There is no doubt that one of the gold standard virtues of modern society is the pursuit of absolute self-autonomy. The gospel of “be true to yourself” and “look within yourself” attempts to promote and promise true liberty, ultimate purpose and meaning, and societal flourishing with no strings attached or any negative repercussions.

On the surface, it sounds like good news. From a distance, it appears to be pro-humanity in all its nonrestrictive, progressive creeds and confessions, replacing sacred liturgy with its own secular ones. In elevating human emotion and imagination over and above absolute truth, it ascribes more worth to human creativity than to the Creator of humanity. This is the gospel of absolute autonomy. After all, any worldview or religious practice that would minimize the absolute autonomy of the self must be anti-human happiness and goodness, right?

Only if we allow ourselves to be fooled by the fashionable guise of light and liberty (2 Corinthians 11:14). While on the surface absolute autonomy appears as freedom, there is further bondage below. Absolute autonomy is not good news; it is bad news. Not only is it bad news, but false news. Only the true, good news of the gospel can offer freedom. Only in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection can we hope to break free from the bondage, brokenness, and alienation that absolute autonomy promises to deliver us from.

Here are three gospel truths that can dispel the current cultural mirage of absolute autonomy.

CREATED IN HIS IMAGE

First, we are created in God’s image.

“So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27).” I can only imagine the expression and the gasps and whispers of the heavenly hosts in this moment of creation. God had created everything else by His word and now he creates man in His very image. What a high privilege to bestow on man. Not even the angels in heaven received this title: Image of God.

And so, from the start, our very being and nature is stamped with God’s being and nature.

One of the most glorious, mysterious doctrines of all of Scripture is the Trinity. One God, three separate persons. Or as Athanasius beautifully articulated: “We worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence.” In other words, God has eternally existed as one – yet not alone. And if we are made in this God’s image, then something of that nature finds itself in us and the pursuit of absolute self-autonomy proves blasphemous at worst and trivial at best. In doing so, we deny the nature of God and the nature of self.

CREATED FOR COMMUNION

Second, we were created for a person.

The Apostle Paul writes, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.” (Colossians 1:16) In other words, we were created by Jesus for Jesus. Our personhood is so inexplicably bound to the second person of the Trinity that attempting absolute autonomy frustrates our true nature

Deeply woven in the imago Dei is this longing to know and be known by someone. And not just anyone, for we all know the fleeting emotions that come with new relationships, or the inevitable moment when someone lets us down or fails to live up to our expectations. Or when someone does not handle our own frailty or short comings in a manner that they should have. We need not look any further than the woman at the well who seemed to go from husband to husband, seeking to know and be fully known until she came face to face with the man she was truly meant for (John 4:1-26). While we are created for fellowship with other people, no mere person is going to satisfy the deep well of our hearts except the person of Jesus.

This also means we were not made for philosophies, revolutions, or moral shifts, no matter how liberating or plausible they might appear to be. Anything or anyone less than the One who Thomas called his Lord and his God (John 20:28) will not do. Simply put, we were created to be in communion with our Creator. The missing puzzle piece to our human heart is not more of self, but more of the Son, whom God appointed the heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2). The One in whom all the fullness of God dwells bodily (Colossians 1:19; 2:9) and the One who fills and makes whole our fractured humanity (Colossians 2:10).

CREATED FOR FELLOWSHIP

Third, we were created to be a people. Being in communion with our creator also means being in fellowship with one another. I have had the privilege of preaching through the book of Ephesians over the past few months and one of the primary emphases of Paul’s letter is God’s people, the church. “So, then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” (Ephesians 2:19)

Absolute autonomy not only alienates us from our Creator, but it isolates us from being in fellowship with other image bearers. It robs us of true gospel community. It facilitates a further divide and estrangement that the work of Christ on the cross healed and did away with. If each individual has their own truth; their own path; their own choices, then tragically, they are on their own. Loneliness is their only companion.

But Ephesians has a radically different vision for God’s people. It gives us a picture of a new society comprised of various individuals that can only grow into their true selves in Christ together. And only together, with all the saints, can this kind of self-discovery take place. This is what Paul means when he later writes “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13) The gospel offers us a family that can perpetually remind us of who we are, what our purpose is, and what our final goal is: the measure and stature of the fullness of Christ.

Instead of leaving one another to ourselves to do what is right in our own eyes and figure it all out for ourselves according to the law of self-autonomy, Christ gives us one another according to the gospel of grace.

In the end, absolute self-autonomy is an empty promise that will leave us with an empty heart. Only an empty tomb and a risen Savior can help us find our true selves.