The Man Who Forgot Himself – It sounds like a terrible plot line for a movie, but it was real life. A man named Philip Stoffen spent 18 months not knowing who he was. He was a world traveler with a cultured English accent, yet he had no memory of his past. Even after a British Columbia Supreme Court judge refused to grant him a legal name, he remained a mystery. He had stumbled into a Toronto hospital in 1999, suffering from global amnesia after a mugging, with his only memory being picking himself up off a sidewalk. Despite media coverage in Yorkshire and Britain, no one recognized him. He eventually disappeared again in 2004, having used six different names.[^1]
Philip Stoffen was desperate to know: Who am I?
Since Adam and Eve and the fall of man, all of humanity has been asking this same question. Who are you before God? Who are you to others? It is a crisis of identity.
A Decisive Change The answer to your identity is not found in your past mistakes or how you see yourself on discouraging days. It is found in your position with God.
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” — 2 Corinthians 5:17
Paul is writing to the Corinthians to tell them they don’t have to live the way they used to. The phrase “new creature” indicates a massive shift. In the original Greek text, “old things are passed away” is written in the aorist tense, which indicates a decisive change—it happened in a moment. However, “all things are become new” is in the perfect tense, which indicates abiding results.[^2]
Salvation is a one-time decision, but the change it brings is ongoing. You are not who you used to be. You may have the same name and birthdate as before, but if you are born again, you are a new creation.
I Ain’t What I Used To Be Your identity is not “myself before I came to Christ.” That person is gone. We must stop looking in the rearview mirror to find our identity. We are in union with Christ through the Holy Spirit. While we wait for the rapture to redeem our physical bodies, our inner man is being sanctified.
Say this to yourself today: I have a new identity in Christ.
[^1]: Illustration regarding Philip Stoffen and his case of global amnesia. [^2]: Grammatical analysis of 2 Corinthians 5:17 regarding aorist and perfect tenses.
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