The New Self

When I was a new Christian, many moons ago, I was unemployed and looking for work. One of the jobs I applied for during that time was a secretarial position at a church. Before they would interview me, however, I was required to submit to a lengthy personality test. I found the questions difficult. I was not who I once was. I was a new creature in Christ. How do I behave at parties? I had never been to one as a Christian. All I knew was that I wouldn’t behave as I had before. I answered as best I could. But I wondered if any of my answers rightly reflected the person I was becoming—the person Christ was transforming me to be. Did these Christian employers even care? I didn’t know, nor was I asked. I didn’t get the job.

Here in America, personality is king. But have you ever noticed that the Bible says next to nothing about it? Solomon was wise, but was he a sparkling wit? David was a man after God’s own heart, but was he the life of the party? Job suffered intensely, but was he a depressive personality? And what about Jesus?

Can you describe the “personality” of the one perfect man—of God made flesh? When he walked among us was he an extrovert or an introvert? Did he prefer his quiet time to being the center of attention? Was he a chatterbox or was he reserved? Did he love to laugh and joke? Was he always smiling, or was he a sobersides? Was he the life of the wedding party at Cana or did he quietly watch the fun? Was he Type A or B? Was he sanguine, choleric, melancholic, or phlegmatic? What was his Myers-Briggs type or his enneagram number? Doesn’t this begin to sound a little silly when we apply it to Jesus?

If personality (as we think of it) is so central to life and the purpose for which God created us, wouldn’t the Bible have more to say about it? But regardless of how many “personality types” we come up with, and no matter how many tests we invent to “examine” ourselves, so far as Scripture is concerned, there are only two types of people: the righteous and the wicked. You see, it is not our personality God is concerned with; it’s our character.

Our natural personalities are the product of many things, all tainted by sin. Our fascination with our personalities is a fascination with ourselves that takes us quickly down the road to self-absorption, self-congratulation, and self-defense, teaching us to glorify our better qualities and to excuse the rest as personality quirks. “Personality” becomes a filter to blur our besetting sins and a distraction from the one true source of godliness.

We don’t need personality tests to discover who we are; we need our Bibles. It’s there that we find everything we need for life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3). Only there can we see the perfection of Christ’s character and the ugliness of our sin by comparison. And it is there that God tells us not to focus on our natural personalities but rather:

. . . to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.   (Ep 4:22-24)

 For those of us who are in Christ, it’s time to give up polishing our self-image in the mirror. It’s time to turn our back on our old self and its personality and to put on that brand new self created “after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. . .  (2 Cor. 3:18)

 We are called to glory, but it’s Christ’s glory. It’s his perfect character we adore, and his likeness we are called to reflect with all our being. Like Moses on Sinai, we approach the word of God with unveiled faces and, transfixed by his glory, we are transformed.

Remember how silly it seemed to apply personality tests to our Savior? When we stand beholding his glory, doesn’t it begin to sound silly for us, too?

[We originally published this article in March of 2021. We are re-running it today in a slightly modified form to accompany this morning’s sermon.]