Though Zoom has become a necessary evil during the pandemic, it has also provided an unsolicited view into one’s home life. Perhaps you take the Zoom mullet approach — business on top and party (pajamas) on the bottom like my husband, or you embrace jumping on a video call after a lunchtime run (not me), Zoom has created a virtual gateway from your work life into your home life. 

While the videos of little kids crashing their dad’s meeting are entertaining, they are also exposing. I feel exposed when I have two kids fighting over who gets to wear the box on their head outside of my office door. I feel exposed when their antics reveal my impatience and lack of graciousness. We tend to keep certain parts of ourselves tucked away, hidden from the view of our coworkers, friends, even a spouse. But now, a portal into your real self has been opened and everyone is peeking through. We find ourselves exposed; you are not always who you present yourself to be. A dual identity, no matter how slight, has emerged, and maybe you aren’t quite who you thought you were. 

If you are a Christian, you have probably felt this tension before. Being a Christian affords a unique kind of identity paradox, a particular kind of exposure. I claim to be a saint, a new creation, holy, imitator of God. And yet, at the same time, neatly disguised, I am sinful, selfish, unloving, driven by desires, hard-hearted. The paradoxical identity of wholly redeemed crashes against the rocks of sinner-in-need-of-grace every single day. Who am I to call myself holy when I sin? Who am I to declare myself accepted by God? Am I really who God says I am? 

Paul presents and explores the Christian identity in Romans 6 and says some drastic things about who we are. We are dead to sin (11). Our old self was crucified and we walk in newness of life (6). We are no longer slaves to sin but have been set free to be slaves to righteousness (16). We live in obedience to God from the heart (17). 

Is this how you describe yourself? After teaching Romans to college students a few times, the response I heard most was, absolutely not. I think most of us vacillate between overconfidence in our holiness and self-condemnation in our sin. But Romans is a direct challenge to this kind of living, an ode to the depths of Christ’s righteousness and grace that supersedes all else. It is here, in the righteousness of Jesus, that we must understand our identity.

Changing the Zoom background. One of the strange things we do on Zoom is to change the background. I’ve met with people in massive libraries, on sunny beaches, even in Times Square. Changing the background is the easiest way to pretend we are somewhere or someone we are not, but in Christ, we don’t have to. Romans 6 (and 7 and 8) are all about our relationship with Jesus (union with Christ) and how this relationship allows us to stop pretending.  

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.  So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 

Romans 6:3-5, 8, 11 (emphasis added)

Christians don’t need to pretend to be righteous because our righteousness comes from our union with Christ. Union with Christ means that we participate in Jesus’ death by dying to our sin, and are resurrected–made alive– to God in Christ Jesus. In Christ, we are presented before the Father as accepted, forgiven, and righteous children of God. Union is a legal status change that allows us to be adopted as children of God because of Christ. 

Paul goes on in chapter 7 to compare the death of our sin and new life in Christ to a woman whose husband died (sin) and she married a new person (Jesus and his righteousness). She was once legally bound to sin, but now she is now freed from that relationship and legally united to Christ. The illustration of marriage also reminds us that marriage is not dependent upon the bride’s perfection, only her willingness to love her husband (Jesus) and to remain in their union. If you ask my husband if I am perfect in our marriage, he will laugh and say no. But perfection is not the groundwork of Biblical marriage–covenant is. A promise between husband and wife to be faithful and to love one another. It is founded on promise and grace, and this is the relationship we enter into with Jesus.

Seeing the whole picture, embracing imperfection. On the other side of being exposed is finding out you are loved in the midst of imperfection and mess. Though exposure is uncomfortable, it forces us to develop an integrated view of ourselves–the view that God already has of us. Romans 8 tells us that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. John reiterates the same concept when he says in 1 John 3:20, “For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” There is no condemnation for those who abide in Christ’s righteousness, and when we feel condemned by our hearts, God is greater than that feeling. God knows us perfectly and sees everything. He sees the impatience and anger and greed in my heart, and he still loves me. He remains faithful to his covenant with me. 

It is in this reality that we are freed to embrace the paradoxical identity of being both sinful and righteous. We don’t have to pretend we are one or the other. We don’t have to hide our sin or put on false righteousness. Our sin and our righteousness are not opposing forces, we are both. I am both righteous on the basis of Christ as I am united to Him, and I am sinful as an imperfect human. And as I live in this relationship day by day, he promises grace and forgiveness, but also that he himself will undertake my sanctification. Our gracious Savior provides everything we need to be reconciled to God and to grow into people who look more like him. So the next time you feel like a fraud, exposed, or like your sin defines you, remember that your identity is not founded on your actions; it is rooted in the righteousness of Christ and his grace is without end.