LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
A Christian’s identity is no pseudo-identity, as is the case with Halloween costumes
A Paper Submitted to
the Faculty of the School of Divinity
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (Ed. D) Department of Christian Leadership and
Church Ministries
By
Mary Gracias
Lynchburg, Virginia
9/2022
A Christian’s identity is no pseudo-identity, as is the case with Halloween costumes, but is the
deepest identity by which the believer is known by God.
Today, we usher in October 31st, 2022—a day our culture recognizes as Halloween. It is a
day that finds traditions spanning from the innocence of watching Shultz’s Great Pumpkin to
the more serious customs of people dressing up as demons, ghouls, and goblins in preparation
to knock on strangers’ doors and utter the famous words, “trick or treat.”
As is customary for many, tonight people throughout our country will conceal themselves
in creative costumes in which outward identities take the form of clowns, super-heroes, ghosts,
and witches. For a few hours many will enjoy the fun of self-identifying as someone or
something only possible in their wildest dreams.
Overshadowed by the festivities of Halloween, today also marks a very significant day in
the history of the church—a day many within Christendom refer to as Reformation Day. Today,
in 1517, a young man training to become an Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, nailed his now
famous 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church wherein he challenged many
teachings of Catholicism—especially the selling of indulgences. Many historians consider this
unprecedented confrontation by Luther as the impetus of the Great Reformation that
eventually swept Europe by storm.
Unlike Halloween’s superficial identities captured in the myriad of costumes that will be
adorned tonight, Luther’s theology brought forth an iconoclastic doctrine pertaining to the
believer’s identity that was nothing less than radical in his day. Luther taught:
Brethren, “have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though
he was in the form of god, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” Phil. 2:5-6
There are two kinds of Christian righteousness, just as man’s sin is of two kinds. The
first is alien righteousness, that is the righteousness of another, instilled from without.
This is the righteousness of Christ by which he justifies though faith, as it is written in I
Cor. 1:30: “whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and
redemption.” In John 11:25-26, Christ himself states: “I am the resurrection and the
life; he who believes in me…..shall never die.” Later he adds in John 14:6, “I am the
way, and the truth, and the life.” This righteousness, then, is given to men in baptism
and whenever they are truly repentant. Therefore a man can with confidence boast in
Christ and say: “Mine are Christ’s living, doing, and speaking, his suffering and dying,
mine as much as if I had lived, done, spoken, suffered, and died as he did.”
The identity of the Christian is one of union with Jesus, therefore, whatever is true of Jesus
becomes true of the believer. In Christ, the Christian is holy, righteous, perfect and beloved.
This is no pseudo-identity as is the case with Halloween costumes, but is the deepest identity by
which the believer is known by God.
Amazingly, this is not only an identity granted by God through faith; it is also an identity
that God is committed to making actual within the Christian soul. We are told that in all things
God is working to conform the Christian into the image of Jesus. Herein resides the ultimate
telos of human change—that in our transformation, we will progressively begin to image the
very person of Jesus in all we do, think, want, and say.
