Which 'I' are you talking about?

Listening to: The NA Band: Looked Upon

After my last post on a radical anthropology, you may be wondering what that looks like in practice. An anecdote from Gerhard Forde may help (from my vague memory).

Forde was approached by a young man who had read his book Free to Be. The young man was a bit shocked by the unconditional forgiveness he had read about and asked "does this mean I can do whatever I want?"

Forde answered, "which 'I' are you talking about?"

As Christians we are free to do whatever the new 'I', "created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" and "led by the Spirit", desires.

The old 'I' is under the law and so it is not free to do what it desires. But actually it never has been, and never can be, because it has always been enslaved to Sin, the Devil, other people, etc. Even if we think the old 'I' was free we are just being blind to how other people's opinions, self-love, sexual desires, etc have always controlled us.

The law (climaxing in Jesus as example) was a postcard of the Lake District sent to captives so that they could see that they had been living in a concentration camp all their life. The Gospel (climaxing in Jesus as Christ our Saviour) is Jesus Christ throwing open the gates.