The Lost Creature
Why we must talk about sin when we talk about Christian identity
I think often of the story Reverend Jacob Smith tells about two people he overheard while walking just outside his parish at Calvary St. George’s in Manhattan. St. George’s tagline, “Enjoy Your Forgiveness,” (which by the way, can we agree is some top-tier marketing for the Christian church?) stands prominently outside of the church on a black letter board. As Jacob turned the corner near the sign, he heard a man say to a woman something along the lines of, “We walk by this sign every day and I hate it. At our core, we are good people - what do we need forgiveness for?”
If there’s one aspect of the human identity I think is difficult for us to come face to face with, it’s our sin. Sure, if you are a Christian, you know at least something of the doctrine of sin. You probably understand that you are broken, flawed, imperfect and that humanity and the world at large shares these traits. But to admit exactly how you miss the mark - according to God’s perfect standard of righteousness - and even deeper still, how you would much prefer it if you were God - I have a hunch that’s not something many of us spend time doing.
If you are a Christian, “sinner” isn’t your only nor primary identity. The answer to this reality isn’t to sit and ruminate in our faults and mistakes all day, but instead to take them to Christ. Martin Luther reminded those who struggled with assurance as much: “When the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: “I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there, I shall also be!” Then, of course, there is also his famous encouragement to Philip Melanchthon to “Sin boldly.”
And yet to skip over the pervasiveness of sin, not only around us but within ourselves, is to cheapen God’s grace. It’s to ignore the reality of life as Paul admits it plays out in Romans 7. It’s to assume we aren’t in need of the continual work of the Spirit to sanctify and cleanse us and bring us to repentance. To pretend that sin does not affect both how we see ourselves and how others relate to us is to ultimately rob ourselves of our truest identities as God’s saints (but now I’m jumping ahead). Not only is it difficult for us to talk about our sin and ourselves as sinners, we really don’t want to identify that we are captives to our condition. There’s no map to follow nor chain-breaker strong enough to free us from the condemnation we experience under sin.
There’s an apologetic argument to be made about how best to speak of sin in contexts with little to no knowledge of what it is and how it affects us - something Simeon Zahl does brilliantly. This is an important conversation to have in a post-Christian context where, as Zahl points out, sin is often reduced to nothing more than poor personal decisions. Thus to speak of sin proper almost comes across as immoral, or at the very least judgmental. In the typical cultural dialect, there’s no longer proper language any more for the pervasiveness of sin and its effects - both within us and in the world around us - as seen throughout Scripture.
In a world where many people think of themselves ultimately as good people, I think (to echo Zahl) there are better entry points into speaking about sin than others. While the sidewalk preacher with his megaphone and condemnation may speak some truth, there’s a reason most of us ignore him. Yet there is one expression of sin in particular, supplied by the Creed and, you guessed it, Luther’s explanation to the second article in his Small Catechism, that I’ve found particularly relevant to our time - so let’s dive in:
“And in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord: who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried: he descended into hell, the third day he rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and is seated on the right hand of God, the Father almighty, whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.”
What does this mean?
Answer: I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, delivered me and freed me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with silver and gold but with his holy and precious blood and with his innocent sufferings and death, in order that I may be his, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as he is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true.1
Here again, we see that there is much to learn about ourselves in speaking about our God. In particular, to know God is to know Christ, and specifically to know the work of Christ on our behalf. That work which the creed reminds us was done ultimately in his dying, suffering, and resurrection. Luther extrapolates this out to apply to the individual in particular, stating that Jesus “has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature.”
The combination of “lost and condemned” is essential. Apart from Christ, the real trouble with lostness is that you can’t find your way home. To play off Luther’s description, we might even say we are condemned to our lostness. We are the inanimate coin collecting dust under the cabinet, misplaced whether we like it or not. Or the sheep that wanders off from the other ninety-nine, stuck on a high cliff or trapped in briers and without a way to get home.
Furthermore, sin turns us into disoriented sojourners with blankets over our heads who don’t know where or to whom they belong or even the prodigal son who actively flees his father’s home, convinced he can find a better way for himself “out there”. Sin doesn’t just condemn us, it blinds us to the truth of our condition. It makes us say things like, “deep down I’m really just a good person,” or “at least I’m better than that guy,” or even “all who wander are not lost.” We grasp at anything and everything to tether us and to assure us of who we are, and yet nothing quite does the trick. Belle Tindall-Riley writes about the instability and condemnation of self-discovery, exposed through expressive individualism’s yearning for a sure promise (or as she puts it a knowing voice), in this way:
In its simplest form, expressive individualism is the idea that we need to find and define who we are. It’s the responsibility of each individual to build themselves up, from the inside out. And then we get to show the world what we have crafted – ourselves, made in our own image. We get to be the masterpiece and the master, the poet and the poem. It sounds pretty lovely, doesn’t it? Totally liberating.
There’s just one teeny tiny problem with it: no person can actually bear the weight of such responsibility. It’s crippling.2
People the world over can relate to the crippling project of self-discovery. We all know what it feels like and what life looks like when we find ourselves unmoored, drifting, seeking answers to who we are or why we matter without any real solution. To be lost is to be a sinner.
It is a good and proper thing for Christians to recognize they were lost and now are found, were blind and now are free as the famous song puts it. As the Lutheran Confessions state, “we hold that Christ with his perfect obedience covers all our sins which throughout this life still inhere in our nature.”3 But as I mentioned at the beginning, we must also continue to recognize our struggle with sin, our struggle as sinners, persists until death in this life. Which is to say that we will still find ourselves lost in difficult moments. Lost to the whims of the world and the desires of our hearts. Lost to our digital algorithms which urge us to find ourselves through roadmaps of botox, detox, facial massage, morning routines, better parenting, clean eating, red light therapy, mantras, looksmaaxing, bio-hacking, and the list goes on. Lost in the endless grid (or scroll) of comparison on social media. Lost chasing after our idols of self, wealth, and politics because a solution to our mired situations - our imperfect conditions - always seems like it’s just one step away.
To recognize yourself as a sinner is not to identify with such paltry solutions, but instead to give up the chase altogether. It’s a cry for help in the wilderness, not a solo sojourn hoping to prove your worth. It’s Dante’s opening lines in the Inferno, “Half-way upon the journey of our life / I found myself within a gloomy wood.” From there and only from there, can faith in God’s promise spring forth. Faith not in ourselves nor even in our confession as sinners, but faith in a Redeemer, the Lord, who comes to buy us back from our present condition and does so through his precious blood.
By Christ’s blood, even though we may feel lost in this life from time to time, we will never again be unknown nor unpossessed, and we are no longer condemned. For “the son of man came to seek and claim the lost” and that is exactly what he does on the cross (Luke 19:10).
But that’s an identity left to discuss for another day.
Theodore G. Tappert, ed., The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959), 345.
Belle Tindall-Riley. “Elizabeth Day’s psychic call and the crisis of talking to ourselves.” Seen and Unseen, Jan. 30, 2026. https://www.seenandunseen.com/elizabeth-days-psychic-call-and-crisis-talking-ourselves
Theodore G. Tappert, ed., The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959), 543.