Our Identity as the Body of Christ

It would be appropriate for the Church to celebrate the conversion of St. Paul any day of the year, not just on Jan. 25. As we look toward this designated feast day, let’s consider one of Paul’s greatest contributions to the New Testament, one that has given Christ-followers through the ages both comfort and encouragement: his explanation of our identity as the body of Christ.

Problem: Our Struggle for Identity

Lewis Smedes, a professor of psychology who is also a Christian, says there are three common sources of crippling shame and negative identity: cultural pressures, graceless religion and unaccepting parents (Smedes, Shame and Grace). Any one of those is pretty heavy, but some of us have experienced all three.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing from a Nazi prison camp, captures this deep struggle of identity in his haunting poem “Who Am I?” As he waited for his execution after challenging Adolf Hitler, he grappled with the tension of how others saw him and what he knew about himself:

Who am I? They often tell me
I step out from my cell
calm and cheerful and poised,
like a squire from his manor.

Who am I? They often tell me
I speak with my guards
freely, friendly and clear,
as though I were the one in charge.

Who am I? They also tell me
I bear days of calamity
serenely, smiling and proud,
like one accustomed to victory.

Am I really what others say of me?
Or am I only what I know of myself?
Restless, yearning, sick, like a caged bird,
struggling for life breath, as if I were being strangled,
starving for colors, for flowers, for birdsong,
thirsting for kind words, human closeness,
shaking with rage at power lust and pettiest insult,
tossed about, waiting for great things to happen,
helplessly fearing for friends so far away,
too tired and empty to pray, to think, to work,
weary and ready to take my leave of it all?

Bonhoeffer’s words resonate with me, and perhaps with you. We have a war going on between our idealized self and the negative identities that haunt us – the ones we can’t seem to escape. How does this play out for you? If you’re like me, you may toggle between what others think of you, good and bad, and what you know of yourself, good and bad.

Paul’s Conversion Story

Something about Paul’s conversion story speaks powerfully to our questions around identity. In Acts 26:9, at Paul’s trial, he tells King Agrippa, “I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth,” going on to detail what some of those “many things” were: locking up Christians, condemning them to death, punishing them in synagogues and attempting to provoke them to blaspheme. Absolutely unhinged in his anger against Christians, he hunted them down by following them to foreign cities (Acts 26:10-11).

All of this is at least part of the reason he calls himself “the foremost” of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). He also tells us he was violently persecuting the church and trying to destroy it (Gal. 1:13).

But when Jesus reveals himself to Saul, Jesus says something a little different: “Why are you persecuting me?” When Saul asks, “Who’s speaking?” Jesus says, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

That’s the one point our Lord wants to make. Paul is confessing that he is persecuting these people, going after them, hunting them down like dogs. And then Jesus tells him, “That’s me. You’re persecuting me. You’re hurting my body when you do that.”

Jesus so closely identifies with his people, with his Church, that to persecute the Church is to persecute him. And he takes that personally. He’s using this language to make a point: You are my body.

‘The Body of Christ’

We are “the body of Christ” – a phrase distinctive to the writings of Paul. He uses this not only in telling his story, but in Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians and Colossians to tell us he so identifies with each one of us and all of us that we are members of his body.

This metaphor has many implications, but the one I want to focus on today is our union with Christ. “In Christ” – a phrase Paul uses 260-plus times – we discover not only who God is, but also who we are. Being in Christ means we’re loved, redeemed and made whole. Being the body of Christ means we are no longer identified by our failures or our successes but by the grace and righteousness of Christ. Regarding our security in him, our union with him is the anchor for our soul.

In every storm, in every doubt, we’re reminded that we are inseparably bound to the one who has conquered sin and death for us. In Christ, we find rest from the endless striving to make ourselves worthy. We’re embraced by the one who loved us, incorporated us into his body with that identity and holds us fast.

Our identity is secure, and our security is in Christ, but being united to Christ means that his story becomes powerful. His death becomes powerful. His resurrection becomes our resurrection. His ascension to glory becomes the guarantee of our ascension to glory.

John Calvin makes a beautiful, staggering point on this idea. In a few places in his Institutes, but also in his commentary on Ephesians and some other places, he argues that although Christ has already been raised from the dead and ascended to glory, the current ministry of Jesus is that he is the ascended Lord. He has ascended to glory, and the only thing we’re waiting for is for him to come again. But then he says Christ doesn’t consider himself complete until the rest of his body is raised.

Calvin says, “This is the highest honor of the Church, that, until He is united to us, the Son of God reckons himself in some measure imperfect. What consolation is it for us to learn, that, not until we are along with Him, does he possess all His parts, or wish to be regarded as complete!”  What a comfort it is to know that even though he is now glorified, he’s still waiting to fully gather and clothe himself with all his people, who are the members of his body.

This is a picture of the amazing condescension of what he did – not only to take a body for all eternity, a raised body now that he is the God-man forever, but then to the humiliation of the cross and his death, and then for his glory to be somehow connected to us, although we are still weak. This is not all. There is more to come.

Let that sink in. The Almighty, eternal, infinite God comes to finite creatures who rebel, and then he bestows to us and gives to us and makes us this glorious identity and honor, such that  Jesus does not consider himself complete unless we are raised. And while “body of Christ” is distinctly Pauline, there are also two passages in the Old Testament that also refer to the body of God that jumped out to me as I was thinking through the topic of our union with Christ.

I think first of Zechariah 2:9, where God says whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye. We think of touching as a simple pat or nudge, but the implication of the word used here is much more harmful. The best translation is “plundering,” so this verse refers to harming an especially tender part of the body. God deliberately chose a delicate, essential part of the body, one we instinctively guard. He is telling us that harming one of his precious people is tantamount to injuring him.

“The apple of his eye” is a remarkable expression about who you are, represented by one of the most important – yet vulnerable – parts of the body. To be the apple of someone’s eye means to be so precious and valuable that they would take great care to shield and preserve you. To strike a blow at God’s people is as if you’re striking a blow at God himself, wounding him in the most sensitive area. Paul uses this beautiful, poetic anthropomorphism to say the following;

• You are precious.
• You are deeply loved.
• You are easily injured.
• You are valuable.
• You require protection and care.

Isaiah 49 is another passage with body imagery tied into it. “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (Isa. 49:15-16).

Yet God doesn’t have a body. That’s what makes it so amazing – he’s giving us a picture that’s tied to our earth. God’s imagery of engraving his people on his hands highlights permanent and intimate connection with him.

And God doesn’t merely declare his love. He’s saying here, “I want to embody that love. I want to be visible and tangible.” The image of engraving reflects his eternal commitment, a mark that cannot be erased. He’s carving it into his hands. Isaiah 49 points forward to the ultimate demonstration of God’s love, Jesus Christ. God’s engraving of his people in his hands finds its ultimate fulfillment in Christ’s nail-scarred hands. We know he still has those scars, and they are not just reminders of suffering but eternal marks of his love and redemption.

Resolution: ‘I Am Thine’

The good news about the Bonhoeffer quote is that I didn’t share all of it. It doesn’t end with him saying, “I’m a mess.” Instead, after toggling between the two identities – what others say and what I know of myself – he writes the following:

Who am I? This one or the other?
Am I this one today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? Before others a hypocrite
and in my own eyes a pitiful, whimpering weakling?
Or is what remains in me like a defeated army,
Fleeing in disarray from victory already won?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest me; O God, I am thine!

Bonhoeffer doesn’t answer his question by his circumstances or his self-perception or great things others say about him. His security must belong somewhere besides those fleeting places. He says, “I’m going to anchor my security and belonging to God because of the work of Jesus Christ on my behalf.”

“Whoever I am, thou knowest me; O God, I am thine!” That’s the hope. That’s what we need. That’s the deepest benefit of our union with Christ, because you are of Christ, and Christ is of God. You’re riding his coattails – in a great way. You’re accepted; you’re loved; you’re affirmed. He owns you. You are his priceless possession.

God will never let you go, even when you’re not terribly impressed with what you think he has on his hands. That’s because when you trust in God, your identity is no longer dictated by cultural pressure, graceless religion and the burden that comes with that or unaccepting parents via the haunt of some of their voices. Your identity is in Christ.

The gospel of Jesus Christ resolves our identity problem, and once we know how God sees us, what he’s making us and where we’re headed, we’re free in our relationship with him, with ourselves and in ministry. We don’t have to keep the disguise going anymore. We can look to Christ, and when we do that, the cycle of disgrace is broken. We have a God before whom we can set aside the disguises and step out into the firm ground of his acceptance and love. And this all happens because of what Jesus Christ has done for us to unite us to the Trinity forever and call us the glorious body of Christ.

To the Diocese of Central Florida and to all who believe in his name: This is who you are, each of you as individuals and all of you together. You are in Christ. Your identity is bound to him; you’re beloved. You’re cleansed, cherished because Christ gave himself, and this is what we hear in Ephesians 5:25-27: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”

This is your true identity in Christ. You are beloved, cleansed, holy and destined for splendor. That’s guaranteed. Let’s rest in this truth that you and I, each of us and all of us, are the glorious body of Christ.

This article was adapted from the bishop’s sermon at the 56th annual Diocesan Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida on Jan. 24, 2025 at Holy Trinity, Vero Beach. Watch the full sermon at this link.