What's in a Name?
Let's talk about the kingdom of God and the first three fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, and peace. Our alignment with the Spirit is made evident by something we feel deeply; that we know on a profound level. Our beings also know when we aren't aligned, because we feel the lack of those three things: love, joy, and peace.
Do you realize God is infinitely interested in loving you, giving you peace, and bringing you joy? That love, joy, and peace are who he is? That they're who Christ is? That they're who he's growing you up to be?
Our favorite thing to do, of course, from the throne of our self-appointed role of judge is to take the beautiful gifts God delights in giving us and turn them into a rule.
God loves me? Well that means I have to love people... which actually means I have to let them walk all over me – I definitely have to say yes to people when I'd rather say no, because loving people means putting their needs before my own needs, and any desires I have are right out because desires are selfish.
Joy? Oh, of course. That means that when something is happening that I don't like, I have to choose joy: feeling upset or complaining about it means I'm being ungrateful. "Count it all joy when you're faced with trials,*" after all.
And being a peaceful person definitely means avoiding confrontation and doing my best to make sure nobody has to feel bad, let alone angry. Remember: "As much as it depends on you, live peaceably with everyone.*" Make sure the boat doesn't rock by being the one to absorb the shocks.
Gag. Those rules we apply to ourselves, though perhaps making us feel very moral and long-suffering and therefore holy, have nothing to do with the love, joy, and peace God is or that he has in mind for us. All of them are based out of fear and people pleasing, and they dictate how we behave when we're operating out of a paradigm of judgment. We're afraid of being judged by God and other people, so we judge ourselves first in a bizarre type of self-defense that can truly only be categorized as a trauma response. Afraid of rejection, we preemptively reject ourselves, and then from that place of self-rejection (or "denying yourself" if you prefer) we try our best to maintain the standard of behavior we think makes us acceptable to God, because we've been taught as much in our childhood environs and in so much of church culture. The gospel most widely preached sounds like:
"you're a sinner BUT! Jesus died for your sins so you could be right with God! So, quick! Realize your badness and how you can never measure up and ask Jesus to come into your heart and help you be better!"
Utter garbage.
Are we sinners? Sure. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) But we've mistakenly given the power of identity to the word "sinner" which is absurd. For example, "dead," as it applies to the deceased (whether spiritually or physically), is an adjective, describing a state of being. "Dead" is not ever a proper noun: it's not an identity. Likewise with us, being dead in our sin, both "dead" and "sinner" can be correctly used to describe our states of being, but neither have any bearing on our true identities. The popular "gospel" that I portrayed above is dependent on the belief that both "dead" and "sinner" are proper nouns, are our identities... which makes receiving the grace of God very sticky, indeed, and the christian life becomes "I identify as a sinner, but now with behavior modifications! Well, I'm trying, at least."
I'm saying that sin and death instead describe an abnormal state of being - of misalignment from our true identity. I'm also saying that our true identity is Christ. He calls us by his own name, and the fullness of that name isn't sin and death, it's love and joy and peace. It's not a case of switching identities from "Sinner" to "Saint." It's a case of God revealing himself, and therefore our self, to us, and in receiving the truth of what he says, then casting off the imposter, "Sinner", trying to pass itself off as us.
And now, loads of Scripture, with notes by yours truly.
"And behold, He saw that it was very good." Genesis 1 (after God added the humans He created to take after Himself to His creation.)
"But now thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine... everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made." Isaiah 43:1, 7, and by golly the whole gosh darn chapter.
"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, for whom every family in heaven and on earth is named..." Ephesians 3:14-15
"For all who are led by the Spirit of God (in love, joy, and peace) are sons of God (even the daughters of God would be classified this way, "son" signifying "heir"). For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit (see first paragraph of this post) that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs– heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer (see note) with him in order that we may also be glorified with him." Romans 8:14-17 (foregoing our judgment, and moving through and throwing off the sin and death in order to fully embody and inhabit the kingdom: love, joy, and peace.)
"And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for, 'In him we live and move and have our being'; even as some of your own poets have said, 'for we are indeed his offspring.'" Acts 17:26-28
"So we have come to know and to believe that the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first. loved us." 1 John 4:16-19
* James 1:2, Romans 12:18. These are legit biblical admonitions about peace and joy, but they become a problem when we misdefine them, as I've illustrated in these examples.