What does it mean to you to have your "identity" in Christ?

[David's Harp]

I believe Jesus is part of the Holy Trinity (He is the Son of God and he is God), so both the Father and the Son being one and the Son in us and we in him, this is how the Holy Spirit works in us and through us. I don't believe Jesus has a physical body like we do on earth, it is a spiritual body, but he can manifest himself any which way because he is God. Like when he appeared to the disciples he chose who he revealed himself to and it wasn't everyone, but the disciples were the witnesses to his resurrection.

What are we to make of some of the verses that describe the resurrection of a physical body? (Luke 24:39, Philippians 3:20-21, 1 Corinthians 15:42, Romans 8:23, Job 19:25-27)

 

[YahuahSaves]

What are we to make of some of the verses that describe the resurrection of a physical body? (Luke 24:39, Philippians 3:20-21, 1 Corinthians 15:42, Romans 8:23, Job 19:25-27)

I (personally) think in the resurrection that we will have as an "upgrade", we will be physical and spirit in the new earth, but the physical is not like we are on this earth currently.

If you believe Jesus has a physical body, perhaps participate in my other thread Does Jesus speak to you? I would be interested to know your take on how Jesus can do this if he just has a physical body like us?

 

[David's Harp]

I (personally) think in the resurrection that we will have as an "upgrade", we will be physical and spirit in the new earth, but the physical is not like we are on this earth currently.

If you believe Jesus has a physical body, perhaps participate in my other thread Does Jesus speak to you? I would be interested to know your take on how Jesus can do this if he just has a physical body like us?

First off, I don't think He has a physical body like we do now - it is a glorified body. Though, when he appeared to the Apostles He looked as real as you or I. But I agree with you in that it is both spiritual and physical, though I don't quite know how to explain it. We don't really know exactly what it will be like yet do we?
For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

I'll have another look at the thread you're talking about. I was going to write through the Word and Spirit, but someone else had already wrote that.

 

[YahuahSaves]

I'll have another look at the thread you're talking about. I was going to write through the Word and Spirit, but someone else had already wrote that.

It's a thread to share our personal testimony on how God speaks to us individually. Religion has blinded people and made a lot of people believe that God no longer speaks, performs miracles or gives us gifts. (This is why the thread is posted in the controversial theology forum). People don't understand how their faith plays a role in what we come to understand. Like Hosea 4:6 says "my people perish from a lack of knowledge".

 

[GenemZ]

I've struggled with this concept ever since being saved and learning about The Holy Trinity beyond my childhood religious upbringing and understanding.

I'm starting to think that "dying to the flesh", does not just mean the sins that contaminate our lives, nor does it just mean avoiding temptation of fleshly or worldly things - but it goes much deeper than this.

We are born into the world, into our familial, social and socio-economic environments. We develop our individual identity through a range of factors, including biological and psychological predisposition, and environmental/relational stimuli. These factors develop within us an "ego" identity, and (in my POV) often the identity that is created in the world, is not the identity that God intends for us to have.

This is why when we come to Christ, God makes us a "new creation" in Him through the sanctification process, which can often (and only if we are willing), take years of dismantling old belief-systems and patterns of behaviour that have been developed while we were separated from God. I have noticed in my own walk so far, I am being shown through people and circumstances, the areas in which I am led by the Holy Spirit to "let go" of certain thinking and behavioural patterns and often find his corrections and his way to make more sense than my own "way" the further down the path with him I go.

I am starting to understand my ego identity is not the "real" me, which leaves me feeling as though I'm entering into a bit of an "identity crisis", not quite understanding yet, what or who I am as this "new creation" in Christ, or what it truly means to be one of God's "children".

What does it mean to you to have your "identity in Christ"? Have you experienced the need for such an identity "transition"? Or do you believe our personal "identity" is included in our new identity in Christ?

Seek and keep seeking until you can find someone who is able to teach sound doctrine.

Until you do? Your identity quest will fall flat, and as many experience when they quit. They seek emotional support in a mutual agreement that lands everyone in a oneness, but a oneness of not knowing the truth while making up their minds to say that they do.

This is why its essential to find 'one of the few' out of many, who really knows how to teach.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isa 55:8-9


Sound doctrine can often time startle one to realize how we just did not have a clue as to what the Lord wants us to understand and believe.

In desperation many seek churches that share a same natural view as they do. And? They and up as follows:

"There is a way that seems right to a man,
But its end is the way of death." Proverbs 14:12


We must be led of the Spirit and be willing to suffer if need be as we endure in patience God's answer to our prayer.

grace and peace ...........

 

[JLB777]

That's awesome So essentially the Lord got you to "detach" from your worldly identity so your identity in His kingdom could be manifested.

Amen!

 

[eleos1954]

The scripture say "they will be like the angels of God in heaven" in my mind that means akin to and/or resembling, and I also don't believe there will be procreation as that was part of the old earth design which will "pass away".

When God created everything originally it was very good .... the subject matter of the verse was in regard to marriage ... not to assume we will be like the angels in every aspect ... as far as pro-creation ... I'm talking about on the new earth. Sure this earth (as it is) is going to pass away ... because sin entered into it and tainted God's first perfect creation ... but He is going to create everything new and there will not be sin (which causes death) in it. There will be no death on the new earth.

The new earth​

Revelation 21:1-4 &​

Isaiah 11:6-9​

6The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. 7The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. 9They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

21Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

If there are children ... will there not be parents?

Above (and Isaiah 11) describes physical beings on the new earth .... not "disembodied spirits" floating around.

Again Jesus wanted the apostles to know ... after His accession .... He had a physical body (not a disembodied spirit) and so will we.

Luke 24:39

New King James Version
Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”

Job 19:26

25But I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth. 26 Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. 27I will see Him for myself; my eyes will behold Him, and not as a stranger.

Matthew 5:8
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

1 John 3:2
Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.

Psalm 17:15
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

 

[YahuahSaves]

When God created everything originally it was very good .... the subject matter of the verse was in regard to marriage ... not to assume we will be like the angels in every aspect ... as far as pro-creation ... I'm talking about on the new earth. Sure this earth (as it is) is going to pass away ... because sin entered into it and tainted God's first perfect creation ... but He is going to create everything new and there will not be sin (which causes death) in it. There will be no death on the new earth.

The new earth​

Revelation 21:1-4 &​

Isaiah 11:6-9​

6The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. 7The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. 9They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

21Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

If there are children ... will there not be parents?

Above (and Isaiah 11) describes physical beings on the new earth .... not "disembodied spirits" floating around.

Again Jesus wanted the apostles to know ... after His accession .... He had a physical body (not a disembodied spirit) and so will we.

Luke 24:39

New King James Version
Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”

Job 19:26

25But I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth. 26 Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. 27I will see Him for myself; my eyes will behold Him, and not as a stranger.

Matthew 5:8
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

1 John 3:2
Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.

Psalm 17:15
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

I understand what you're saying.... the thing I can't reconcile in my mind is why would God set a plan in motion, giving humanity a choice to accept him or reject him, and those who accept inherit the "right" to become children of God and his kingdom (the new earth) but then allow procreation and new souls being created and born in the New earth?

 

[Mark Quayle]

What does it mean to you to have your "identity in Christ"? Have you experienced the need for such an identity "transition"? Or do you believe our personal "identity" is included in our new identity in Christ?

Very definitely. My own pursuit of holiness, and the despair of ever achieving anything near it, has opened my eyes to the fact that, just like in salvation, my Christian walk, my growth (or sanctification) is also the work of God. Even as regenerated and redeemed, I am still unable to do this apart from him. In fact, as several here will confess, they find, looking back, that every success was indeed not their doing, but God's. In fact, every choice they made even of confession, repentance and obedience, though they were no doubt thoroughly wrapped up in it, looking back at it they see that even that was begun and accomplished by God. When Paul says his righteousness is filthy rags, I think he's not only talking about his good deeds, his works, but more his comparative position in some theoretical scale of sanctification.

 

[John Mullally]

I've struggled with this concept ever since being saved and learning about The Holy Trinity beyond my childhood religious upbringing and understanding.

I'm starting to think that "dying to the flesh", does not just mean the sins that contaminate our lives, nor does it just mean avoiding temptation of fleshly or worldly things - but it goes much deeper than this.

We are born into the world, into our familial, social and socio-economic environments. We develop our individual identity through a range of factors, including biological and psychological predisposition, and environmental/relational stimuli. These factors develop within us an "ego" identity, and (in my POV) often the identity that is created in the world, is not the identity that God intends for us to have.

This is why when we come to Christ, God makes us a "new creation" in Him through the sanctification process, which can often (and only if we are willing), take years of dismantling old belief-systems and patterns of behaviour that have been developed while we were separated from God. I have noticed in my own walk so far, I am being shown through people and circumstances, the areas in which I am led by the Holy Spirit to "let go" of certain thinking and behavioural patterns and often find his corrections and his way to make more sense than my own "way" the further down the path with him I go.

I am starting to understand my ego identity is not the "real" me, which leaves me feeling as though I'm entering into a bit of an "identity crisis", not quite understanding yet, what or who I am as this "new creation" in Christ, or what it truly means to be one of God's "children".

What does it mean to you to have your "identity in Christ"? Have you experienced the need for such an identity "transition"? Or do you believe our personal "identity" is included in our new identity in Christ?

Being “in Christ” implies believing-Christians being in union with Christ, that is, spiritually residing in the Body of Christ. After all, John 3:18 indicates that unbelievers remain condemned and judged, while Romans 8:1 indicates that those in Christ are redeemed:

John 3:18: “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Romans 8:1-2: “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”

2nd Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

So, the idea of an “unbeliever who is in Christ” would be virtually unthinkable, requiring the meaning that someone would be both redeemed and simultaneously judged, thus violating the Law of Non-Contradiction.

Ephesians 2:7: “So that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

The Book of Ephesians contains many references to spiritual blessings which are predestined in Christ. In fact, “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” is “in Christ.” (Ephesians 1:3) This makes plenty of sense, as things like Redemption, Regeneration and the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit only comes after one is in Christ, being spiritual blessings exclusive to believing Christians in the Church.

 

[YahuahSaves]

So, the idea of an “unbeliever who is in Christ” would be virtually unthinkable, requiring the meaning that someone would be both redeemed and simultaneously judged, thus violating the Law of Non-Contradiction.

No idea how your response relates to my OP or how in fact you answered the questions I proposed in it. Quoting scripture is a generic way to answer a question and essentially doesn't answer the question at all.