This question “Who am I?” is closely related to “Who is God?” If I were still an unbeliever, God is my judge and will condemn me to eternal perdition unless I repent and believe the gospel. So the answer to the question of my identity is I am a sinner and a reprobate unless God inter­venes and saves me. If and when, however, I come to faith in God by His gracious gospel, God then not only is my divine judge but also my heavenly Father.

God’s common way to save sinners is to bring them into His family. Or to put it differently, He will bring them into His covenant and call them His people. That’s what He did with Abraham, making a covenant with him and with his descendants. He continues to work the same way today, as Peter testified at Pentecost: “For the promise is to you and to your children,” (Acts 2:39). Then he adds, “...and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” Continuing His pattern of keeping covenant with His people, He now expands it to include the Gentiles.

Conviction⤒🔗

When the people heard Peter’s preaching, “they were pricked in their heart” and cried out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). This has always been God’s common way to save sinners. Though the entire nation of Israel was led out of Egypt, not all were saved, because “with many of them God was not well pleased” (1 Cor. 10:5). Why not?

They did not repent and believe their God when they were convicted of their sins when He spoke to them, “I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Ex. 20:2). As they were set apart from the world as His people to serve and obey Him, so we are today. Since God is the Lord our God, the answer to the “Who am I?” question is: I am one of God’s people. This is an awesome privilege but also an awesome responsibility.

When God speaks to us, as He did to Israel, He does so through His Word, read or preached. This always includes both law and gospel. I love our tradition of reading God’s law every Lord’s Day morning, followed by gospel preaching. He commands perfection while at the same time providing it for us. He knows we can’t and won’t obey, by nature. But we can, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. So, when we hear the law read, it must not be our first impulse to do our best, but flee to God’s best, His Son. It is meant to convict us of sin, repent, and believe in Him.

Confession←⤒🔗

Whether we are inside or outside the covenant, Peter’s promise comes to all who hear this convicting Word of God that not only have we sinned, but we are sinners. So the question of identity is easily answered: I am a sinner. Even the very best I have ever done or said is polluted with sin. Any good is God’s doing, so I can never use it as credit but only as a deficit, putting me further into debt than I already am. As a sinner I can do nothing to save myself. I can and will be saved only by being “made acceptable in the beloved” (Eph. 1:6).

Only the perfect obedience of God’s beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased, can make Him pleased with us and we with Him. This obedience is obtained not by works but by faith. When God convicts a sinner “of sin, righteousness and judgment” (John 16:10), though we can­not believe the gospel without the Holy Spirit, we can by grace. The Spirit who convicts also prompts the sinner to confess his sin and his Savior. It is His delight to lead us into all truth and reveal Christ to me (vv. 13-14).

When I confess that I am a sinner and take refuge in Jesus, He will receive me — not because of my confession but by means of it. The conviction and confession of sin are God’s means to draw a sinner to Himself through Christ. “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). The best evidence of being elect is to come to Christ as a hopelessly and helplessly lost sinner. Then, based on God’s own Word, the Who am I question can be answered: I am a saved sinner. Yes, even more boldly: I am a saint.

Conversion←⤒🔗

The Apostle Paul often begins his letters to the churches addressing each and every one as saints. For example in 1 Corinthians 1:2, he writes, “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.” What a striking and enlightening opening line, especially considering that the church in Corinth could be better described as sinners! However, first they are sanctified, or set apart, in Christ Jesus. Sec­ond, in the KJV the words “to be” are in italics; it seems the translators sought to safeguard two things: that they were actually declared saints, and that they yet had to learn to live as saints.

So, how do we answer the question, Who am I? I am a saint who still sins. The Lord has set me apart, convicted me of my sins, and caused me to confess them; and He has also caused me to trust Him both for the forgiveness of my sins (my justification) and for the mortification of my sins (my sanctification). I am converted, but I also continue to be converted. This truth is confirmed in Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3, where we are called to mortify all sin, “seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds. And have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him” (Col. 3:9-10). But then in verse 12, “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness...”

Thus, if indeed we are in Christ, we will bear fruit. Paul writes, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:1-2). As we place our trust in Christ and seek to imitate Him, we will “above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness” (Col. 3:14). In other words, it won’t just be about do’s and don’ts but about living and loving like Christ and having our image be renewed in Him (v. 10). We may give evi­dence of that in our words and actions. Paul writes, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Rom. 12:2). Who am I? I am God’s work in progress.

Consummation←⤒🔗

God not only works in me but also puts me to work: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13). So I am not only God’s work in progress but I am a co-worker, a laborer “together with God” (1 Cor. 3:9).

Even though I’m called to do the perfect will of God, I also know that it’s out of my reach in my lifetime. “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12). The more I look to Christ, I realize how I fall infinitely short of His perfection, and the more I yearn for the perfec­tion to come. Just as we know that the whole creation groans, “even we ourselves groan within ourselves, wait­ing for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Rom. 8:22-23).

But this final redemption of my body and soul will surely come at last. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Then the question, Who am I? will be forever absorbed in, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (Song 6:3).