Our True Identity Is In Jesus Christ

Human nature is not something we can manufacture for ourselves. Neither is our identity. These can only be revealed to us, and only through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ — Christ in us, the Hope of Glory (Colossians 1:27).

In the Beginning, when God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, and in our likeness,” Jesus Christ is the fulfillment, who is the Image of the Invisible God (Colossians 1:15). He is the Logos of God — the Reason, the Meaning, the Way of God — who became human being, dwelt among us and revealed the glory of the Father to us in bodily form (John 1:14). 

Our nature is not simply biological existence but the image of God revealed in Christ. It is only in union with Christ that we are made complete and become partakers of the divine nature (Colossians 2:9-10; 2 Peter 1:4). See the many ways Scripture affirms it:

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. (1 John 3:2-3)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:2–4)

By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because just as Jesus is, so also are we in this world. (1 John 4:17)

And the varied ways the early Church confesses it:

He became what we are that He might make us what He is. (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 54)

You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. (St. Augustine, Confessions, I.1)

For the glory of God is a living man, and the life of man consists in beholding God. (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.20.7)

For we believe that a logos of angels preceded their creation, a logos preceded the creation of each of the beings and powers that fill the upper world, a logos preceded the creation of human beings, a logos preceded everything that receives its become from God ... This same Logos, whose goodness is revealed and multiplied in all the things that have their origin in him, with the degree of beauty appropriate to each being, recapitulates all things in himself ... Each of the intellectual and rational beings, whether angels or human beings, through the very Logos according to which each was created, who is in God and is with God, is called and indeed is a portion of God through the Logos that preexisted in God. (St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua 7)

Christ who is the Logos of God is also our logos, our true reason, meaning and purpose — the way of our being. To live in communion with Christ is to come into our true identity, who we really are. Apart from him our identity is fragmented and distorted. Christ, the Logos of God, is expressed in each one of us, and each one of us is expressed in him. 

Our inherent nature and identity is in Jesus Christ alone. 
Only in him do we discover our true selves, 
so to become who we are.