You may have seen or heard about the Jason Bourne series of movies. In the first movie, The Bourne Identity, Jason Bourne is rescued from the sea by a fishing trawler unconscious and with amnesia. This first movie is about how he tries to regain his memory and learn of his identity: hence, the name. He succeeds but we discover that in subsequent movies he learns that he had been brain-washed and his real name was David Webb.
Many Christians get saved, join church and then in the course of their integration into the church, they discover their new identity in Christ. But often it more closely resembles Jason Bourne. In Christ though, the New Testament teaches that our identity is more like David Webb. It’s not always quite what other Christians or the church teaches us.
Before you were a Christian, who told you who you were and what you could or could not be? What were those messages? What is your identity based on? Discuss.Let’s look at how the New Testament describes our identity in Christ.
Read Galatians 4:1-7I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child (underage), is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. What does this passage mean? In this passage, the apostle Paul is talking to the Galatian Christians about their freedom and identity in Christ after they put their faith in Jesus. He explains that in the Greco-Roman world, the child, firstborn male who was to become the heir when the father determined, is like a slave until that time. He was under the control of guardians and managers, had no rights or freedoms, could not make decisions, could not access their inheritance: his life in every way resembled that of a slave.
The time set by the father when the son/heir would come of age to receive his inheritance. For us, that is when we put our trust in Jesus. The word “adoption” and “son” were technical words in the Greco-Roman world. The word “adoption” means the making of a son. There was no word for adopting a daughter because it rarely happened. It is used especially in Roman culture and refers to the process that brings an outside boy into full legal standing of an adopted male heir into a family. When Paul uses this term in his epistle to the Galatians, he is saying that all believers are become heirs through God, whether male or female, in the same way that the eldest son in a Greco-Roman family becomes the heir of his father’s estate.
What are the elementary principles of the world and how do they enslave people?Initially, elementary or fundamental principles, refer to something that is in a series as with letters in a word, numbers in a row, musical notes in a score, or like soldiers walking in alignment in a rank. Then the word developed into:
1. The fundamental component of something: as in the basic principles of teaching (basic principles of the oracles of God in Heb. 5:12).
2. The elements that constitute the physical world: air, fire, earth, water - these were later deified so they were seen as gods and the creators of the universe.
3. The heavenly bodies: they too were deified: the sun, moon and stars – made up of the elements and therefore, also deified – they were the gods.
4. The spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms: We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers…Satan is the god of this world.
Aristotle (Greek philosopher 4th century BC) identified 20 foundational elementary, articulated as 10 pairs of corresponding opposites. 1) limited and the unlimited, 2) odd and even, 3) oneness and plurality, 4) right and left, 5) male and female, 6) rest and motion, 7) straight and crooked, 8) light and darkness, 9) good and evil, 10) square and oblong.
These became principal (primary or fundamental) categories by means of which reality could be described, sorted and otherwise ordered.
Each pair also included an implicit
hierarchy of value: some examples,
• The unlimited is better than that which has limits.
• Oneness is better than plurality,
• Right is better than left,
• Good is better than evil,
• Light is better than darkness,
• Male is better than female, etc.
• Female, Jewish slave bottom of society.
• Gentile, free, male the top of society.
• Today the world and religion put us into
categories and tells us who we are and how to live.
• These elementary principles divide the world and everything in it, creating the categories (like those in Galatians 3:28 – Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female),
hierarchies, and
evaluations that
guide,
limit and
constrain human beings in their
thoughts, behaviours, and
interactions, keeping them in a form of ideological and systemic bondage.
The elementary principles of the world enslave people: they tell you who you are, what you can be and what you cannot be and how you should live your life. They are the rules and values each child, born into and confronted by society must inevitably internalize, accept, conform to and live by. They are the individual parts of “the way the world works,” to which each child must adapt himself or herself, by which each child must be willingly constrained as his or her mind, practices, and life trajectory are shaped.
All of these in part or combined make up the rules and values of our society and culture that each of us is born into. Each one of us is taught or forced to accept, internalize, and conform to all these rules and values and live by them; and we are bullied if we don’t. They are the individual parts of the way the world works to which each one of us must adapt ourselves. This is the slavery that each person is born into.
Elemental principles or spirits of the world are the guiding powers and principles of this age, the building blocks from which the cosmos as “present evil age” (Gal. 1:4) is composed – which have contributed to perverting and corrupting the present age. They are not our world view but they are those influences that determine our world view. They are the regulatory principles of this world, meaning they regulate and determine how society works, the laws, religions, traditions, beliefs, culture, etc. Basically, everything that contributes to what we believe about ourselves, how society should work, wo we are and what we can and cannot do are the elemental principles/spirits of the world. And they enslave us.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. (Eph. 2:1-2). Satan, as the prince of the power of the air and god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4) is in control of this world system and everyone under his rule is captive and enslaved – whether they know it or not.
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom. 12:1-2). Paul is saying don’t let the world (meaning the elementary spirits of the world) squeeze you into its mould. Everyone is enslaved by the elementary principles of the world but when we come to Christ we are set free.
How do we know if we, as believers, are still enslaved by the elementary principles of the world? Colossians 2:8 sheds important light on the answer to this question.
Read Colossians 2:8See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.Every message that we receive, whether from tradition, religion or philosophy that does not teach us who we are according to Christ’s teachings is from the elementary principles or spirits of the world and we are to reject them. As we read in Romans 12:1, do not conform to this world (fashioned by the elementary principles of the world) any longer now that you are a believer in Christ. To come out of this enslavement, we have to renew our minds: meaning we have to remove our worldly view of our identity and accept and live in our identity as sons and daughters of God who are heirs with Christ.
The world and even some in the church tell us we are Jason Bourne but Jesus says we are David Webb. Our true identity in Christ is what we were created for in the first place: to be sons and daughters who are heirs through God.
Many years ago, I met a man who was raised in a Pentecostal family. His father had told him from a young age that he was worthless, useless and would never amount to anything. When I met him he was 27 years old. He believed everything his father told him and it kept him enslaved, not believing he could be what God called him to be.
Discussion Questions- What does this world say about what makes you important and acceptable or to be admired?
- What does the world say about what gives value or status to people?
- Who has actually shaped your identity: your family, the world, peers, your schooling, media?
- Who is telling you today who you should be and how you should live?
- Do you need Christ plus something to show people your identity?
• Christ plus a prestige car, or
• Christ plus an expensive house;
• Christ plus a particular job,
• Christ plus a position of honour in the church?
None of these things mentioned above are wrong in and of themselves: not at all. However, if you need them to show people or yourself that you are somebody special, then they are attached to your identity and you haven’t yet renewed your mind: you are in some small or large part enslaved by the elementary principles or spirits of the world.
Is it enough for you to be a son of God who is an heir, honestly?
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