Creation, Redemption, and Human Identity

17 October 2024

By Dr Adi Schlebusch

Introduction

As created beings every aspect of being human is God-given. In other words, God is not only the sovereign Creator of our souls but of every aspect of our humanity as not only a spiritual, but also a psycho-cognitive, and material reality. Humans as holistic beings that are a product of the divine will, in other words, in terms of every aspect of our being and identity, our existence is willed by God.

Human Identity as God-given

Firstly, it should be said that as humans we are, in terms of our being and identity, distinguished from other living beings such as animals, plants, and angels. God creates everything "according to their kinds" (Genesis 1:25), meaning that He, in His wisdom, also creates the distinctions between beings. It is God who purposefully wills man as Adam, as man.

But then, after the first human is created, God creates another from His own flesh—one of the same kind as him, but now female—Eve. Here, it is important to make a few observations with regard to human identity. Adam is created as a human distinct from other created beings. His identity as a human makes him different from the rest of creation. But what is interesting is that Adam's identity as male also distinguishes him even prior to the creation of the woman. Adam is specifically designed by God as a man, and while this naturally anticipates the woman, the fact that Adam is not just created as a human but as a man means that masculinity is inherent to his very humanity. In other words, Adam as a human cannot exist apart from Adam as a man. Eve as a human cannot exist apart from Eve as a woman. Thus, we see here that in God's order of creation, there are more than just one identity marker in created beings, and these identity markers cannot ever be separated from one another. So, we see in God's order of creation that all beings, but especially humans as the epitome of creation, all posses more than multiple identities which exist and function interdependently: Adam is created as a human, as an individual, and as a man. Eve is created as a human, as an individual, and as a woman. Adam and Eve are also created as the first family, so here we also find with the first collective human identity. Here at the very beginning of creation we therefore have at the very least 4 layers of identity at play: 1) human, 2) individual, 3) man/woman, and 4) family. Adam and Eve cannot be seen just as humans or just as individuals. They are already created here at the beginning with a distinct sex and a familial identity. Human identity is therefore essentially God-given. Of course, not all identities are directly given by God's act of creation and certain identities also develop historically by way of God's providence—but they remain God-given identities or properties nonetheless.

The Role and Function of Human Identity in God's Kingdom

God's kingdom is established on earth through the redemptive work of Christ. Christ brings God's kingdom to earth by overcoming sin and evil. So when we think about the role of human identity in God's kingdom, we must start by asking what role identity plays in the redemptive work of Christ. A good place to start is naturally therefore right at the beginning of the New Testament, where the first Gospel starts with a genealogy. The purpose of the genealogy is to point to Jesus's identity as a descendant of David from the tribe of Judah. Here, right at the beginning of the historical narrative of Christ's incarnation, it is emphasized that He himself assumes a particular human identity as an Israelite, a Jew, and a son of David—and here we again we see how these four identities inherent to His humanity which He assumes to redeem mankind are highlighgted. Christ's identity as a human in every sense was just as essential as Adam's identity as a human in every sense, since humanity fell into sin not due to some mythological abstraction, but through the sin of a real historical human being with all the identities associated with being human. Thus, the second Adam, Christ, had to assume all aspects of humanity and all the identities inherent to being human by being born as 1) a man that is part of a particular 2) family, 3) tribe, and 4) nation in order to redeem humanity. For humanity does not consist of a crowd of unrelated, atomized, and abstract individuals, but of people who are truly human precisely because they possess the identities intrinsic to humanity as a God-given reality. The identities discussed in Jesus's genealogy in Matthew 1 are, in other words, inherent to being human as such. The genealogies in Matthew and Luke teach us that Jesus is not only truly God but also truly human, and as a Man belong to a particular family, coming from a particular place and belinging to a particular tribe and nation, He redeems men, women, families, cities or communities, peoples, and nations.

God works covenantally with humanity. He makes a covenant with Abraham and his descendants, and within the framework of this covenant, He redeems nations, commanding us to take the gospel to these nations so that the nations will serve Him (Matthew 28:19). It is not just individuals who becomes Christian, but families, communities, cities, and peoples who are redeemed and sanctified so as to become covenant families, covenant cities, and covenant peoples.

The invisible church of Jesus Christ consists of all the elect not as individual abstractions but as created human beings who form part of covenantal social units. Just as different families come together to form a congregation without the distinction between the families ceasing to exist, so the church of Christ consists of believers from all over the world who are each redeemed as members of their own particular family and people. In other words, it is not just that we retain certain identities in terms of our sex, family, ethnicity, place, race, language, and culture despite our redemption, our identities actually constitute an integral, indispensable part of our redemption, just as our Redeemer Jesus Christ's identity as a male, a member of the royal family of David, an ethnic Israelite from the tribe of Judah, and a Nazarene who is native speaker of a Galilean dialect of Aramaic constitutes an indispensable part of his humanity.

But what about Galatians 3:38?

There is a well-established exegetical principle known as the analogia Scriptura, which flows directly from the Reformational principle of Sola Scriptura. This entails that since Scripture is recognized as the highest authority, Scripture can only be its own infallible interpreter. When a text is difficult to understand, we look to other texts in the Bible knowing that all of Scripture is infallibly revealed and God can never contradict Himself. When it comes to a text like Galatians 3:28, it is important to point out that the Bible also teaches that employees should be submissive to their employers just as children should be submissive to their parents. Furthermore, women should be submissive to their husbands, and the Lord does not permit women to hold the office of pastor. Now, if all these distinctions between different identities were abolished, then these types of commands would not make any sense and would indeed be in conflict with Galatians 3:28, making God's revelation self-contradictory. However, we know from the rest of Scripture that these identities are not only not abolished by the gospel, but they actually form an integral part of the redemption accomplished by Christ for creation and humanity.

What is addressed here in Galatians 3:28 is the equality of all humanity before God. There is no one who can stand before God and boast, for example, that "because I am a man, and God created man first, I deserve a greater place of honor in the kingdom of Christ," or "because I am a Jew and the Messiah was born from the Jewish people, I deserve a place of honor in the kingdom." No, we are all sinners and all deserve only to be condemned. We are in equal need of redemption. It is only by grace alone—sola gratia—that we can become children of God in Christ. It is interesting to note here that denying the biblical doctrine of sola gratia inevitably leads to interpreting Galatians 3:28 as referring to social rather than ontological equality. However, when we understand that it is precisely the merits of redemption that are at issue here in Galatians, then we understand that the unity all believers have in Christ is a spiritual unity that does not abolish diversity, but rather sanctifies that diversity to the glory of God.

Conclusion

It is only in Christ that a unity that also cherishes diversity can be found. A humanistic worldly unity always tries to erase diversity—whether by denying cultural differences, establishing a single world language, or even by denying the biological distinction between men and women. But these are all false, artificial, and counterproductive attempts to achieve human unity. Only in Christ can there true, organic unity that does not violate but harmonises diversity, and only in Christ can every facet of a human being's identity, as God-given, be cultivated to the glory of God.