transforming wills reorienting desires.

So also we are ‘little christs’ in this world. We are not God, nor the savior of the whole world through our death, but the Holy Spirit of Jesus does dwell in us. So his life is present in us and works through us. In this way we also are the proclaimers of freedom from sin and there dwells in us the power that saves all men from sin and brings them into fellowship with the life of Christ. Now we also have the ability to pour out our lives as a sacrifice to others so that they might see the loving presence of God. This is reality. We are truly what Christ is by his grace. If you want to find yourself, look for Christ and believe that you have his righteousness to do good and to love in this world by faith in him.

All of I John is about the life of love in Christ and I would encourage you to go read it anew. In that book love is approached from many angles within the context of our new nature in Christ and how we may be that nature as opposed to the sin of the flesh that still hangs on to us as long as we are in the world.

Part 1