ISSUE 2: Examining Our Identity Formation and Its Roots

As the world today changes, what immediately surrounds us is always having to adapt to this ongoing flux. Except for a context of deniers, humans are undeniably the most impacted by such changes. This impact is evident the strongest likely among those in human migration today. Yet, human migration (voluntary or involuntary) has occurred since the beginning, and these roots are vital to understand in the identity formation of all humans. So, this prompts the question, even for all Christians: Who is not a migrant?[1]

If migrant is the default status for humanity, how this affects the identity formation of any and all humans is critical to factor into our own identity equation. Why? I suggest that migrants have the most problems with their identity, because what forms that identity is subjected to the pressing changes surrounding them. If we all have migrant roots, we have to examine how this has affected our current identity formation. And we have to understand how that history has shaped our adaptations to the changes surrounding us, whereby our current identity is defined and our daily function is determined. These are narratives that need to be highlighted, because they underlie who we are as well as who or what our God is.

Perhaps you give little thought to your identity and rarely consider how it is formed. Take heed: The issue of identity formation is inescapable for us not merely to understand but also to exercise our agency in its process, determination and outcome. In the midst of changes surrounding us, it is crucial for Christians to know the impact changes have on us.[2] For example, has there been any identity theft affecting Christians, even beyond their awareness? Consider also: How skinny is your present identity, and how able do you think your identity is?

What follows should clarify the answers for us, whereby we could be corrected for necessary further changes to make as Christians. Our journey will illuminate all this for us as we begin from our human roots, which then will help us understand what converges today and thereby be able to anticipate the path head.

The metric used to form human identity has always become defining for the human being that emerged, which has also become determining for how that person(s) functioned—just as the Word predicted in his axiom (Mt 4:24). Given this, it is essential to understand the human identity equation and how its roots were established and have sprouted today to still cultivate who we are and how we live.

Identity formation is not a simple process. No single identity forms the whole of a person’s identity, which can include physical, family, social, cultural, ethnic, racial, class, age and gender identities. Yet, there are primary and secondary identities that go into defining who and what persons are. The key determining process for our identities involves the extent and depth of our relationships. It is not only critical for any anthropology to understand this but vital notably in theological anthropology for who emerges and what develops and survives.

There is no significance to deliberations of human being in isolation, as if human life can be observed in a vacuum. The person as a subject (not a mere object) is complex because of qualitative involvement in relationships within the surrounding social context; and the subject’s qualitative-relational involvement is critical to understand for who and what define the person emerging. In the past with his natural philosophy, Aristotle considered relations only in quantitative terms that, unlike substances (properties things have), cannot exist independently. This led to a hard distinction between substances and relations, in which relations are not essential, for example, to what a human being is. This, as F. LeRon Shults notes in his discussion on theological anthropology, “came to be orthodoxy in Western philosophy that the relations of a thing to other things are not essential to defining or knowing what that thing is.”[3] Aristotle’s model may be used as a Procrustean bed to shape a simple object but it cannot contain the complex subject-person, whose ontological identity is also composed in relationships with others. The qualitative and the relational converge dynamically and irreducibly in the integral process of identity formation for the complex subject-person.

Relationality (notably social relatedness and community) has received increasing attention in theological anthropology, and rightly so; Aristotle’s influence has been too far-reaching and longstanding. A distinction needs to be made about relationality, however, between simple association and complex relationship. Simple objects have simple associations but cannot have complex relationship since the latter requires the vulnerable involvement of a subject for reciprocal relationship together. Complex subjects can have complex relationships but also simple associations, depending on the level of their involvement—with vulnerability the determining factor, an issue noticeably absent in theological anthropology. The extent and depth of involvement determines having either complex relationship or simple association; and it is on this basis that identities are formed and their significance is determined.

Relationships are the key to human identity. The identity of who and what emerge, develop and thereby survive is keyed to the quantitative (simple association) or qualitative (complex relationship) significance of their relationships. Accordingly, the identity of the person emerging, developing and surviving is contingent on the extent and depth of distinctly vulnerable relationships. Yet, being vulnerable is rarely addressed, if discussed at all, in theological anthropology’s focus on relationality. The dynamic tension between “they were naked, that is, whole-ly embodied before each other from inner out, and were not confused or ashamed” and “they were embodied before each other from outer in, and in their discomfort they put on masks” discloses the extent of the relationships of the persons in the primordial garden (Gen 2:25; 3:7), and reveals the depth of their involvement; and on this basis, it determined who and what emerged, developed and survived. Theological anthropology needs to account for these relationships. Here again, it is critical for all persons to understand (1) on what basis we are naked and (2) what needs to be addressed in our relationships in order for human identity to be complete.

Furthermore, integral to this relational process is the primary ontological identity that constitutes human identity. The Creator’s question “Where are you?” is not a referential question seeking information about the location of the person. This is a critical question in relational language, which composes the primary relational context and process, seeking to establish the whole of who and what human identity is. Relationships, therefore, become the hermeneutical, epistemological and ontological keys to knowing and understanding the human person, unlocking the doors to both defining the who of human being and determining the what of being human. Any misinformation about this, however, reduces the who and fragments the what.

Reciprocal relationships with others, foremost with the whole of God, feed back the epistemological clarification and hermeneutic correction necessary for whole knowledge and understanding of the person and persons together in relationships. And Christians and their working theological anthropology continue to need this epistemological clarification and hermeneutic correction for their ontology and function to be whole. This relational context and process is indispensable for knowing and understanding the human person, and irreplaceable for deeply knowing and understanding other persons (including God, cf. Jer 9:24), and, likely most important, fully knowing and understanding even our own person. Without this vulnerable level of relational involvement, the identity of the person whom we think we know and understand is a mere assumption having little if any basis in reality. Such an assumption becomes the basis for ontological simulations and functional illusions of human identity.

There are no shortcuts to the development of the person constituted in whole ontology and function. The human context surrounding us presents ongoing challenges to the person with alternatives of anything less and any substitute of the whole, which fragment the person in functional illusion and ontological simulation that can only signify reduced ontology and function. Essential to identity formation, then, the whole person does not emerge until the human context sufficiently includes the primary context needed to compose the human narrative in complete context. Moreover, of immeasurable importance, while the whole person does not emerge apart from complete context, the person does not develop and survive unless this person in the surrounding context can adequately address the human condition.

It is critically within and inescapably from the human condition that theological anthropology must account for the integrated development of the complex subject and complex relationships in order for the whole person clearly to be distinguished in its discourse and, indeed, to be significant in the lives of its proponents. The person who is presented and lived can be nothing less and no substitute.

Therefore, the question once again emerges to pursue our person, which all Christians in their explicit or implicit theological anthropology cannot avoid: “Where are you?” Of equal importance is the uncovering question, which is key to the identity formation equation: “Who told you that you were naked?” (Gen 3:11).

The roots of identity formation compose a compelling narrative that formulates the metric for identity, both for humans as well as for God. As will become evident, how we define ourselves biases how we see our God. But God directly clarifies and corrects this bias: “You thought that I was one just like yourself” (Ps 50:21).

When God was grieved by how persons functioned in the human context, Noah was the exception whom God identified as a righteous and blameless person who walked with God (Gen 6:5-9). In God’s relational response of grace to the human condition, God constituted a relational covenant with Abraham, whose reciprocal relational response gave account of Abraham’s involvement as righteousness (Gen 12:1-4; 15:4-6, cf. Rom 4:3,11; Gal 3:6). God also made definitive the terms for relationship together: Abraham’s ongoing reciprocal relational response in righteousness was, irreducibly and nonnegotiably, “walk before me and be blameless” (Gen 17:1). What distinguished Abraham’s and Noah’s identity with the equation using the metric of righteousness and blameless?

There is an integral identity emerging from the beginning that signifies the ontology and function of whole persons who are distinguished in the human context—which our theological anthropology must compose with nothing less and no substitutes. As the first metric, righteousness (ṣĕdāqâh) needs to be understood as a relational term in relational language (notably in a juridical process about a covenant), which involves the relational dynamic of the whole of who, what and how a person is that others can count on to be this whole person in relationship together—a trust essential to significant relationships, without which render relationships tentative, shallow or broken. Righteousness in referential terms becomes an attribute merely describing information about someone, which is insufficient to account for the dynamic function of the whole person’s relational involvement. For God, the ancient poet declares, righteousness is the ongoing determinant that establishes God’s relational path—the whole of who, what and how God is that can be counted on in relationship (Ps 85:13). In relational terms, righteousness confirms that the person presented to others in relationship is truly the person one says one is.

In other words, righteousness is critical for the identity of persons (including God) to be distinguished from prevailing identities in the human context that do not identify the whole person; righteousness composes a true identity of the person. Given this, the next metric integral to this identity distinguishing persons in righteousness is the further relational dynamic to be tamiym (blameless), which also must be understood as a relational term in relational language. What is the relational function of tamiym?

Regarding what’s expected of the person God created and living as that person in the human context, we know the following: the qualitative innermost that constitutes the whole person from inner out is the function of the heart, which is the unmistakable function that God expects and seeks (cf. Jn 4:23-24). The heart’s qualitative function is embodied in relational terms by righteousness to involve the true identity of the person from inner out, and not an identity of something less or some substitute from outer in (as shaped in human history from the beginning, cf. Isa 29:13). This integral relational function must by its nature be further embodied by tamiym.

The heart signifies the unmistakable function of what God seeks: the whole person, nothing less and no substitutes. When God made conclusive to Abraham the terms for covenant relationship together, the Lord appeared to him directly and said clearly in order to constitute Abraham’s relational response: “Walk before me, and be blameless” (Gen 17:1). That is, “be involved with me in relationship together by being blameless (tamiym).” The tendency is to render “blameless” as moral purity and/or ethical perfection (cf. Gen 6:9), notably in Judaism by observance of the law (cf. 2 Sam 22:23-24). With this lens, even Paul perceived his righteousness as “blameless” (Phil 3:6). Yet tamiym denotes to be complete, whole, and is not about mere moral and ethical purity. Beyond this limited perception, tamiym involves the ontology of being whole, namely the whole person from inner out involved in the primacy of relationship together. In this identity equation integrated with righteousness, tamiym completes the relational function to involve jointly the true and whole identity formation of the person—the integral identity embodied by Noah and Abraham that God expects of persons in reciprocal relationship together.

In God’s relational nature, the only way God engages in covenant relationship is by reciprocal relationship and never by unilateral relationship. The relational terms of reciprocal relationship together require the whole person’s involvement, which then requires the human agency of a person’s will to fulfill the terms for reciprocal relationship with righteousness and being whole. God holds human persons responsible for their human agency created for reciprocal relationship and holds accountable their choices of will in relationship together both in God’s context and the human context—“Where are you?” and “what are you doing here?”

From the beginning, however, this integral identity has been diminished or minimalized under various assumptions (most notably “You will not be reduced”), even with functional illusion (e.g. “your eyes will be opened”) and ontological simulation (ultimately, “you will be like God”), which makes critical knowing the source of such information (Gen 3:4-5). The focus on purity, for example, was problematic, and still is today in Christian ethics in terms of ethical perfection. In Israel’s history purity often was measured functionally by a code shaped by human contextualization, and thus focused more on what persons were responsible to do (fragmentary quantitative behavior) rather than on the primary function of being involved in relationship together (integral qualitative behavior, cf. 1 Sam 15:22; Jer 7:22-23; Hos 6:6; Mic 6:6-8; Mt 5:21-48). When such practice was operating, this demonstrated a pivotal redefinition of human ontology from inner out to outer in, thereby reducing persons to the measured indicators of what they did and had—and measured in a comparative process of self-consciousness to quantify a basis for human boasting (cf. Jer 9:23; Mk 7:5,14-19; Acts 10:13-14).

Moreover, in this reductionist process the metric for Israel’s identity became more about land and nation-state rather than about a people and covenant relationship together, more about religious culture (e.g. ethnocentrism with quantitative identity markers) and politics (e.g. nationalism), rather than about the primacy of relationship together (both collective and personal) in the image and likeness of God and having theological significance as God’s relational whole on God’s relational terms. In other words, Israel’s history became the frequent narrative of God’s people diminishing the covenant relationship and their identity by getting defined, determined, embedded, even enslaved, in the surrounding human context (cf. 1 Sam 8:19-20; Jer 3:10; 12:2; Eze 33:31). This identity equation also applied to the tradition of certain Pharisees during Paul’s time (see Jesus’ penetrating analysis, Mt 15:1-20, cf. the Qumran Essenes’ critique[4]). More importantly, this reductionism pointed to the integral basis for Jesus’ nonnegotiable terms for relationship together: that our righteousness be distinguished beyond these particular Pharisees (Mt 5:20).

These reductions all fragmented the integrated functional and relational significance of tamiym that God made conclusive to constitute Abraham in covenant relationship together. To be “blameless” by its nature must be fully integrated with what and who God seeks to be involved with, which cannot be measured by mere quantitative and referential terms. Therefore, “blameless” is both inseparable from the qualitative function of the heart and irreducible of the ontology of the whole person from inner out, whose true identity can only be embodied by the relational function of righteousness. As a Pharisee who rigorously observed the law, Paul had considered his righteousness to be “blameless” (Phil 3:6). Yet Jesus previously had exposed the reductionist practices of certain Pharisees in Paul’s day and their underlying ontology of the person from outer in without the significance of the heart (as noted above). The critical assessment of one’s faith must account for the ontology of the whole person. That is to say, to be blameless is nothing less and no substitutes for being whole as created in the image and likeness of the whole of God. For Abraham, this was the integrated functional and relational significance of his involvement with God signifying his faith, and therefore constituting the necessary relationship together of the covenant on God’s relational terms from inner out, which is embodied just by righteousness.

This integral relational function of righteousness and tamiym is beautifully embodied by the wisdom of the ancient poet when he uses shalom to express the wholeness of tamiym: “righteousness and wholeness will kiss each other” (Ps 85:10)—indeed, since they are functionally inseparable in the bond of the primacy of relationship. It is on the basis of this integrated functional and relational significance that those whose life and practice are tamiym in the primacy of their relational work are blessed along with Abraham (cf. Ps 119:1). Paul did not receive this blessing on the Damascus road for his rigorous faith as a Pharisee and intense service to God (albeit persecuting the church). On the contrary, tamiym signifies the epistemological clarification and hermeneutical correction he experienced instead. It is this definitive whole that redefined Paul’s person from inner out and newly determined his life, practice, thought and theology with his new identity. What further defines this whole that God expects persons to be in relationship together?

First, we cannot think or describe in quantitative static terms that which is qualitatively dynamic, though not the same as being ‘in process’. In the whole’s functional significance, being whole or wholeness is understood as involving necessarily the following:

Being whole, wholeness, constitutes the ongoing life and function of the whole of God (the Trinity), who created human life and function with the ontology of the person in the qualitative image of God, and thus the person was created whole signified by the qualitative function of the heart; this function of the person is integrated inseparably to the created design and purpose for relationships and the relational involvement necessary together to be whole in likeness of the relational ontology of the Trinity—nothing less and no substitutes (cf. Gen 1:27; 2:18; Col 3:10-11). Therefore, the individual person alone is never sufficient to complete being whole, no matter what substance is attributed to the individual; to be whole by its created nature in the image and likeness of the whole of God involves also the relationships together necessary to be whole, God’s relational whole. This also is signified by how each person in the Trinity is understood. No trinitarian person alone is the whole of God. That is, each trinitarian person is whole-ly God but is not complete in being the whole of God apart from the other trinitarian persons; necessarily by its nature only the three trinitarian persons together constitute the relational ontology of the Trinity—in whose likeness human persons in relationship together have been created and thus must function together by its nature to be whole, God’s relational whole.

Anything less and any substitutes are reductions of the whole—that is, in essence “to be apart” in ontology and function—thus can never reflect, experience or represent wholeness; at best they are only the ontological simulations and functional illusions from reductionism and its counter-relational workings. These are critical ongoing issues that Christians in their theological anthropology need to better understand to distinguish the person God created and expects to live while in the human context—forming our identity irreducibly and nonnegotiably.

Unfolding in tense juxtaposition with the integral identity emerging from the beginning is a diminished or minimalized identity equation for persons. To be whole in ontology and function is to live distinguished (pala) beyond the comparative process of human distinctions that define and determine persons in reduced ontology and function—as in human context’s prevailing models (e.g. determining Israel, 1 Sam 8:5,18-20), promoted ideals (e.g. defining the early disciples, Lk 9:46; 22:24), and pervading templates (e.g. the influence of social media today). Living according to the comparative process of human distinctions requires a perceptual-interpretive framework and lens that makes an underlying assumption of defining persons by what they do and have from outer in. This self-definition becomes primary also for how others are defined, and, on this basis, how relationships are engaged, which then determines how relationships together (e.g. as church) are practiced—the three inescapable issues for our ontology and function.

What equation and metric we pay attention to or ignore in the created narrative due to our interpretive lens is critical to whether the whole identity of the person emerges or a diminished, minimalized identity unfolds. The qualitative innermost of the image of God in God’s relational likeness defines the whole ontology and function of human persons (Gen 1:26-27). In the first creation narrative immediately after this definition in the image and likeness of God, then the work of human persons is described (1:26b) and the purpose human persons are to fulfill (1:28). Our perception of the person and person-consciousness become problematic if the above order is inverted (if only by emphasis) and the primary source of defining the human person becomes “the work”—that is, basing the person on what we do, no matter how God-related or directed. Such a focus is consequential for the whole person and the whole of God.

The human persons’ choice to move away from the relational terms of God precipitated conditions outside the primordial garden that would make work difficult (Gen 3:17-19) and human purpose a struggle (3:15-16). Life as God created is not being redefined here; God’s created design and purpose remain unaltered. Yet, what is subject to redefinition is the human person’s self-perception—influenced by the workings of “Who told you that you were naked”—making it now problematic how the person functions; work, for example, was never to be done in any manner. Nowhere is the susceptibility to redefining the person and person-consciousness greater than in relation to work (or what we do) outside the primordial garden. It is vital to reexamine this influence on our practice after this pivotal shift in the primordial garden and how it affects our perceptual-interpretive lens determining what we pay attention to or ignore, thus predisposing us even to inadvertent or unintentional practices. This framework also is critical importance for how we see the person today and what human activity determines person-consciousness distinguished from self-consciousness—the function of theological anthropology.

The significance of “work made difficult” is not about how hard it can be but about its controlling influence on the person such that work becomes what defines that person from outer in. This influence tends to be enslaving, if not in quantitative ways (for example, time and energy), certainly on more qualitative matters (like self-worth). “Who you are” becomes about “what you do.” And “what you are” becomes determined by how much you accomplish in “what you do”—notably measured in a comparative process with others. In this process a great deal is at stake here, and the drive for a payoff can be consuming. Consequently, the primary investments made in this lifestyle are bonded to work-related activity (vocational and avocational). Invariably, then, this process of defining ourselves by what we do or have becomes an unavoidable comparative process in relation to other persons, thus creating quantitative distinctions between persons, with relational consequences—notably stratified relationships, which, when formalized, become systems of inequality (the basis for Paul’s concern, Gal 3:26-28; 5:6; 6:15).

At the very least, defining the person by what one does conflicts with how God created us and thus defines us; and it inverts the created order by designating (even inadvertently) secondary matter (like work to be done, even if assigned by God) to the primary position, thus reducing (even unintentionally) the primary matter of God’s qualitative relational design and purpose for the person and relationships to a lower priority in actual practice. This consequence can happen despite having a theology in place affirming the primacy of God’s design and purpose—a consequence often seen among Christian workers while doing Christian service. This not only reduces the whole of God’s qualitative innermost transplanted into us but also conflicts with it, and thus counters God’s expectations of the person as one lives in the human context—no matter how sacrificial and dedicated to God.

The often subtle shift in the identity equation to redefining the person away from the qualitative significance of the heart (1) increasingly becomes quantitative (things measured in quantified terms for more certainty, or identified primarily by rationality for more control), (2) increasingly transposes the secondary over the primary, and (3) shapes substitutes for the qualitative significance of persons distinguished in the image and likeness of God. This three-fold shift amplifies human consciousness of the parts that compose human distinctions—that is, heightens self-consciousness of what we do and have in order to define (or measure up) ourselves in a comparative process. As this self-consciousness increases, there is a correlated decrease in person-consciousness. Accordingly, as person-consciousness fades, there is a proportional decrease in a person’s qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness. The lack of qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness is a critical condition for the person in the human context, resulting in a self increasingly distant from the heart and in relationships, that is, increasingly “to be apart from God’s whole” and unable to live in ontology and function by the qualitative image and relational likeness of God.

Critically, this pivotal shift has immediate, though often not apparent, relational consequences: This reductionism not only conflicts with how God created us and thereby defines us, it conflicts with how God vulnerably is involved with us, therefore confounding relationship with God. Theological anthropology needs to understand this relationship in its reciprocal nature and the whole person in compatible relational terms in order to whole-ly distinguish God’s design, purpose and desires that are indeed distinguished from “to be apart”. If our theology is not whole, we cannot expect our practice to be whole, thus be integral together for the viable faith needed in today’s world.

From the beginning Adam was not created for what he could do and the activity simply of doing something, whether work related or not, though a part of his function was to work. We can essentially define this aspect of work as what we connote by the function of making a living. In creation, however, work was not designed for this end in itself; accordingly, work could not be done in any manner but was engaged on two distinct terms. When God “put the man in the primordial garden to work” (Gen 2:8,15), it was clear the Creator established (“put” siym, establish, appoint) this creature in the work. Thus, the first term for work was that it was to be undertaken within the functional context as creature in relationship to Creator—that is, the relational context. Secondly, God was clear about the terms (command, desires, 2:16) for engaging work in this context and that involvement in this necessary relational context was only on God’s terms—thus, the relational process defined by God, the whole and uncommon God beyond the universe. These two distinct terms for work are significant only as relational terms; referential terms may reference the information of these terms but they do not compose their qualitative function in the primacy of relationship.

This relational context and process of creation are fundamental for a valid function of work and most importantly are intrinsic to the primary function of the whole person as created in the likeness of the triune God. This integral dynamic constitutes the basis that distinguishes persons and relationships. How a person functions is determined by how the person is defined and perceived in this relational context and process. This definition of the person determines not only how we do work but even more significant to God also determines how we do relationships together. How we do relationship with God is determined by our relational involvement and reciprocal response as whole persons to the whole being of God, yet not by our referential terms but only on God’s relational terms. The relational context and process of how we engage in relationship with God is signified by the reciprocal relational involvement of worship and not defined by how we do work for God, even though serving is part of our response of worship—part of a complete relational response.

It is not a coincidence that the term for “work” (‘abad, 2:15) is the same term used for worship in the OT denoting service. The authentic worship of God must also involve the relational response of service distinctly based on relational submission, adoration and praise, always defined in relational terms to distinguish the primacy of relationship together. These four responses together (forming the acronym PASS) constitute worship and signify how to engage in relationship with God; worship is the functional pass to the intimate presence of God. Therefore, how work (or service) is to be done must function by engaging in this primary relational purpose as designed by the Creator in relationship with the created person. Without involvement in this relational context and process, work (or service) has no relational significance to God and thus has either little meaning or no qualitative fulfillment for the person created in God’s image. For example, lack of fulfillment is certainly an occupational hazard experienced by many in their vocations. Reductionism of any dimension of creation has far-reaching repercussions on our person today, on our relationships and consequently on how relationships together as church is practiced, which should alert us to what we need to take heed now.

We need to more deeply understand in function that the person was created with a qualitative function intrinsic to God, the quality of which work (or doing something, even service) by itself did not have (a condition God defined as “not good,” Gen 2:18); and, therefore, the function of work (or what we do, even for God) could not fulfill this qualitative function—no matter the nature of the work nor the extent of experience from it. This qualitative function for the human person that God implanted in creation was whole-ly relational. God “breathed” (cf. Gen 2:7) in us the primacy of relationship in likeness to the whole of the triune God, by which the Trinity is intimately involved with each other and now intimately involved with us.

In the creation narrative (Gen 2:18) God may appear focused on the work as the purpose for which Eve was created. That emphasis would be inconsistent with how God defines the person and, once again, would invert the primary priority of God’s created design and purpose. Further, this emphasis on what we do becomes problematic because it predisposes us in a reductionist identity equation and metric affecting not only how we define ourselves but also how we do relationships and thus how we practice church. This includes how spiritual gifts are perceived and the emphasis on giftedness to define the person and to appoint church leadership. We need to return to God’s created order so that we can more deeply understand both our person and also understand God, including the nature of both as well as our relationship together.

“To be alone” (bad) is necessarily rendered “to be apart” in God’s created order, because it illuminates the wholeness in creation from which “is not good to be apart.” The difference between “to be alone” and “to be apart” is immeasurable since for Adam it was not just the secondary matter of having no one to share space with, no one to keep him company or to do things with (particularly the work). “To be apart” is not just a situational condition but most importantly a relational condition. A person can be alone in a situation but also feel lonely in the company of others, at church, even in a family or marriage because of relational distance—“to be apart.” This rendering is more reflective of the dynamic process of relationship in God’s created design and purpose—and needs to replace the conventional “to be alone” not only in our reading but in our theology and practice. Christians need to connect this to the growing relational condition of students today feeling lonely.

What the person Adam (thus all persons) needed in the above context had little to do with help for work but everything concerned with his primary function, the quality of which work cannot provide or fulfill—as many ever since make evident and can bear witness to. This concern was God’s focus and provision for the first human person. God’s equation constituting human identity only involves relationship fundamental to human make-up constituted in the image and relational likeness of the triune God, involving reciprocal relationship basic to the function of the whole person (from inner out), involving intimate reciprocal relationship primary (above all else) to the created order of life. This is the primacy of the created context and process of inter-person relationships: the relational context and process of the whole of God.

God created Adam initially without this human relational context, though the relational context and process existed between him and God. Yet, created life in the human context could not remain solitary because of the image and likeness of this relational triune God. The human person was never meant “to be apart.” Eve completed the inter-person relational nature of human life, which was predicated on the intimate relational nature of the triune God, constituted first in the intimate relational communion between the persons of the Trinity and then by that same communion between God and human persons. Into this deeper qualitative context of inter-person relationships we all were created and for this distinguished relational purpose our lives are designed. It is from this trinitarian relational context and by this trinitarian relational process that God is glorified in the reciprocal relational response of worship—not by the focus of what we do, even in worship, which renders us to self-consciousness increasingly distant from our hearts and in relationships (as in Isa 29:13; Mk 7:6-8).

Therefore, the primary work God created us for and expects from us is whole-ly relational work. All other work is not only secondary and subordinate to relational work but also to be undertaken and engaged according to this primary work of relationship. And relational work in our reciprocal involvement with God is the foremost priority, which by God’s relational nature also includes relational involvement with others that no other work has priority or more importance over—the relational significance of God’s two summary terms for relationship together in the relational involvement of love (Mt 22:37-40). This relational work is what God expects from the whole person, and what constitutes the person to live whole in the human context.

Accordingly, this relational work is contingent on the essential outworking in three inescapable issues for our ontology and function: (1) defining our person from the inner out, and (2) on this qualitative basis, relational work emerges from compatible involvement in our relationships, which then (3) needs to determine whole relationships together, not fragmentary, distant or secondary relations. This integral identity is both true and whole because it is constituted by the conjoint relational function of righteousness and the whole of tamiym. It is critical for all Christians in their theological anthropology to understand and thus vital to make definitive: How God defines the whole person is how God expects persons to be and thereby to live whole in the human context with God and with others, which clarifies and corrects any revisions of the identity formation equation.

The integral identity of these persons further involves addressing the ongoing interdependence between the above three inescapable issues for ontology and function, and these three unavoidable issues for all practice: (1) the integrity of the whole person presented to others, which by the nature of this person’s created image and likeness must be presented in relational terms, not presented in referential terms; then on this basis (2) the qualitative significance of communication in relational language that ‘the whole person presented to others’ expresses to these others; so that (3) the deep level of relational involvement this whole person engages with those others unfolds for relationship together to be whole—all of which are constituted by the inseparably integral relational function of righteousness and being whole. As these three inescapable issues and three unavoidable issues converge in ongoing interaction, what emerges to distinguish persons is this integral identity of persons true and whole from inner out; and what continues to unfold is for these persons to be distinguished (pala) in the human context and not “to be apart”.

As the Word becomes more vocal, whether it resonates with Christians or not, the identity challenge widens and its path narrows for all Christians. Take heed, the Word is neither ambiguous nor negotiable; and any misinformation about the Word will be clarified and corrected by the Word’s communication in relational language, because the Word is always involved for relationships together to be whole.

As Jesus started proclaiming the good news that the kingdom of God had come (Mk 1:14-15), he extended his call to follow him: “Come” (deute, 1:17, cf. Jn 1:39). His exclamation to come “follow after” (opiso) him was the opposite of what he told Satan earlier: “Away with you” (Mt 4:10, opiso, get behind). Later, Peter also received this contrary message from Jesus to “get behind me” (opiso, Mt 16:23). Yet, before that Peter clearly received Jesus’ call to follow after him (opiso in positive response). The opposing messages Peter received help distinguish the nature of Jesus’ call.

When Jesus called “Come,” he initiated a relational dynamic that composed his calling in three interrelated processes:

Peter indeed received Jesus’ call but had difficulty responding to Jesus in these three interrelated processes—with the first process certainly the main impasse for him. Jesus exposed that impasse for Peter with the contrary message to “get behind me.” But, unlike with Satan, Jesus used this pivotal interaction to give the clarification and correction Peter needed for the nature of his call. In only this relational dynamic initiated by Jesus, Peter’s (and any of our) identity formation unfolds in Jesus’ calling.

Jesus always contended with reduced ontology and function because he called his followers to be whole, first and foremost—just as Abraham was called for covenant relationship. His call to his followers necessitates conjointly being redeemed from reductionism and transformed to wholeness. We can’t be saved to wholeness without being saved from reductionism, which is our default condition and mode as long as we live in reduced ontology and function. We can’t be forgiven for our sin in order to be redeemed without being forgiven also for our sin of reductionism. A truncated soteriology and an incomplete process of change create unresolvable identity problems for those related to God. That is what we witness in God’s people from the OT, in would-be disciples, and in even his closest followers, including in the early church. This should not be surprising or unexpected as long as reductionism in human contextualization is not dealt with.

The surrounding human context (namely culture) commonly establishes the priorities of importance for life and practice, hereby making relative what those primary priorities will be from culture to culture, subculture to subculture, community to community, even family to family. Reflecting again on our contemporary expanding surroundings, the global context is having a profound effect in reducing the priorities of local contexts by increasingly shifting, embedding and enslaving persons in secondary priorities and away from the primacy of qualitative and relational priorities. This is becoming, if it has not already become, another fact that misrepresents reality that composes the quality of life. And this so-called progress is taking its toll on the minds and bodies of those affected—which has been confirmed by nongovernmental organizations and human rights groups, and that neuroscience would also confirm. Being occupied, even preoccupied, with secondary matter is a pervasive condition also found in theological education—notably preoccupied with referential information—which shapes the academy by the prevailing influence from its surrounding context, currently with digital learning.

The shift to the primacy of the secondary must further be understood in the underlying quest for certainty and/or the search for identity. This process engages a narrowing of the epistemic field to better grasp, explain and have certainty, for example, about what holds the person and world together in their innermost. Functionally, the process also necessitates reducing the qualitative-relational field of expectations from inner out (too demanding, vulnerable with uncertain results) to outer in for quantitative- referential terms that are easier to measure, perform and quantify the results of, for example, in the search for identity and finding one’s place in human contexts (including church and academy). In other words, the shift to the primacy of the secondary and its preoccupation are not without specific purpose that motivates persons even in the theological task and the practice of faith. Yet whatever certainty and identity result in secondary terms can only be incomplete, ambiguous or shallow.

Identity formation in particular for Jesus’ followers is problematic when it is composed either apart from his call or not understanding his call—problematic most noticeably when not composed by the process of redemptive change (process 1 above). Peter’s identity (in the above interaction) was contrary to Jesus’ call because it was still determined primarily by human contextualization: “you are setting your mind not on God’s things but on human things” (Mt 16:23). The influence of human contextualization, of course, is a pivotal issue for all of us, which must be dealt with ongoingly for our primary identity composed by Jesus’ call to emerge and unfold.

Jesus taught a critical lesson (e.g. Rev 2-3, to be discussed later) that delineates a simple reality of life about the human person and the surrounding social context—matters we either pay attention to or ignore depending on our assumptions of theological anthropology and the human condition. His lesson is integrated with his formative family prayer (Jn 17:9-19) and addresses the issue of contextualization defining us. Since we do not live in a vacuum, our ontology and function (both individual and collective) are either shaped by the surrounding context we are en (v.11, thus “of the world,” v.14) or constituted by what we enter eis (dynamic movement “into”) that context with. In the latter constituting process, for the dynamic of eis to define and determine our ontology and function in congruence with Jesus (v.18) necessitates the ek (“of” indicating source) relational involvement to negate any defining influence on us from a surrounding context (“not of the world”) in order to determine us by our primary source in the whole of God’s relational context and process, therefore constituting the whole ontology and function in the primacy of relationship together for the eis relational movement back to the world (vv.16-18). Human contextualization, though neither disregarded nor necessarily unimportant, is clearly secondary to God’s in this process that integrally distinguishes our primary identity of who we are and whose we are (v.9). This reciprocating relational process (ek-eis relational dynamic, as in reciprocating contextualization) signifies the relational demands of grace for reciprocal relationship conjointly compatible with the theological trajectory of Jesus’ coming eis the world and congruent with his relational path of wholeness for all of life with which he engaged the world. Nothing less and no substitutes can distinguish the whole ontology and function of Jesus and of those in likeness who indeed follow him in the primacy of whole relationship together without veiled identities of ambiguity or shallowness.

The wholeness of his followers’ identity is the relational outcome of embracing Jesus in his full identity—the outcome emerging from the process of transformation (process 2 above) composing his call. In this relational dynamic initiated by Jesus, the clarity and depth of his identity are vital and become a christological contingency. The key, and thus the contingency, is who Jesus is. If who Jesus is defines the basis for our identity as his followers, then Jesus by necessity is both the hermeneutical key and the functional key for identity formation. This, of course, makes our life and practice in discipleship contingent on our working Christology—specifically, whether or not it involves the embodied whole of Jesus (as person and as One in the Trinity) to compose the discipleship of complete Christology.

When Jesus said in his formative family prayer “I sanctify myself” (Jn 17:19), this was not about sanctifying his ontology but about sanctifying his identity to function clearly in the human context to distinguish the whole of his ontology. Since Jesus’ ontology was always holy (hagios, uncommon), this sanctifying process was mainly in order that his followers’ ontology and identity may be sanctified (hagiazo) uncommon in the experiential truth of his full identity (as Jesus prayed). Moreover, since Jesus’ embodied identity did not function in a social vacuum with relational separation, it is vital to understand his sanctified identity for the experiential truth of our identity to be in his likeness and our ontology to be in the image of the whole-ly God (as Jesus further prayed).

What is Jesus’ sanctified identity? As the embodiment of the uncommon God, Jesus’ identity functioned in congruence with the origin or source of his ontology. Earlier in his formative family prayer, he indicated the source of his ontology as “I myself am not of the world” (vv.14,16, NIV). “Of” (ek) means (here in the negative) out of which his identity is derived and to which he belongs. Yet, this only points to Jesus’ full identity. In his prayer he also defined his function as “in the world” (v.13, cf. Jn 13:1). “In” (en) means to remain in place, or in the surrounding context, while “out of” the context to which he belongs, thereby pointing to his minority identity in that surrounding context. It is the dynamic interaction of Jesus’ full identity with his minority identity that is necessary for the significance of his sanctified identity. In his identity equation they are conjoined, and if separated our understanding of who, what and how Jesus is as the whole person is diminished. This fragmentation signifies an incomplete Christology that is consequential for the clarity and depth of identity to emerge.

In relational terms and not referential, Christian identity must by its nature be qualitatively rooted in and ongoingly relationally based on Jesus’ identity. On this irreducible and nonnegotiable basis, Christology is basic to our identity; and any reduction of our Christology renders our identity to a lack of clarity (as “light”) and depth (as “salt”), consequently precipitating an identity crisis (“no longer good for anything,” Mt 5:13). Therefore, questions like those by the disciples (“Who is this?” Mk 4:41) and Paul on the Damascus road (“Who are you?” Acts 9:5: cf. Jn 8:25) need to be answered in complete (pleroo) theological determination for the answer to be definitive of the qualitative and relational significance of both the incarnation and the whole gospel. The disciples struggled with this relational epistemic process, while Paul received the epistemic clarification and hermeneutic correction to engage the whole of Jesus for relationship together without veiled identity—the relational outcome of whole ontology and function redefining who Paul was and transforming what he was and how he lived, signifying the new wine/creation.

Directly related to the above questions are questions such as “Where are you?” (Gen 3:9) and “What are you doing here?” (1 Kg 19:9,13). These, of course, are the urgent questions from God that also involve our theological anthropology and related theological assumptions of Christology, which are critical for identity formation. Both sets of questions need to be answered to define the depth of our theology (as signified in “Do you also wish to go away?” Jn 6:67), and to determine the depth of our reciprocal relational response (as signified in “do you love me?” Jn 21:16). Our response emerges from the primary identity of who we are, and the identity we form emerges from our theology, that is, the interaction between our theological anthropology and Christology. The ontology and function that result are contingent on this theological process. And this ontology and function identify the persons at the heart of Jesus’ call—both his person and our persons, apart from whom creates an identity crisis.

As the identity challenge widens in our examination, the path narrows for followers of Jesus to make evident what in effect is any identity theft. Any such theft would keep them from being “where I am” (Jn 12:26).

Our identity serves to inform us about who and what we are, and thus how to be. While identity is certainly not routinely singular, from this primary identity we can present that person to others. No moment in time, not one situation or association adequately defines an identity. Identity formation is an ongoing process of trial and error, change, development and maturation; and this process can be explicit or implicit, intentional or inadvertent. Just as the early disciples struggled with their identity—vacillating between what they were in the broader collective context and who they were as Jesus’ followers—the formation of our identity is critical for following Jesus in order both to establish qualitative distinction from common function and to distinguish who, what and how we are with others in a broader context.

Despite the identity crises that seem to be a routine part of identity formation in general, Jesus focused on two major issues making our identity as his followers problematic (Mt 5:13-16). These major issues directly interrelate to what has been discussed in this chapter, and are as follows:

Light and salt formulate the identity equation with a nonnegotiable and irreducible metric that narrows the path to follow Jesus.

Christian identity, namely as Jesus’ followers, must have both clarity and depth to establish qualitative distinction from common function (notably from reductionism) and to distinguish the qualitative significance of our whole person (what, who and how we are) in relationship with others. These two identity issues of ambiguity and shallowness, therefore, need our honest attention and have to be addressed in our ongoing practice, if our righteousness is going to function beyond reductionism (as Jesus clarified, Mt 5:20).

Going beyond reductionism necessitates the shift in righteousness from merely displaying character traits (an issue of integrity) and practicing an ethic of right and wrong (an issue of being upright) distinctly deeper to the qualitative involvement of what, who and how to be in relationship—relationship both with God and with others. This is the significance of righteousness that is qualitatively distinguished from common function, and thus is contrary to and goes beyond those who reduce righteousness, the law, the covenant, God and his communicative action to disembodied quantitative terms. Jesus clearly makes this distinction of righteousness the relational imperative for his followers to be distinguished beyond practice that reduces God’s whole (Mt 5:20).

In these metaphors of the light and the salt, Jesus was unequivocal about the identity of his followers: that “you are…” (eimi, the verb of existence), and thus all his followers are accountable to be (not merely to do) “the light of the world” and “the salt of the earth.” Other than as a preservative in the ancient world, it is not clear what specific function the salt metaphor serves—perhaps as peace (cf. Mk 9:50). But as a seasoning (“becomes tasteless,” moraine, v.13, cf. Col 4:6), this metaphor better suggests simply the distinct identity of Jesus’ followers that cannot be reduced and still be “salt,” and, in further distinction, that cannot be uninvolved with others and still qualitatively reflect the vulnerable Jesus (the Truth and Life) and illuminate the relational Way as “light.” This is not an optional identity, and perhaps not an identity of choice, but it is unmistakably the identity that belongs in relationship with Jesus and the function as his followers.

Yet, in everyday function identity formation can either become ambiguous or have clarity, can remain shallow or have depth. The identity formation from following a popular Jesus, for example, becomes ambiguous because the Christology lacks the qualitative significance of the whole-ly God and also lacks the qualitative distinction from common function. Consequently, the Christian subculture this generates becomes shallow, without the depth of the whole person in the image of the whole of God nor the primacy of intimate relationships together in likeness of the Trinity; this is not only a functional issue but affects human ontology.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on whether or not we have a skinny identity. The equation for a skinny identity uses the metric of outer distinctions for forming identity. What quantifies outer distinctions the most is skin color. So, to the extent that skin color is used in our perceptual-interpretive lens, then that will be the identity we get for defining both ourself and others. The status quo of identity formation is an inescapable issue for all Christians, because a skin-ny identity prevails both in what surrounds us and among us. Given this, a skin-ny identity is not automatically racist but it is a shallow identity that renders any Christian identity ambiguous.

While the embodied Jesus was distinctly Jewish, and his predominant surrounding context was Jewish Galilee and Judea, the person Jesus presented (who and what) and how he interacted at the various levels of social discourse were a function of a minority identity, not the dominant Jewish identity. One advantage of his minority identity was to clearly distinguish his significance from the prevailing majority—including from the broader context pervaded with Greco-Roman influence. A major disadvantage, however, was to be marginalized (viz. considered less, or even ignored if not intrusive) by the majority or dominant sector. This disadvantage is problematic at best for his followers and can precipitate an identity crisis, that is, if his followers are not experiencing the truth of who, what and how they are.

The consequence of Jesus’ minority identity is one issue all his followers must address (cf. the consequential characteristic of the last beatitude, Mt 5:10). At the same time, Jesus’ full identity is an interrelated issue inseparable from the minority issue, not only conjoined to it but antecedent to it. Thus, both issues must be addressed for the functional clarity of his followers’ identity as well as for the experiential depth of this identity necessary to mitigate an identity crisis.

In a complete Christology, the person presented by Jesus is a function of his whole person—nothing less and no substitutes, thus irreducible in the nature of his incarnation involvement with the human context; and Jesus’ whole person is a function of relationship in the trinitarian relational context and process—also nothing less and no substitutes, thus nonnegotiable to the terms of any other context and process. In this complete Christology the whole gospel of God’s thematic relational action of grace emerges for the experiential truth of Jesus’ full soteriology (saved both from and to), the significance of which is only for relationship together.

An identity crisis begins to emerge when the truth (or identity) of Jesus we follow is incomplete of his whole person—for example, focused on his disembodied teachings or example. This crisis develops when the Jesus as Truth we embrace is not his whole person in relationship together; whatever we then experience is some substitute for his person in a context and process simulating the context and process of intimate relationship as family together. The consequential lack of depth leads to a lack of clarity, that is, not necessarily a lack of clarity of what the object of faith is but a lack of clarity of the significance of Jesus’ whole person. Any lack of clarity of who Jesus is also reflects a lack of understanding of what faith involves as our reciprocal relational response to Jesus’ whole person (cf. would-be disciples who believed, Jn 6:60-66). These lacks are a relational consequence of functioning in relationship with Jesus without relational significance. Therefore, identity crisis for his followers is a direct function of reductionist relationship, first with Jesus then together with each other—the relationship of persons in reduced ontology and function, whose identity equation uses a conflicting metric.

Any aspect of identity crisis as followers of Jesus is correlated to their function in relationship with Jesus and its relational significance. In his full identity Jesus is the hermeneutical and functional keys to the whole-ly God (notably the Father) and for constituting the relationships necessary to be whole together as family. In this relational process, on the one hand, the full identity of who Jesus is constitutes the experiential truth of his followers’ identity as belonging to God’s family, which is the basis to mitigate an identity crisis. On the other, embracing Jesus in his full identity will always involve not only being associated with a minority identity but also being composed in it, which will unavoidably involve being different from the surrounding context. The incarnation principle of nothing less and no substitutes does not give his followers latitude to be selective of who, what and how they will be, even with good intentions (as various followers learned the hard way).

Wholeness of identity as Jesus’ followers is a relationship-specific process engaged in the practice of the contrary culture clearly distinguished from prevailing cultures (including popular Christian subcultures), which Jesus made definitive in his sanctified life and practice and outlined in the Sermon on the Mount. Clarity and depth of his followers’ identity is rooted in the following: what we are in the relational progression of reciprocal relationship with Jesus, and thus who we become intimately with the Father in his family together, as we also reciprocally work with the Spirit in how we ongoingly function. This unmistakably narrows the path for whoever follows Jesus. And this relationship-specific process should not be mistaken for a spiritual discipline.

The clarity of the light and the depth of the salt are the relational outcome of this ongoing intimate relationship with the Trinity. Any identity formed while distant from this relationship (which happens even in church) or in competition with this relationship (which happens even in Christian subcultures) diminishes the basic identity of being the whole-ly God’s very own (“the light”) as well as deteriorates its qualitative substance (“the salt”). Certainly, then, the whole and uncommon presentation of self to others is crucial to the identity of Jesus’ followers. This is the importance of Jesus interrelating identity with righteousness in conjoint function. While identity informs us of who, what and how we are, righteousness is the functional process that practices the whole of what, who and how we are—an uncommon function distinguished from the common. Identity and righteousness are conjoined to present a whole person in congruence (ontologically and functionally) to what, who and how that person is—not only in Christ but in the whole-ly God, the Trinity. Righteousness is necessary so that his followers can be counted on to be those whole persons—nothing less and no substitutes, and thereby distinguished from common reductionist practice (Mt 5:20).

Christian identity without righteousness is problematic, rendered by Jesus as insignificant and useless (5:13). Yet, righteousness without wholeness of identity is equally problematic, which Jesus made a necessity in order to go beyond reductionism (6:1). The latter often is an issue unknowingly or inadvertently by how “the light” and “the salt” are interpreted. “You are the salt…the light” tend to be perceived merely as missional statements from Jesus of what to do, which defines their identity also by what they do. While this identity formation has certainly challenged many Christians historically to serve in missions, the identity equation has promoted practices and an identity that do not go beyond reductionism. By taking Jesus’ words out of the context of the vital whole of his major communication (definitive for discipleship, Mt 5-7), they fail to grasp the significance of Jesus’ call to his followers—the extent and depth of which Jesus summarized in this major communication and increasingly made evident in his sanctified life and practice.

Let’s pause again to reflect on having an able identity. This equation uses the metric of what and/or how much we are able to do in order to form our identity. An able identity would also underlie a skin-ny identity, thereby compounding Christian identity. How much do you define your identity by what you do and can do—even on the basis of your spiritual gifts? Such an identity formation is consequential for those limited in what they can do, because the metric of ableism has created a stratified infrastructure even in the church that remains unresolved. Those also without disabilities but with less abilities (or spiritual gifts) are negatively impacted in more subtle ways by able identity. Here again, a shallow identity renders Christian identity ambiguous, which demonstrates the pervasive influence of a culture of ableism. This should be expected because it is rooted in “who told you that you are able or dis-able” (Gen 3:11).

The seriousness of the issues of clarity and depth in our life and practice cannot be overstated. The alternative common in Christian practices of essentially obscuring our identity as “the light” is a crucial issue directly related to Jesus’ warning to be acutely aware of functioning with the perceptual-interpretive framework of the reductionists (Lk 12:1, cf. Mt 16:6). This approach (alternative didache, Mt 16:12) involved presenting a performance of a role (viz. hypokrisis), that is, essentially the process of taking on an identity lacking clarity of who, what and how one truly is—which in his communication Jesus addressed, for example, in the practice of the law and relationships with others (5:21-48; 7:1-5). Yet, as denoted in hypokrisis, this practice does not preclude the subtlety of a process that could be engaged with good intentions, even inadvertently. Dual identities (e.g. one each for different contexts at church and work) and composite identities (subordinating “the light”) are commonly accepted Christian practices that demonstrate the mindset of reductionism—a framework (phronema) and lens (phroneo) incompatible for those in Christ (as Paul clarified theologically, Rom 8:5-6).

Moreover, any identity rooted only in the practice of propositional truth and the content of the law, without being relationally connected with the Truth (cf. “the vine and the branches”) and without ongoing intimate involvement with his whole person (“remain in me,” Jn 15), also is not the whole and uncommon identity of Jesus’ followers. Such disembodied identity lacks depth, despite correct appearances. Any identity of “the salt” without its substantive quality is directly interrelated to another critical issue of persons basically undergoing only limited change in the practice of their faith (viz. metaschematizo, outward change), which was addressed by Jesus (e.g. in Mt 6:1-18) and continues to be a current problem for conversion-sanctification issues. No amount of effort in this outer-in approach to what and who we are will compose the qualitative change of the innermost (i.e. metamorphoo, transformation from inner out) of the whole person because that is the nature of metaschematizo and a shallow identity. This distinction of metamorphoo from metaschematizo is vital for identity formation (cf. Rom 12:2), which involves the integral processes of redemptive change and transformation composing Jesus’ call. Where reductionism prevails, there is no depth of identity and relationship with God, despite even considerable identification and involvement with his truth, law and gospel, all of which have been disembodied, detached and disconnected for the relational outcome of wholeness.

This reductionism further involves functionally substituting for the whole person, which has crucial consequences for the ontology of the person. Whenever the perceived ontology of the human person (created in the image of God) is qualitatively different in function from the whole of God (whose image the person supposedly bears), there is reductionism of the human ontology. This reduced ontology is demonstrated when the person functions relationally apart (or at some distance) from others (even when serving them), without the primacy of intimate relationships necessary to be whole, thus reflecting a person detached or disconnected from the relational nature of God and from God’s wholeness as distinguished in the Trinity. In other words, who, what and how this person is never goes beyond reductionism, even if by default—remaining within the limits of its ontological simulation and epistemological illusion.

Therefore, until Christians (individually and collectively) take accountability and vulnerably address this issue at its heart, the identity crisis will continue to evolve; it evolves even subtly as a culture with a new normal for Christian practice, thus as if culturally mandated. Is this the prevailing condition of Christian identity in the U.S.? Moreover, does this identity equation not only form our identity but the identity of who our God is, using the metric “that I was one just like yourself” (Ps 50:21)? Consider further: What are the diverse identity veils worn by Christians that render their inner-out whole identity in Christ ambiguous or shallow—veils that contradict the Word’s identity formation for us (2 Cor 3:16-18)?

The Word makes unmistakable the identity he embodied, which then makes his followers’ identity irreducible and nonnegotiable in the primary and flexible in the secondary. It is always consequential, however, when this identity equation is reversed, even with good intentions for the identity formation of a multicultural diversity in the global church. It is consequential of the identity theft of Jesus and of who his followers truly are.

When Jesus demonstrated to his disciples the depth of his agape involvement by washing their feet, he embodied the identity equation of the experiential Truth, relational Way and whole Life for his followers in order for them to be congruent with his full identity without constructing a different identity (Jn 13:16). That is to say, in this defining interaction Jesus vulnerably revealed his primary identity, which was not merely as “Teacher and Lord” (“what I am,” vv.13-14) but as his whole person from inner out distinguishing the who of his primary identity and the how of his primary function. It is insufficient for Jesus’ identity to be defined by anything less (such as his role and title); such common substitutes effectively become his identity theft. It is also inadequate for his followers’ identity to be formed and defined by any other metric than his primary identity equation. In his shock (13:8), do you think Peter learned about identity formation in this defining interaction (cf. Gal 2:11-13)?

Integrally at the same time, this is not private or separatist congruence with Jesus but further and deeper congruence with Jesus’ minority identity in the surrounding context (both local and global). That is, this is the definitive congruence for a called follower who is experiencing his/her identity being redefined (redeemed), transformed and made whole by Jesus in the three processes composing his call. This experience with Jesus is the process of discipleship he defined by the term katartizo (Lk 6:40). Katartizo denotes to prepare fully to completion or to repair fully for completion, both of which are involved in the process of following Jesus: to repair (redeem) any brokenness or fragmentation (e.g. from sin of reductionism), to restore and transform (reconcile) the person to wholeness as well as to the relationships necessary to be whole in congruence with the whole of Jesus and his sanctified life and practice in the world (cf. katartizo in Eph 4:12-13).

The functional truth for our identity is this irreplaceable formation: to be just as (kathos and hos) Jesus was necessitates our following in the path of katartizo. The functional reality commonly existing for our accountability is typically that the prevailing practice of discipleship does not involve katartizo—and this pervades churches, seminaries and related Christian academy locally and globally. Without katartizo Christians cannot grow together in the depth of Jesus’ full identity to be clearly distinguished in his minority identity as his whole disciples, both in the church and the world. Without katartizo, our identity gets shallow or ambiguous, particularly with the influence of the surrounding context. The alternative identity we tend to practice in place of his whole and uncommon identity—practice intentionally or unintentionally, often by default—is what I call bifocal identity.

Bifocal identity is a process of identity construction in a context in which one is considered (real or perceived) as a minority or part of a subordinate group (even if not a numerical minority). For example, in the United States persons of color have always been minorities; even though they are collectively now the numerical majority, they are still the subordinate group. Minorities are always marginalized. For minority persons to be acceptable in the dominant surrounding context (not accepted into the dominant group) invariably requires assimilation: the practice of dominant values, which usually comes with the cost of relinquishing minority practices. Unless persons of color have essentially denied their minority associations, or become separatists, they negotiate identity construction in a dominant surrounding context with a bifocal process. Moreover, given the default migrant status of all Christians, a bifocal identity typically is constructed.

Similar to the function of bifocal eyeglasses, a minority person perceives the more provincial, private and intimate aspects of one’s life through the “lower reading lens” of one’s racial-ethnic identity. All other aspects are seen through the “upper general lens” of the dominant identity. While this appears to be a rather simple either-or operation, the actual perceptions often vacillate between lenses, frequently overlap, and at times even seem confused. Using the “correct” lens for the “right” purpose requires ongoing adjustment since neither remains constant for a fixed prescription, similar to being fitted for the proper bifocal eyeglasses. This dynamic process of identity construction and presentation is a familiar phenomenon for minority persons, yet not without its identity conflicts and frustrations—not only specifically about being fragmented and thus not whole, but also embedded in an identity not only of being different but considered as less. What is not apparent, however, to most Christians is how the bifocal process is a common phenomenon for Christian identity formation in the surrounding context. This also directly interrelates to the mutual workings of skin-ny identity and ableism identity.

When Jesus sanctified himself in life and practice (just as he prayed, Jn 17:19), he established the identity necessary for his followers to be constituted fully submitted to the Father and set apart for the whole and holy (uncommon) God in the world. As his followers function in this sanctified (whole and uncommon, or whole-ly) identity, they declare their minority identity in the surrounding context—even if they’ve had a majority identity up to then. Whatever prevails in that surrounding context is neither who they are (and what defines them) nor whose they are (and what they belong to); thus, white evangelicals, for example, need to pay deeper attention to Jesus and take heed. Whatever the pressures and influence of that context, Jesus prayed for his followers not to be separated from it (Jn 17:15). The only context for their calling to make whole is in the surrounding context (local and global). Yet Jesus understood in his formative prayer that the integrity of their minority identity necessitates a single-vision congruence (contrary to bi-focal) with his whole-ly identity (17:17-19). Just as the Father sent him into the world is how Jesus sends his followers into the surrounding context. This congruence involves both context and function. And Jesus’ function was always demonstrated distinctly by his relational involvement, thus necessitating interrelated congruence of his minority identity (involved in human context) conjoined with his full identity (in the primacy of God’s context)—the relational dynamic of reciprocating contextualization constituting his whole-ly identity.

Identity formation and maintenance as his followers can only be functionally realized as the minority that Jesus also embodied as his identity. Yet, the existential function of this minority identity is incomplete as a bifocal identity. His followers cannot negotiate their identity in a dominant context by a bifocal process and still have the distinction as his called followers. Unless Christians in effect have functionally ceased following Jesus, they have no negotiable option to construct a composite, hybrid or parallel identity with some partial aspect of Jesus’ identity. Just as Jesus addressed his disciples earlier, while a disciple is certainly not “above” Jesus to construct his/her own identity, called followers who are growing in discipleship wholeness (katartizo) also are not apart from any aspect of Jesus’ identity to function on their own terms (which would effectively construct their own identity, Lk 6:40).

It is the temptation or tendency of every minority person in a dominant context to fall into the following: (1) defer to the dominant group and be rendered passive; (2) compromise with the dominant values and be reduced in one’s own significance; (3) be co-opted by the dominant context for identity theft and lose one’s sense of purpose, and thus value to that context. A bifocal process of identity construction involves any or all of these practices. This is the function of bifocal identity. For the Christian minority in the world, this is what’s at stake. And as this identity challenge widens, take heed that it unequivocally encompasses white evangelicals and Christian nationalism.

For Christians to relegate their identity with Jesus to the “lower reading lens” for function in the provincial, private and intimate aspects of their life and practice is to defer to, compromise with and/or be co-opted by the surrounding context. To render the influence of the surrounding context to the “upper general lens” for their function in all other aspects of life and practice is to lose the qualitative distinction unique to Jesus’ followers—and thus, contrary to how Jesus prayed, to preclude both their joy shared intimately with the whole-ly God (Jn 17:13) and their value to the surrounding context (17:21,23). On the other hand, bifocal Christian identity exposes the ontological simulations and functional illusions of our identity constructions incongruent with Jesus’ whole-ly identity; any such identity is what forms by all identity equations from reductionism—the contrary metrics of “who told you that you were naked.”

If the whole of Jesus’ person is our hermeneutical and functional keys, this perceptual-interpretive lens will “listen to my Son” (Mt 17:5) and result in congruence with the relational nature and functional significance of his whole-ly identity. If we listen closely to the Son, this will change our perceptual-interpretive lens to understand that the Father meant “listening” not only to the words the Son told us but also to his whole person, and thus to how he functioned. His whole followers walk together conjointly in the relational posture of his full identity and in the functional posture of his minority identity. The only alternative to this qualitative interaction necessary for their identity formation to be integrated with the Son’s is some form of reductionism constructing anything less or any substitutes. Accordingly, the path for his followers keeps narrowing.

Jesus’ sanctified life and practice discloses two vital issues about this identity interaction necessary for his followers, as he prayed: (1) without the relational function of his full identity, there is no truth and function of his minority identity (cf. some ministers with an incomplete Christology, missionaries with a truncated soteriology, or activist Christians with disembodied ethics or morality; also those who experience primarily outward change [metaschematizo] and function merely in role behaviors [hypokrisis]); and (2) without the function of the truth of his minority identity, there is no experiential truth of his full identity (e.g. as those with bifocal identity). This qualitative interaction between identities is an ongoing relational dynamic: the relational outcome of which constitutes the whole-ly identity of his followers fully submitted to the Father and set apart for the whole and uncommon God in the world; and the function of which signifies the ontology of his followers together in the relationships necessary to be whole as his family in likeness of the Trinity—the qualitative relational wholeness that will make whole the human context, as Jesus prayed (Jn 17:21-23).

This said, there is a variation of Christian bifocal identity that needs to be discussed. This involves Christians who present a distinct Christian identity in general public or the dominant surrounding context, while functioning with a different identity in private. Basically, this reverses the bifocal process with a reductionist form of Jesus’ minority identity or full identity used as the “upper general lens,” while an alternative identity is used for the “lower reading lens” in private. This is characteristic notably of these followers: of ministers serving in the name of Jesus who construct their own identity in effect as if “above” or even apart from Jesus, thus lacking depth of their identity; of missionaries and evangelists who seek to save the lost in the world, while practicing a personal identity incongruent with what Jesus saved us to, thus lacking depth in their function; of Christian activists who promote the so-called ethics and morality of Jesus in the surrounding context while having no sense of relational involvement with the person of Jesus in their own life and practice, thus lacking clarity of their identity; and also included are Christian scholars whose theology have little, if any, connection to their practice. This reverse bifocal identity is also characteristic generally of those who present a serious Christian identity in public (albeit sincerely or with good intentions) but have no depth to their identity to signify the ontology of their whole person, thus who become embedded in a self-conscious lifestyle.

All these persons characterize Christians who lack the clarity and depth of identity to go beyond reductionism, and who are not being redefined (redeemed), transformed from inner out (metamorphoo) and made whole in congruence with Jesus’ whole-ly identity. They effectively operate in relationship with God on their own terms, working under the assumption “that I was one just like yourself” to form who their God is essentially in their image. Thus, these bifocal identities are of persons who function in the ontological simulations and functional illusions of the wide spectrum of reductionism, and thus who must account for hypokrisis—the leaven of reductionism, which Jesus made imperative for all his followers “to pay attention to” (prosecho, Lk 12:1).

Jesus’ declarative statements about the clarity of the light and the depth of the salt are definitive for our identity. Yet, they are not a challenge about what to do; such a challenge would not help us go beyond reductionism but further embed us in it. His definitive statements of our identity are an ontological call about what and who to be; that is, the call to be redefined, transformed and made whole in the ontology of the person created in the image of the whole-ly God, thus also as whose we are. Conjointly, his definitive statements are a functional call about how to be, that is, called as whole persons to function together in the relationships necessary to be whole in likeness of the Trinity.

How we receive Jesus’ statements depends on what we pay attention to and what we ignore—that is, the direct function of what serves as our perceptual-interpretive framework (cf. the various disciples discussed previously). Our framework functions as the lens (our “eyes”) through which we perceive Jesus, read the biblical text, see ourselves and others, and view the world. In this perceptual-interpretive process reductionism presents a formidable challenge to the relational context and process of Jesus’ followers, primarily because we don’t pay focused attention to reductionism as sin, or we ignore its presence and influence. What we perceive of God’s self-revelation and what we interpret about the whole of God are skewed by the influence of reductionism in human contextualization, which includes Christian cultures. The validity of our perceptions and interpretations emerge only from the framework that Jesus definitively disclosed upon thanking the Father for his revelations to “little children” (Lk 10:21), which is not apparent that we pay attention to or even take him seriously (as in Mt 18:3-4).

This clearly makes evident the need for what specifically serves as our perceptual-interpretive framework/lens to be changed—the redemptive change constituted by listening to the Son, submitting to the Father and reciprocally working relationally with the Spirit. This includes the necessary redemptive change of our whole person and the relationships necessary to be whole signifying the ongoing relational involvement of our whole identity distinguished in who, what and how we are with the whole-ly God. Without this change our identity is rendered fragmentary by the prevailing influence of reductionism in our surrounding contexts. The person distinguished in Jesus’ call can only be composed by a new identity, which by its nature cannot be shaped by human contextualization.

It would not be surprising that many Christians would consider the above discussion an inconvenient truth, which they could address at a more convenient time. Given the existing reality of Christian identity formation, the most inconvenient truth facing us is the inescapable need for change—that is, to be transformed, not merely to reform. This widening challenge is certainly inconvenient for Christians, but the narrow path for change confronts all Christians to be accountable for what Jesus embodied.

The narrow path for change confronting all Christians has to be predicated on the change that Jesus instituted in his direct relationship with his followers. He overtly shifted from tradition to make vulnerable the existential reality between him and them:

“I do not call you servants any longer…but I have called you friends…” (Jn 15:15). In other words, the Word declared the definitive identity equation that unequivocally distinguishes the identity of his followers only in the nonnegotiable primacy of relationship together.

Depending on how you define what a friend is, this may appear like a minor change. After all, aren’t servants of God important and necessary? The metric for identity formation, however, that the Word makes irreplaceable involves the irreversible change of his followers’ identity from the person commonly defined outer in to the person uncommonly defined inner out. Getting to the depths of this identity is the change the Word embodies.

Change in human life can be natural, unnatural or uncommon. The change in Mary (Martha’s sister), for example, was considered unnatural by the contextualized and commonized biases of the other disciples (Jn 12:1-5; Mt 26:6-9). Perhaps today her change is considered natural and thus of no greater significance to highlight for the gospel and magnify to distinguish Jesus’ followers. However perceived, change represents something different from what exists, and such change can be positive or negative—even a simulation of something new or an illusion of something better.

Like Mary, we all have opportunities to change, that is, to grow and mature in relational progression with Jesus, rather than avoid his essential progression and thereby resist change. When we don’t resist change in our discipleship, the issue becomes the type of change needed that truly signifies the relational progression distinguishing his disciples. The so-called progress witnessed in human contexts has often been merely a simulation of something new or an illusion of something better, and such progress is typically duplicated by Christians. The maturity of “perfect” (the teleios imperative of Mt 5:48), however, involves the change that is relationship-specific to the whole-ly God and, therefore, progresses only in what’s whole and uncommon. This progress then requires the change to be the new, not a simulation of something new. To say the least, simulations and illusions of progress are alternative/virtual realities that regress under the common assumptions of progress. In real fact, they are regressions specifically in our relational condition, which emerge from, reinforce and sustain the human condition.

Therefore, all of Jesus’ followers should not conflate ‘seeking to be new’ with ‘pursuing progress of something new’; the former seeks his person in relationship (as in Mt 6:33) while the latter primarily pursues results in situations, making the relationship secondary (as in many innovations of ministry and worship). Our discipleship needs to maintain this distinction in order to be distinguished in the new and the uncommon for our persons, relationships and churches.

In our ancient history, the change for the new and the uncommon was attempted at Babel in order to prevent diversity in the human context and unify the fragmentation of the human condition (Gen 11:1-9). As human migration expanded, these residents determined to “build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make an identity for ourselves and not be fragmented over the face of the whole earth” (v. 4, NIV). In their self-determination, they wanted to construct a unity and have an identity together, without being fragmented into separate entities. What also converged with their self-determination was having good intentions, which is a common motivation that we often assume as sufficient basis for our function notably as servants. Yet, there is a deeper understanding critical to human ontology and function that unfolded in this context paralleling contexts today; and this needs to be given a voice to articulate the human condition, our human condition. God totally rejected their good intentions and denied their human intervention and achievement for a common unity and identity together. Why wouldn’t God be pleased with them? Wasn’t this human progress from what God witnessed before the flood?

The reality is that this just further unfolded from what was set into motion from the beginning. We cannot merely assume that their good intentions didn’t reflect defining ‘good without wholeness’, or that their optimistic efforts engaged in anything more than reinforcing and sustaining the human condition. The parallel reality for today is the good intentions of human achievement for the purpose of so-called human progress (such as in technology and globalization) and the optimistic (vain or arrogant) efforts to build empire (such as in colonialism, including by the U.S., with economic neocolonialism). Our ancient counterparts chose the redefining alternative of self-determination, which conjointly required unavoidably a narrowed-down perceptual-interpretive lens and also composed them unmistakably in reduced ontology and function. Therefore, they assumed they could construct the whole based on their fragmentary parts and the sum of those parts—a false assumption lacking synergism—and that the result would be wholeness in their life together (cf. the church in Sardis, Rev 3:1-2). Furthermore, their self-determination assumed they could construct the whole from ‘bottom-up’, and that the result would rise above the human context (with its limits and constraints) to achieve human progress to the level of God’s context (“a tower that reaches to the heavens”). The latter assumption is to be expected from a narrowed-down perceptual-interpretive lens, while the former assumption is understandable given the need for ontological simulation and functional illusion to sustain engagement in self-determination despite its limits and constraints. The reality, in other words, is that they tried to construct an alternative reality (virtual in retrospect) with alternative facts to avoid the existing reality of the human condition, which required them to deny their own condition.

Reduced human ontology and function can never achieve wholeness because the reality of its irremediable (not irreversible) condition, however variable, can never be whole. Human intervention, whether at the systemic level or interpersonal level, cannot go beyond the limits and constraints of its context and its defining ontology and function. Thus, human intervention is embedded in a contextualized bias and commonized bias that skew its efforts. This is indispensable to understand for the tower of Babel and for parallel efforts today to construct unity, wholeness and the whole. In relational response to the human condition, God deconstructed Babel in order to clarify their illusion and correct their simulation, and thus to expose the influence of reductionism composing their human condition in reduced ontology and function. Throughout human history—from Egypt, Babylon through the Roman empire, Great Britain to the United States and former Soviet Union, and now China—we have witnessed the recurring dynamic of Babel unfold, with God continuing to clarify and correct our illusions and simulations in relational response to our human condition in reduced ontology and function. As long as we don’t pay attention to our condition and consequently do not respond to God’s pursuit of us, then human development in our persons, relationships and churches will not grow and mature in wholeness; and we remain enclosed epistemologically, hermeneutically, ontologically, functionally and relationally within the limits and constraints of our condition. Can we justify this state among us, in all its diversity, as the gospel and simply accept it as sufficient for our faith to experience?

Just as Babel confused their efforts for all humanity to progress with the change of what’s new and uncommon, our modern history has evolved to further embed us in this confusion. The so-called progress in the present foretells perhaps an ominous future, namely in technological achievement. Advancement in computer technology has emerged prominently with robots to simulate, substitute for and replace human activity, which is certainly something new in the human context and uncommon to human make-up. What compounds this progress and complicates its change is the enigma of artificial intelligence (AI). This technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated such that AI is soon anticipated to achieve artificial consciousness to supplement, compete with and perhaps dominate human consciousness. In considering this outcome, this so-called progress in what’s new and uncommon can change the world, yet not to improve the human condition but at the expense of humans who become expendable. How this scenario unfolds will depend less on AI and more on the essential reality of those truly changing to the new and the uncommon—that is, real persons who are transformed from inner out (not programmed from outer in) to be new and therefore whole and uncommon.

Whether we recognize it in humanity in general or acknowledge it in ourselves as Christians in particular, the human condition thirsts for change. When the focus is on changing to the new and the uncommon—not merely for fragments of something new and uncommon—it centers on the change that Jesus enacted for the human condition, our human condition. Yet, Christians have struggled with embracing this change and to have their identity distinguished by this change. In bringing change to the new, on the one hand, Jesus was welcomed because expectations were high for the Messiah (or Savior) to fulfill this change. However, on the other hand, the change to the new enacted by Jesus was both whole and uncommon, and this change to the new was too uncommon for many to claim, much less have their identity distinguished in. This resistance or struggle even for Christians is not surprising, since Jesus said “no one can put the new into old and common ways of thinking, seeing and doing things in their theology and practice”—as in “putting new wine into old wineskins” (Lk 5:37-39).

Jesus introduced his disciples to the change he brought by giving them a taste of the new wine. In a defining table fellowship, Jesus led his disciples in the relational involvement that initiated the change to the new. He and his disciples celebrated in relationship together rather than engage in the common practice of fasting with all the other diverse disciples in the surrounding context (Lk 5:33-36). Their relational involvement distinguished the primary from and over the secondary. The change Jesus established for the new integrally composed his disciples in a different identity in two significant ways:

In spite of Jesus’ early disciples having a taste of the new wine, they obviously struggled with being distinguished in this uncommon identity. The common kept reemerging because their contextualized and commonized biased ways of thinking, seeing and doing things in their theology and practice still needed to be transformed. Unlike the others, the new composed by the whole was not a point of contention for these disciples. But, because this new was undeniably uncommon—that is, so out of the ordinary—they didn’t take it seriously enough to stand out unambiguously in this identity, just as light in the darkness does (Mt 5:14-16; Jn 8:12). Likewise, since the identity of Jesus’ disciples is different from all other disciples—composed by the essential difference—our identity has to be both uncommon and whole.

The difference of our identity that Jesus changed to the new was not about being innovative, and was more than unique. The new identity counters an assimilated identity shaped by the common of the surrounding context, which included the norms of religious tradition and of culture. In its depth, what the new identity counters is the human condition of reduced ontology and function. When Jesus was confronted about his disciples not following the traditional norms of their religious identity, he clearly defined the whole person from inner out as the essential identity of human ontology and function—which countered the common identity from outer in (Mt 15:1-20). Even after the taste of new wine, Peter still didn’t understand the essential difference distinguishing the identity of who, what and how they were as Jesus’ disciples (15:15-16). Essentially, the whole of this new identity was too uncommon for those in any assimilated identity, with the issue always revolving around the condition of our ontology and function.

This essential difference also raises the subtle issue of inconvenience for our theology and practice, which puts further pressure on our bias to use old wineskins (as Peter did). This is why Jesus said that many will conclude “the old is good, good enough, or even better” (Lk 5:39). Old wineskins are the relational consequence of becoming embedded in an ontological lie from reductionism that imposes an identity deficit, in which a person (or together as church) struggles to erase any deficit by efforts of self-determination in what one can do (e.g. fast). The more control one can exercise over this process, the more certain the results of one’s efforts can be expected. The pursuit of certainty, however, requires a reduction epistemologically, ontologically and relationally in order for the control needed to succeed in self-determination—notably narrowing the epistemic field to the probable and minimizing vulnerability in relationships.

This is how God’s terms for covenant relationship outlined in the torah have been reduced to a behavioral code, how persons seek to become justified by what they do, how Jesus’ teachings become disembodied to mere principles to follow, how the new wine gets put into an old wineskin. The nature of old wineskins, therefore, is the nature of the human condition in its reduced ontology and function, seeking self-determination and self-justification by its reduced ontology and function in order to overcome the deficit for its reduced ontology and function—a vicious cycle enslaving human persons. And, accordingly, old wineskins emerge from an ambiguous or shallow identity necessitating the veil in relationships, because such an identity fails to engage the integral identity formation outlined by Jesus in the Beatitudes (Mt 5:3-10), and as a substitute pursues a reduced righteousness from outer in rather than whole righteousness from inner out (contrary to Mt 5:20 in Jesus’ manifesto for his followers).

The outline of this process was clearly distinguished in the beginning of Jesus’ major communication to his followers: the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7). It is vital to keep in mind that the context for his major communication always remains in his call and thus must be maintained within his call for whole understanding (synesis). We need to see this outline, therefore, distinguished further and deeper than how we commonly interpret the Beatitudes (Mt 5:3-12). Paul helps us go beyond our knowledge and understanding in order for God’s whole to unfold.

When our identity adequately informs us of who, what and how we are, there is opportunity to experience wholeness and the satisfaction to be whole—which Jesus points to in the beatitudes with “blessed” (makarios, fully satisfied). The problem, however, with most identities in general and Christian identities in particular is that these identities only inform us of who and what we should be, and thus how we should act. This merely defines what we need to do in order to be associated with that identity without defining our integral ontology. The process then becomes trying to measure up to that identity so that we can achieve definition for our self—an ongoing effort to erase any identity deficit (i.e. from a comparative process). The theological and functional implications of such a process for Christian identity are twofold: First, it counters and hereby nullifies God’s relational work of grace, and then in its place, it substitutes efforts of constructing human ontology from self-determination, even with good intentions of acting as servants of Christ.

As we discuss identity formation, it seems necessary to distinguish identity formation of the new creation/wine (signifying whole ontology and function) from identity construction. Identity construction describes the human process of quantifying an identity for a measure of uniformity or conformity to some standard or template in the surrounding context (cf. Gen 11:1-4). New wine identity formation involves a qualitative growth and maturation in a reciprocal relational process with God for wholeness (cf. Gen 17:1-2), which Jesus made vulnerably distinct from the surrounding context (Lk 5:33-39). It is problematic if any identity constructions substitute for or are imposed on this identity formation. Therefore, since the ontology of the whole person is a vital necessity for the identity of Jesus’ followers as the new wine, it may require identity deconstruction of many Christian identities to get to this ontology—a necessary process of redemptive change composing Jesus’ call. While any identity deconstruction would not be on the basis of postmodernist assumptions, it has a similar purpose to discredit ontological simulation and functional illusion. Yet, this would not be merely to expose reductionism but to go beyond it for the relational whole of God distinguishing new ontology and function—the necessary process of transformation composing Jesus’ call. The interrelated process describes Jesus’ major relational communication with his disciples and the whole context of the Sermon on the Mount.

New and whole identity formation involves the necessary functional convergence of identity with righteousness and human ontology in a dynamic process based on God’s grace in order to go beyond the reductionism exposed (deconstructed) by Jesus to be whole. This integral process, summarized in the Sermon on the Mount, is composed by the following:

To go beyond reductionism (Mt 5:20), our righteousness necessitates an identity of clarity and depth (5:13-16), which requires the ontology of the whole person; and, in reflexive action, the significance of this process necessitates righteousness to make it functional, which further needs wholeness of identity for our righteousness ongoingly to go beyond reductionism; therefore, this must by nature involve the human ontology created in the image and likeness of the whole of God—all of which are constituted by the whole of God’s relational work of grace, functionally signifying the relational basis of whose we are.

This process of integrally interrelated function is crucial for our understanding and practice, which Jesus illuminated in the beatitudes to establish his followers in his call to be redefined, transformed and made whole.

The beatitudes taken together establish the whole identity of his followers. I affirm that rather than each beatitude understood independently, they constitute interdependent functional characteristics of the basic new identity for what, who and how his followers are. Joined together in dynamic function, the beatitudes form the outline of the integral process composing the whole identity formation distinguishing those he called out (ek) of human contextualization. Not surprisingly, Jesus began the process by focusing immediately on the ontology of the person and giving us no basis to define our self by what we do or have—again, notably as servants.

This unfolds immediately in the 1^st Beatitude (Mt 5:3) where “the poor in spirit” recognize, acknowledge and live in the true nature of their human condition. Made vulnerable by this reality, such persons experience the heartfelt pain of their condition and thus “mourn,” which is the out-growth of the 2^nd Beatitude inseparably from the 1^st. The out-growth from these two is the open and honest acceptance of their true identity, which can only rightly form with their “humility” (3^rd Beatitude, v.5). When these Beatitudes are integral for identity formation, the growth of the new has its foundational basis. When they are not the existential reality integrally forming the person from inner out, the new will not grow. In other words, the new cannot emerge and grow until the old is vulnerably dealt with from inner out.

Though Jesus was not explicit in the beginning of his communication about the irreducible importance of the heart, the function of the heart underlies everything he said and all that we do (e.g. Mt 5:28; 6:21). The innermost person, signified by the heart, constitutes the qualitative distinguishing the person, such that we cannot assess what and who a person is based merely on aspects from the outer-in person—notably what we do and have (cf. Mt 15:10-20). Yet, since the latter perception is a prevailing perceptual-interpretive framework for human ontology, whole Christian identity is composed essentially by beginning with the process of redefinition of the person from the inner out. When we functionally address redefining our own person from the inner out, however, we encounter a major difficulty. Once we get past any resistance to a vulnerable look at ourselves from inner out, what is it that we honestly see of our person as we look inside? This can become an issue we may rather dance around.

It is apparent, perhaps obvious, that Christian identity has struggled in the human context to be distinguished in its whole identity—notably today in its diverse condition. The taste of the new-wine identity is no longer a foretaste of Jesus’ whole-ly disciples emerging, but it has become an aftertaste of this whole-ly identity that has not unfolded. Whatever variations of the new-wine identity exist today, their integrity has not been integrally the whole distinguished with-in the whole-ly Word; and this lack of integrity leaves that identity in a regressing condition unable to progress in the new creation of persons and relationships to wholeness in likeness of the whole-ly Trinity.

Jesus’ encompassing family prayer to the Father (Jn 17) centered on their whole-ly ontology and function, with the focus on those whose identity emphatically does “not belong to the common, just as I do not belong to the common” (17:13,16). The function of his followers’ uncommon identity, however, is not to be separated from the common but instead to not be reduced in the function of their whole identity (17:15), in order that the integrity of their identity’s ontology and function will be distinguished uncommon in the very context of the common. That is, uncommon identity intrudes in the common, while not belonging to it, in distinct likeness of whole-ly Jesus (17:17-19) and in essential likeness to the whole-ly ontology and function of the Trinity (17:20-23). So, then, would you affirm that the integrity of Christian identity can be variable, and perhaps even negotiable according to the context? And would you say that Christian identity today exists as Jesus prayed and unfolds in the context of the common in likeness of the whole-ly Trinity? The integral integrity of our identity is directly dependent on the relational reality that it will unfold just as Jesus prayed definitively for his whole-ly disciples as his family together.

What Jesus saves persons to was tasted at that new wine fellowship together and is summarized in his relational prayer, which includes making definitive the relational work necessarily involved to live by whole ontology and function into the common’s human context. The viability of this relational work by necessity includes integral identity formation that is distinguished, on the one hand, in God’s relational context and, on the other hand, from the human context. Practically speaking, how do Christians live in God’s context now while living surrounded in the human context? That is the issue at hand that we all need to be addressing today because we are accountable for this living now. Identity distinguished from the human context is critical for whole ontology and function because it is not shaped by the limits and constraints of the human context, notably by secondary or false human distinctions. Accordingly, this viable relational work requires being able to live in the human context by the primacy of God’s context—that is, by an indispensable process of reciprocating contextualization (RC), wherein ongoing interaction with the primacy of God’s context determines function in the person’s primary identity while in the human context. This function involves having a new visibility in our surrounding context (think about light) and a deeper relational involvement (think about family love), both of which may not be welcomed because of being out of the ordinary.

Since the taste of new wine relationship together in wholeness was initially experienced at a pivotal relational connection in new wine fellowship, it unfolds with significance only on God’s terms. In God’s relational action there are complex theological dynamics that converge in Jesus’ theological trajectory and relational path to constitute the whole-ly God’s integral relational response of grace to the human condition. The roots, growth, outcome and maturing of the new creation were integrally signified in the metaphor used by Jesus about the new wine (Lk 5:33-39). The focus of new wine provides us with a whole understanding of the priority of person-consciousness from inner out and its primacy of relationships together, in contrast to a self-consciousness of secondary matter.

The parable of new wine tends to be used incorrectly to emphasize new forms and practices, innovations focused more on the secondary and shaped more from outer in, all of which signify a common lens of referential language and terms. Part of misinterpreting or inadequately understanding the new wine involves, again, Jesus’ relational language. Jesus was not focused on situations and circumstances in life and, for example, being innovative in what we do in those situations and circumstances to maximize them. The seeds of the new wine are planted in the innermost of human life, not in secondary matter—the common option in which the new wine cannot grow. Jesus’ primary concern is not about what we do but for who we are and how we live. Therefore, in relational terms Jesus engages the ontology and function of those present (even his critics) and unfolds the whole ontology and function of the new creation—in contrast and conflict with prevailing reduced ontology and function. This contrast in ontology and function was demonstrated in this context by Levi’s transformation for the relational outcome of the new wine table fellowship together as family (Lk 5:27-32), further constituted later with Zacchaeus (Lk 19:1-10) in the relational progression of Jesus’ tactical and functional shifts. The new wine emerges only from the inner out of ontology and function made whole in the innermost of persons and relationships coming together intimately. When the new wine emerges from redefined and transformed persons, then its whole and uncommon relational outcome is unmistakable in the intimacy of family relationships together with no veiled identities.

The taste of new wine, however, turns sour, or new wine escapes, within the context of old wineskins. Old wineskins are implied in the common alternatives of anything less and any substitutes, which are used especially to minimize being so out of the ordinary in the surrounding context, not to mention being vulnerable with our person. Certainly then, old wineskins both constrain the flow of the new wine and reduce it of its qualitative and relational significance. The nature of old wineskins emerges with any reduction of our ontology and function, thus from an ambiguous or shallow personal-collective identity with relationships still having the veil—for example, who we are without what and/or whose we are in the primacy of God’s context—in contrasting and conflicting function with Jesus’ new wine table fellowship that simply functioned in essential difference (i.e. whole and uncommon). Following Jesus in essential difference without the veil, of course, makes our person vulnerable to comparative scrutiny in the surrounding context. The alternative is to not be as intrusive as Jesus, which would mean for our visible face (presence) to be ambiguous and our involvement to be more shallow. That is to say, anything less and any substitutes subtly transpose the identity of our persons from their wholeness inner out to fragmentary outer-in parts, whereby the full profile of the identity of who and whose we are is veiled in ambiguity if not obscurity.

Paul revealed about his identity that “I have become all things to all people” (1 Cor 9:22). He didn’t imply, however, that the integrity of his identity varied with his surrounding context. All his various contexts were secondary to the primary context of his salvation, whose belonging defined his person and determined his function. Paul was redeemed and belonged to none of those contexts (9:19)—signifying not belonging to the common, as Jesus prayed—yet he chose to be relationally involved in family love with each of them in order for them to be saved to wholeness together in the relational outcome of the gospel (9:20-23). Not only did Paul maintain the integrity of the uncommon identity of his whole person, but the integrity of his whole function in who, what and how Paul was in relationship with each of them could be counted on by them to be true, complete and thus whole, rather than variable, partial or fragmentary. The latter is common in human contexts to minimalize vulnerability of persons in relationships, yet how satisfying is it to be involved with persons on that basis? The relational function demonstrated by Paul is vital for the integrity of all Jesus’ followers in their primary identity.

When some Pharisees tried to entrap Jesus to indict him, they ironically identified Jesus with his description: “you are a person of integrity, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality to their differences” (Mt 22:16). The integrity (alethes) they identified extended from the way of God’s covenant relationship, in which Abraham’s relational function was to have the integrity of tāmiym (blameless, complete, whole, Gen 17:1). In his relational involvement in covenant relationship, on the basis of tāmiym (i.e. being whole, not perfect), Abraham’s identity was distinguished as “righteousness” (Gen 15:6; Gal 3:6), whereby his integrity was established with God. How so?

Abraham’s relational response and involvement in covenant relationship could only be whole according to God’s terms for the relationship. Righteousness, to emphasize, is not about being perfect but identifies the whole of who, what and how a person is. Because of righteousness, this person can be counted on by God (and others) to function in relationship together as that whole person, nothing less and no substitutes. Even for whole-ly God, as the psalmist illuminated, “Righteousness goes before him and makes the relational path for his steps” (Ps 85:13). Therefore, the person’s righteousness safeguards the heart of that whole person’s integrity (Prov 13:6). Without righteousness, that person’s integrity in relationship is always in doubt, making the identity of who, what and how that person is questionable if not in dispute.

This is the background for the ironic claim that the above Pharisees made about the integrity of Jesus’ identity. Moreover, they not only identified the whole of Jesus’ person, but they also claimed paradoxically that Jesus’ identity was uncommon—without being influenced or shaped by the common of human contexts (“defer to no one…with partiality”). In other words, however dubious, they distinguished Jesus’ whole-ly person and affirmed the integrity of his identity as whole and uncommon; in so doing, they exposed their own so-called righteousness and the variable integrity of their own identity in their practice of covenant relationship, which they didn’t engage vulnerably with their whole persons. How many Christians live in their irony and function in their paradox?

In his definitive manifesto for discipleship, Jesus corrected the ambiguity or shallowness of the identity of his followers, without partiality or distinctions for their diverse condition (Mt 5:13-16). Whatever their diversity, Jesus made it imperative that their righteousness has to be clearly distinguished beyond the so-called righteousness of those in the faith (Mt 5:20). That is, their righteousness cannot be influenced or shaped by reductionism and thus commonized, in order for the integrity of their identity to distinguish (as in transformed, not re-formed) the whole-ly in their ontology and function (as the Beatitudes compose). Reductionism underlies the variable integrity of Christian identity by subtly composing its diversity with secondary matters (such as contextualization) over the primary of whole-ly identity. The integrity of the identity of Jesus’ whole-ly disciples is integrated by necessity with righteousness, so that the whole of who, what and how they are without the veil integrally functions distinguished with-in the Uncommon, and thus distinguished from and beyond the common.

All of this converges in relational terms for Jesus’ disciples and has relational progression in the dynamic of nothing less and no substitutes. Our identity cannot have integrity without the righteousness composed by God’s relational terms. Jesus made definitive the pivotal fourth Beatitude to integrate the seven Beatitudes of our identity formation: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for their persons and identity will be filled whole-ly” (Mt 5:6). Therefore, unequivocally, integrity integrated with righteousness is the primary priority for all his disciples, distinguishing this relational progression:

The integrity of his disciples’ identity is based only on the relational response of those who “seek first to be relationally involved in the relational context of God’s family and the relational process of his righteousness in family love” (Mt 6:33), whereby their integral identity as whole-ly disciples emerges with nothing less than the whole who they are and unfolds with no substitutes for the uncommon whose they are. And this relational progression unfolds in the ongoing change to the new distinguished whole with-in the whole-ly God, the integral integrity of which “will be given to you whole-ly.”

As noted previously, the relational progression of Mary’s relational response and involvement as the whole-ly Jesus’ disciple unmistakably distinguished her integral identity beyond the contextualized identity of all the other disciples, and distinguished her person deeper than their commonized identity. In her ongoing change to the new, her integral identity magnified the whole who she was and the uncommon whose she was as his whole-ly disciple. This is the relational outcome of the whole gospel with-in which Jesus wants all his disciples to experience progression. This essential relational progression, however, does not unfold unless his disciples contend with the ongoing influence of reductionism in the common’s surrounding context. The most prominent source of the common’s influence is culture, which Mary consistently countered while the others just accepted or went along with.

It is essential that Christian identity forms in the new that Jesus constituted with the new wine, the new covenant (Lk 22:20), the new creation (2 Cor 5:17) and new self (Col 3:10). Obviously, this is essential to distinguish our identity from the old. Yet, most certainly, it is essential to distinguish the new from subtle ontological simulations and functional illusions of a so-called new, the misinformation of which pervades Christian theology and practice. This raises the question about our understanding of what’s old.

The Word constituted Paul in the new, which distinguished Paul’s whole person with the primary identity that made secondary his Jewish identity. It is important for us to see this new identity as it unfolds in the church and the surrounding context. We further turn to Paul at this point to help us gain this understanding. As the formation of the new wine identity develops in clarity and depth, God’s new creation family increasingly is challenged both in its life together and in the surrounding context of the human condition. Therefore, in congruence with the relational dynamic resulting in adoption, the ontology and function of the new church family must always be in the dynamic of ‘nothing less and no substitutes’ for whole relationship together, which Paul integrally made unequivocal (Eph 4:1-6, 13-16, 22-24). Both the person and persons together are accountable without exception. As these theological dynamics of wholeness, belonging, and ontological identity converge in Paul’s theological forest, at the same time the dynamic of reductionism and its counter-relational work are always seeking to redefine the qualitative-relational process constituting their theological interaction and to reshape, reconstruct or otherwise fragment the relational outcome emerging from their theological integration. In other words, we are all unavoidably subjected to reductionism; whether we become subject to its influence is an ongoing issue. In relational terms, the consequence of this contrary influence is that the new creation family is rendered to an ambiguous ontology and shallow function; and its new wine identity is reduced of its clarity and depth that by necessity distinguished it in human contexts.

This conflict for Paul necessitates distinguishing the truth of the whole gospel clearly from “a different gospel” (Gal 1:6-12). In his polemic for this conflict, Paul made definitive two critical and necessary conditions to constitute the only gospel, both of which he implies in Gal 3:28:

The reciprocal relational means for experiencing this definitive whole relationship together as God’s family was also at the center of this conflict for Paul. He understood that this issue is unavoidable and ongoing unless understood in its proper context. In Galatians, the conflict of relational means appears to be between “the law” and “faith” (Gal 3:1-26). Yet, this would not only be an oversimplification of Paul’s polemic but also a reduction of the law as God’s desires and terms for covenant relationship, as well as a reduction of faith as the necessary reciprocal relational response to God’s promise of covenant relationship together. Paul put the issue into its full perspective.

Galatians represents Paul sharing the functional clarity for the whole gospel to address their current issue, situation and related matters in order to take them beyond the human contextualization of reductionism (not only of Judaism) to the further and deeper contextualization of God—the whole-ly God’s relational context of family and relational process of family love embodied in the whole of Jesus. Within God’s relational context and process, the law (as God’s whole relational terms) neither reduces nor renegotiates the covenant relationship. In reality, as God’s terms for relationship together, the law is whole-ly compatible with the covenant and even is a vital key for the emergence of whole relationship together. That is, not as a functional key to fulfill the promise (3:21), the law serves rather as a heuristic framework (paidegogos) for both learning our human condition and discovering the source of its whole solution (3:10, 22-24; Rom 3:19-20). This heuristic process returns us to the identity formation of the first beatitudes, from which all Christians need to ongoingly listen and learn.

Paul’s focus on the law addressed the condition of human ontology in two vital ways, both of which perceived the law as God’s desires and terms for covenant relationship:

When Paul refers to “the law of Christ,” this is God’s law/desires constituted by Jesus’ whole ontology and function in the incarnation (cf. 1 Cor 9:21b), who takes the law of Moses further and deeper into the whole-ly God’s relational context and process. By vulnerably embodying God’s relational ontology and function, the whole Subject of the Word is the hermeneutical key to interpreting God’s law/desires and the functional key for its practice in relationship together (as Jesus defined in the Sermon on the Mount, Mt 5:21ff), which by necessity requires whole ontology and function (as Jesus implied about practice of the law in likeness of the Father, Mt 5:48).

This became the critical issue for Paul because—as implied in the first three beatitudes—human ontology is inexorably embedded in the sin of reductionism; and this enslavement needs to be redeemed for human ontology and function to be freed to become whole. Yet, whole human ontology is constituted only by the redemptive relational dynamic of adoption for relationship together in God’s family. Reduced human ontology is incapable of a response that would be compatible to Jesus for this relationship together. In Paul’s whole perspective, the issue underlying the law is nothing less than the issue of human ontology. Therefore, his communicative epistles on the law challenge existing assumptions on human ontology to expose reduced human ontology (those subject to reductionism), while his communication on faith assumes the definitive ontology that illuminates the whole human ontology and function needed for relationship together in God’s family—and which also fulfills the law of Christ (Gal 5:6; 6:2).

The reciprocal relational means both necessary to receive and compatible to respond to Jesus for whole relationship together is the issue for Paul, which then necessarily involves human ontology. When human effort is relinquished—namely, ceases in self-determination and desists in shaping relationship together, as the first beatitude composes to be vulnerable from inner out—and replaced by the relational response of faith (as unfolds humbly from the 3^rd beatitude), Paul adds for functional clarity that we are no longer under the limited supervision (paidagogos) of the law (Gal 3:25). Paul is only referring to the law’s paidagogos function. This does not mean that the law (as God’s desires and terms for covenant relationship) is finished and no longer functional for the practice of faith (5:14; 6:2; cf. Rom 3:31; 1 Cor 9:21). Paul in truth wants the law to be fulfilled by human persons, and he may confuse us by stating that the law cannot be fulfilled by human effort (Gal 3:10; 5:3). By focusing on the relational involvement of agape (5:14), however, he makes definitive how the law is or is not fulfilled. By necessity, this engages the two conditions of human ontology (whole or reduced), and Paul differentiates their respective involvement with the law (5:6; 6:15).

Whole human ontology functions from inner out in the relational response of trust to be vulnerably involved with God and others in family love—just as Christ functioned (cf. Jn 15:9-12)—thereby reciprocally responding to God’s desires and terms for relationship together. Reduced human ontology, in contrast and conflict, functions from outer in to try to fulfill the quantitative aspects of the law, consequently renegotiating God’s terms for relationship by human terms shaped from human contextualization. This reductionism essentially redefined relationship with God to mere relationship with the law (e.g. conforming to a template), which then disembodies the law from the whole-ly God and God’s desires for relationship together. The scope of this defines the theology and practice of the old, from and by which the new cannot emerge and grow.

For Paul, the underlying issue between function by law and function by faith is clearly between reduced ontology and function and whole ontology and function. The relational consequence of the former is not only the inability to fulfill the law but enslavement to the reductionist futility of human effort (Gal 5:3-4). The relational outcome of the latter is to receive and respond to Christ for whole relationship together with nothing less and no substitutes. The first two beatitudes confess the limits and constraints of the former, and the third beatitude affirms the connection of the latter.

The new wine identity emerging from these dynamics is irreducible in ontology and nonnegotiable in function. This integral process of identity formation necessitates the ongoing integration of identity and righteousness. For Paul, righteousness is the relational function of the heart that lives not according to reduced notions of ‘by faith’ but in whole ontology and function in the image and likeness of the whole-ly God (Col 3:10; Eph 4:24). This inner-out function of the heart signifies ontological identity, the primary identity necessary to have wholeness despite the presence of reductionism (Col 3:15). Therefore, ontological identity is definitive of who the person is and the determinant of what and how the person is, regardless of the surrounding context. And the integrity of identity is rooted in a person’s ontology, which needs to be whole or its integrity will be fragmented (cf. Paul’s communication about the church at Corinth). As Paul summarized in Galatians 6:15, any function of reductionism is without any ontological significance of existence (eimi); only the new creation exists in ontological wholeness.

The credibility of identity is rooted in a person’s righteousness, which must not be fragmentary (cf. Peter’s hypokrisis, Gal 2:14) or it will lose both its credibility and the integrity of wholeness in identity (as in Jesus’ expectation of righteousness as whole ontology and function, Mt 5:20). The whole of Jesus’ identity in the incarnation was based on the integrity of his ontology and the credibility of his righteousness, which persons could count on and trust in relationship together. Likewise, the identity of his followers “hunger and thirst for righteousness, for their identity formation will be satisfied” (the pivotal 4^th Beatitude, Mt 5:6, ESV). The image and likeness of his whole ontology and function embodies what we are transformed to (2 Cor 3:18) and who we become (Col 2:10; 3:10), and only on this basis how we function (Eph 4:24; Col 3:15; cf. Ps 71:15). Therefore, anything less and any substitutes defining our ontology and determining our function are a reduction of our wholeness together, a fragmentation of the ontological and relational whole of who we are and whose we are in Christ. Vulnerably and humbly submitting to this wholeness of persons and relationships together embody what ongoingly emerge and unfold alive from the beatitudes to compose the ontology and function of the church as God’s family.

Moreover, as our identity reveals the underlying roots or heart of how we define our ontology and determine our function, our primary identity also signifies the composition of our gospel—if it is whole or reduced. Paul’s gospel and thus his own identity were not defined and determined by what he had and/or did (both past and present, cf. Phil 3:7-9) or even by his current weaknesses (2 Cor 12:7-9). In his polemic for the gospel and against reductionism, Paul made definitive both the ontological and relational changes that must by its nature (dei) embody the truth of the whole gospel and its whole relational outcome, that is, by the nature of who and what Jesus embodied as “the image of God” and relationally involved of the whole-ly God’s ontology and function “in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:4,6). Paul clearly made distinct that anything less or any substitute is not the gospel of the glory of Christ, the gospel of wholeness, but a different gospel composed by reductionism.

The new wine constituted by Jesus flowed into Paul, who further embodied alive its relational outcome as the new creation (Eph 4:23-24; 2 Cor 5:17; Col 3:10). The new wine identity emerges, develops and matures entirely from whole ontology and function. As the new wine grows from redefined and transformed persons, its relational outcome is distinguished unmistakably in the primacy of family relationships together with no veil—signified in the table fellowship of the new creation (2 Cor 3:16-18; Eph 2:14-22; Gal 6:15-16). As Paul theologically and functionally clarifies the new creation, there is a realistic sense interjected in his message: “As for those who will follow this…wholeness be upon them, and mercy” (Gal 6:16). The term for follow (stoicheo) involves progressing embodied within a certain framework. This engages the perceptual-interpretive framework by which Paul defined ontology and determined function. For Paul, he follows Jesus’ whole ontology and function in the relational progression of Jesus’ theological trajectory and relational path for the relational outcome embodying the new creation family. Stoicheo requires the qualitative and relational framework of the whole of Jesus to rise up alive to this relational outcome.

At the first new wine table fellowship, the disciples present did not taste the new wine yet but could only be associated with it. Their perceptual-interpretive framework and lens still reflected the old in their transition to be redefined and transformed. The practices of the early disciples and early church raise further questions about the relational outcome of the new wine, questions that still need to be raised today. What is this relational outcome embodied alive? Where do we see it new? Why don’t we see more evidence of it rise up alive? What are the issues involved here?

When Paul interjected that “mercy” (compassion, eleos) be upon those who follow in this framework, he is building on Jesus’ framework of discipleship that involves Jesus’ distinguished relational process and progression disclosed at the new wine table fellowship (Mt 9:10-13; cf. Mt 12:7)). This relational dynamic also interacts with the integral process of identity formation in the remaining beatitudes for the further development of his followers—“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy…” (Mt 5:6-12). God’s relational response of grace underlying this relational dynamic constitutes Jesus’ theological trajectory and relational path, which involves the relational outcome of mercy, compassion and making whole the human condition. Yet mercy must be experienced first before it can be extended alive to others. This necessitates whole understanding and experience of God’s relational response of grace in Face-to-face relationship at the depth of an undivided “heart, for they will see God.”

Once Jesus’ sacrifice for atonement was completed, the torn curtain was no minor detail in the events of the cross; nor is it merely symbolic but in rather improbable relational terms it opened up the Holy Place of God’s intimate presence to be vulnerably involved in direct relationship together Face to face, heart to heart. Jesus’ sacrifice unmistakably constituted “the new covenant in my blood,” as he disclosed in communion together (Lk 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25). This composed the improbable of Jesus’ theological trajectory and the intrusion of his relational path that composed this gospel of transformation and its relational outcome of relationship together without the veil. The removal of the veil, a necessary condition for embodying alive the new covenant relationship Face to face, was contingent on the nature of the sacrifice. Prior sacrifices behind the curtain were insufficient to open direct access to the whole and holy God. Nothing less and no substitutes for God’s whole-ly nature can constitute this sacrifice to bring about this relational outcome. Likewise, nothing less and no substitutes for our whole person, with all our sin (notably as reductionism) signifying “poor in spirit,” can receive and respond back to the whole-ly God in the depth of Jesus’ relational process and progression for the wholeness of reciprocal relationship together in the innermost of God’s holy presence, with God’s holy involvement and by God’s holy relational work of grace. Without our vulnerable function “poor in spirit” there is a relational impasse. Anything less and any substitute for God or for our persons will be insufficient to enact or engage the depth of Jesus’ relational work of grace, consequently cannot reconcile integrally life together both alive in the innermost of relationship embodied without the veil with God (Eph 3:12) and alive in relationship together embodied with no veil in God’s family (Eph 2:13-16; 2 Cor 3:16-18). Paul claims to be sufficient (hilkanos) only in the new covenant (2 Cor 3:5-6).

The primary focus of the new wine is not on being redeemed from the old, as Paul clarified for the gospel (Gal 4:4-6; Rom 6:4). Though being saved from sin is a necessary condition for the new wine, it is insufficient for the relational outcome of the new wine flowing embodied alive as the new creation. The relational outcome of God’s relational response of grace cannot be experienced in just the atonement for sin but necessarily also what Jesus’ sacrifice saves to that emerges solely without the veil: the primacy of whole relationship together as God’s family that is reciprocal both Face to face and face to face. It is a critical reduction of God’s grace, therefore, to make the primary focus merely being saved from sin because there is no relational outcome beyond this truncated soteriology; moreover, there is no accounting of the sin of reductionism because such an accounting necessitates being saved to wholeness—the integral relational outcome of God’s relational response of grace that embodies alive the new.

It is immeasurable for our whole understanding and experience of the relational outcome of the new wine as the new creation family, and that God’s grace is not reduced to our terms. The irreducible experiential truth and nonnegotiable relational reality are that grace is not a gift given, a resource shared and an action enacted by God in the context and for the purpose of unilateral relationship. Grace only creates the opportunity for reciprocal relationship together, for which the recipients of God’s relational response of grace are responsible and therefore accountable—whereby their identity formation narrows to the new embodied alive.

As Jesus made clear to various churches (Rev 2-3), God is not unaffected by the sin in reciprocal relationship; and as Israel’s relational history evidenced, God has reciprocated with his own relational distance (“hide my face from them,” Dt 31:17; 32:20; Isa 1:15; 45:15; 54:8). In other words, God’s grace comes with relational demands. Compatible with God’s relational response, the demands of grace are irreducible and nonnegotiable that God wants the whole person from inner out for the relationships together necessary to be whole as the new creation family in likeness of the whole of God. Congruent with God’s relational response, grace ongoingly does not allow for anything less and any substitutes.

Whole understanding and experience of God’s grace emerge in Face-to-face-to Face relationship, with the relational outcome constituted by mercy (compassion) from God and on this relational basis constituted with mercy for others. This ongoing reciprocal relational process unequivocally distinguishes the relational outcome of the new wine embodied alive integrally to live whole in the human context and to make whole its human condition. So take heed, the only integral relational outcome that unfolds is not the church in our image but the new creation family in the relational likeness of the Trinity, whose primacy in relationship together is irreducible and nonnegotiable to the influence of identity theft.

Identity theft commonly occurs on the internet and is an increasing condition in our surrounding contexts—notably among those not alert. Likewise, Christians tend not to be tuned in adequately to know “who told you that you are….” Christians’ lack of awareness and sensitivity has been exacerbated by COVID-19’s pandemic, which has constrained in-person contact and amplified the use of substitute identity equations and metrics. Consider further a growing reality close to home: The increasing stress and anxiety that Christian tweens and teens experience with identity formation, which is partly due to social media and mostly due to older Christian bystanders who don’t counteract the underlying problem of identity theft taking place in their primary engagements—for the latter at work, in the community, at home and at church, and for the former at school and in venues like Twitter, Instagram, Tik-Tok and YouTube. The mental health consequences for tweens and teens has become a growing problem that Christians and churches cannot be mere bystanders to.

Given the extent of cultural influences impacting Christians today, our awareness of our identity equation, metric and formation are widely challenging. Bifocal identity, for example, is normative among Christians. So, can we define specifically the Christian basis for the identity occupying the primary position in our daily life? And would we be aware if our Christian identity has actually undergone identity theft, leaving us with only simulations and illusions in the practice of our faith?

Our challenge inescapably widens because we (individually and collectively) must counteract our prevailing identity equations, metrics and formations in order to redeem them from contrary influence and restore them to the Word’s terms. That is, redeem and restore so that what defines our identity and determines our function can be transformed to the new constituted only by the embodied Word. The transition, however, from any of our old to the new necessitates our accountability for explicit counteractions against that which substitutes, neutralizes and negates the Word’s identity constituted for his followers; thus, these counteractions cannot be engaged by mere servants of Christ whose identity is based merely on what they do. This counteraction response is against anything less than the wholeness of who and what we are in the qualitative image and relational likeness of the Trinity (just as he prayed, Jn 17).

The steps of where we go from here has clarified a narrow path. We have to turn around from the ways we have negotiated the everyday practice of our faith on the basis of our own terms to widen the path. And we have to face the reductionism, the sin of reductionism, that shapes our identity and constructs its function in our surrounding contexts—fighting both against this reductionism and for the wholeness of the new. Why so comprehensive? Because for the original and new creation “it is not good to be apart from God’s whole.” God’s qualitative relational design for human creation has never changed. This identity for the person persists in God’s terms, despite the misinformation composing the identity equation, metric and formation of God’s people through history. Now we have to answer what our posture will be from here.

What surrounds us will not back down or away and thereby will continue to exert its influence on us. For example, in spite of various limits and constraints recently placed on social media platforms, they continue to dictate the prevailing identity equation and metric whereby the majority’s identity is formed. Unless we consciously exert our will to fight against this influence, we fall into the same human condition—perhaps even willfully participating in shaping others. It is essential, however, that our choices be clearly distinguished from the human condition, or else we could merely reflect, reinforce or sustain it, as some Christians make evident.

In order not to be complicit with or enablers of what surrounds us, it is essential to embody alive the following:

1. Our consciousness must be aware of the sin of reductionism that fragments human identity and diminishes human function, including the subtle ontological simulations and functional illusions of Christians.

2. Our conscious choices must be exercised with the qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness based on the Word’s relational language, in order to counteract the ontological simulations and functional illusions indicative of identity theft by reductionism.

3. Qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness emerge in our consciousness only to the extent of our being vulnerable from inner out, which is essential for our will to be exercised with our person-consciousness and not by self-consciousness.

4. Person consciousness vulnerably embodies alive the primacy of the qualitative and the relational, whereby it then would constitute the qualitative image and relational likeness of the Trinity, all of which is irreplaceable to distinguish our identity and function in order to counteract identity theft.

Qualifier: Our image and likeness must by its nature be constituted on the basis of the Trinity and not according to our human basis, in order to counteract the mindset “that I was one just like yourself.”

The vulnerable turn-around process of identity formation from the old to the new involves not only counteracting identity theft. Integrally necessary is also the deconstruction of veiled identities substituting for the new (see 2 Cor 3:14-15). Reexamine Paul’s identity formation from the old to the new and his metric: “Yet whatever gains I had in the old, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ” (Phil 3:4-7). His old identity deconstruction also necessarily included deconstruction of common identities ascribed to Christ: “even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way” (2 Cor 5:16). When the deconstruction of the old identity takes place, then, and only then, the new creation identity forms unequivocally from inner out to reconstitute the whole person embodied alive (2 Cor 5:17). Paul was emphatic about the new’s identity equation and metric—“For neither the identity metric of circumcision nor the metric of uncircumcision is anything for our identity equation; but a new creation is everything for our identity formation” (Gal 6:15)—and he ongoingly counteracted anything less and any substitutes, even in his new identity (see 2 Cor 12:7-9).

So, have you examined your default status as a migrant, the roots of which are even more pronounced as Christian sojourners (Heb 11:13; Phil 3:20; 1 Pet 1:17; 2:11)? The changes surrounding all of us and the impact of their influence on each of us make our identity formation an inescapable challenge. You could deny the condition of what surrounds you, or you could avoid the challenge as an inconvenient truth. However you exercise your free will, be assured that you are always accountable for your choices. Because whoever you are or whatever you become as a Christian cannot negate whose you can be or will become in his new creation family.

Take heed: The identity equation and metric you use will be the only identity you get—for yourself, God and others; and the identity you use will be the faith you get and the witness you have.

[1] For the migratory roots of Christianity, see Jehu J. Hanciles, Migration and the Making of Global Christianity, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans: 2021).

[2] In his argument, Carl R. Trueman examines such changes in a limited scope to illuminate what Christians face in Strategic New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022).

[3] F. LeRon Shults, Reforming Theological Anthropology: After the Philosophical Turn to Relationality (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 15.

[4] See 4QNah 1:2,7; 2:2-3; 3:3,8.