The last subject brought before us, of importance, is that of new creation. We have seen that Mr. Stuart’s system corresponds with that of the old Puritans or early evangelicals, upon these great branches of their teaching namely, justification by blood or by sacrifice only; headship of race, which was all they knew with reference to association with Christ and what they constantly and largely insisted on; and thirdly, we shall find very similar views touching new creation or a new creature – that being held by them to be exhibited in the regeneration of the believer, “or a spiritual race, different from everything that had been ever before produced,” so that, as Mr. Stuart says, “he looked on everything in a new light”; but they had no idea of any new material creation, or sphere, though, perhaps, they might not have gone to the length of denying it, as Mr. S. Thus Mr. S. expresses himself on this subject
A complete change comes, as it were, over the scene consequent on the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The man who in Christ is a new creation is still, as to his identity, the same person he was before his conversion. But things are to be seen by him in a new light.
So the old things can pass away and become new. Individuals are the same now as before. Things are the same, relationships are the same; but all are viewed from a new standpoint. The relationships which existed before exist still. . . . Hence new creation is not a place or region into which he [the believer] will one day enter . . . He [Christ] is the beginning of it, and each one in Him is a new creation. This creation then is spiritual not material, like that of old (“New Creation,” Voice to the Faithful, May, 1879).
It was brought out by leading teachers among us, some forty or more years since, that the ordinary teaching on this subject was essentially defective, that Christ was foundation and Head of a new creation, which was the display of the power of God in heaven and earth; that it was a new sphere or region, as a result of the manifest power of God where “all things” were “of God” {2 Cor. 5:17, 18}. Well does the writer remember the first effect of realizing what it was to be brought into definite association with this new sphere of created existence, instead of the old view of being “a new creature”; and “viewing things in a new light,” and then looking within to see what corresponding effects of divine life were produced. Identified with a new system of power which was all of God, it seemed to lift the soul out of itself; whilst the unfolding of that system, entirely new to the mind in its grandeur and blessing as a fresh creation of God, gave additional interest, expansion of soul and spiritual strength being coupled with the apprehension of divine righteousness upon the same ground. A new “position,” and not merely a new condition, or state of apprehension; for it is evident that the same principles are at work in what is denied here, as in other parts of Mr. Stuart’s scheme.
First, as to the old creation, Mr. S. tells us that man was a creation of God, but that the earth “was not re-created for him,” but only “made,” for Mr. S.’s idea of creation is limited to what is brought into existence out of nothing, but he again gives us no authority for this but his own, though as elsewhere, he states it as if there could be no possible question touching what he affirms, and no appeal from it.
Scripture, on the contrary, constantly speaks of creation very differently, that is, not only of God calling matter into being that had no previous existence, but when He produces forms of organic life and beauty, whether animal or vegetable, out of dead, inert material, or introduces into matter already existing, a new kind of life and power.
Man was created on the sixth day after earth emerged by divine fiat, from a state of chaos, into which, for causes unknown to us, it had been allowed to get, for God created it not a waste (Isa. 45:18). Was earth re-created for man? No. It was made in those six days for him, (Ex. 20:11), and he, a fresh creation of God appeared on the scene, and found earth was the appointed sphere for him as man (Psa. 115:16.) Hence the creation of a race does not of necessity involve the recreation of a place or sphere in which that race is to find its home. As it was then, so it is now. The one in Christ is a new creature, and the heavenlies are the sphere in which that creation can find its home, and has its proper place according to God’s appointment (Christian Standing and Condition, pp. 21, 22).
Man was “created” and the rest, we are told, in contrast, was “made,” because formed out of matter previously created but this is completely upset by the express statement of scripture, that the peopling the waters with animal life, and the air also, was an act of creative power (Gen. 1:21), or we are shut up to the absurd conclusion, that whilst the fishes and the birds of the air also, were created, the beasts of the field and cattle were only made.
The word of God, speaking of man’s physical form in its origin, “Male and female created he them,” tells us that he as well as the lower animals, was “made” (Gen. 1:26; 5:1) or “formed” out of pre-created material. “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7), so that this notion of creation’s being only applied to what is called into being out of nothing, would be equally destructive of the idea of man’s creation, as applied to his body, concerning which the statement of scripture is absolute. Hence we see the very same language used concerning the formation of the animals as of man. “But out of the ground the Lord God formed (Heb. 97*) every beast of the field and every fowl of the air” (Gen. 2:19). Thus scripture speaks of the whole scene formed and fashioned out of chaos, as creation, and that “God rested on the seventh day from all his work that he created and made” (or to make, Gen. 2:3); and it is added “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth in the day they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 2:4). This evidently is not the original creation of matter, but the scene of life, order and beauty which God had caused to spring forth out of that chaotic state, by creative energy, as the connection of the verses, speaking of the rest of the seventh day, makes apparent, and the word “generation” (comp. Gen. 5:1), for here the inspired writer goes on to specify that this creation embraced every plant and every herb before it grew or was in the ground, as included in what was made or created (Gen. 2:5), which accords with what the apostle tells us, that “Every creature (6J\F:") of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim. 4:4).
The word created is mainly used, as we have said, for a new and special display of almighty power; thus Moses, in predicting the earthquake which swallowed up Korah and his company, says, “If the Lord make a new thing in the earth” – the Hebrew, as in the margin, is, “create a creature” (Num. 16:30). Again “I have created the waster to destroy” (Isa. 44:16). “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil” (Isa. 45:7). We have then destructive evil and darkness, when it did not previously exist, spoken of as created by God. Moral and spiritual effects and scenes of blessing are similarly described, where new life and power from God are in operation. “Create in me a clean heart, O God” (Psa. 51:10). “I create the fruit of the lips” (Isa. 58:19). “God will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of valleys; and make the wilderness a pool of water, and plant in the wilderness, the cedar, the shittah, the myrtle and the olive, that they may see and know that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it” (Isa. 41:18-20).
Sometimes moral and physical creation are brought together as corresponding effects of divine, creative power and we have similar expressions – “Life from the dead” (Rom. 11:15), “regeneration” (Matt. 19:28), and even resurrection itself in the figure of the dry bones (Ezek. 38) – used as descriptive of the change that will ensue in the condition of Israel, and the whole moral state of things, now become the sphere of Christ’s power and glory: “Be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create; for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.” This is given as an illustration of the same power that will create the new heavens and the new earth. “Behold,” God says, “I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind.” This strong language “that the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind,” shows us plainly enough that the Spirit of God has the complete change in view, spoken of by the apostle Peter and in Rev. 21, when, the first heaven and the first earth being destroyed by fire, God “makes” or “creates,” for both words are used as elsewhere, taking, it may be, the same material as the basis, a new scene for the abode of men and His dwelling-place with man. Creative energy is even applied to the fresh putting forth of divine power in the ordinary operations of nature. “Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created, and thou renewest the face of the earth” (Psa. 104:30). “The people which shall be created shall praise the Lord” (Psa. 102:18). (Compare also Isa. 48:6,7).
Creation is ascribed to each of the divine Persons, but specially to the Son. In Col. 1 He is thus spoken of as Creator of all things in heaven and earth, and by Him they are all to be reconciled, having been defiled by the presence of sin. He sustains them all, they also were created for Him – but how does He take them? In the power of His resurrection and victory over death, thus introducing new-creation-life into the whole scene, for He is the "BP0 or beginning {Col. 1:18}, the Fountain-head of the whole scene of power, as the Firstborn from the dead, as well as the Firstborn of the whole creation. This is repeated in Rev. 3:14, where He is again called the "BP0, or beginning of the creation of God, which could not be said of the old creation, for it is His relation to it as Man, and as risen from the dead, that is in question. Certainly, in resurrection only is He the foundation and source of this new creation; for “though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more: therefore, if any man be in Christ, [there is] new creation” {2 Cor. 5:16, 17}. Here we may apply the apostle’s word on another subject, “in that he saith, new, he hath made the first old” {Heb. 8:13}; and we have seen that this scene is called the regeneration {Matt. 19:28}, or birth again, for the whole state of things is morally new in the millennium, like the new-born joy of Jerusalem; and Christ takes it, and fills it with His mediatorial, life-giving power and glory, exalted as Man over all. “He that ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things” (Eph. 4:9, 10). In Eph. 1:23 also we are told, that He who is the Head of His body, the church, is the One who, as Head over all, “fills all in all,” which corresponds with the thought of the Spirit of God in Col. 1 that He who is the beginning, or the Firstborn, in the whole sphere of the divine action and display, has the supreme preeminence in “all things,” because He first created, and now sustains, and will be the Head and Center, in new creation power and heavenly glory, for all the fullness of the Godhead bodily was pleased to dwell in Him {Col. 2:9}; so that this preeminence(BDTJ,LT<) is not merely what the heart of every Christian delights to render to Him, but the necessary and entire ascendancy of His Person over all. It has been remarked, that the nearer we are brought in relationship to Him, the more the soul loves to honor and adore Him in His own personal and exclusive supremacy.
It is as a consequence of connection with Christ that we are linked with, and brought into, the new creation. Such is the force of the apostle’s argument in 2 Cor. 5. He has spoken of the death of Christ for man, as having its judicial effect upon all, owned distinctly by those that believe; but if Christ Himself is in this new position, so that He is no longer known as once He was in His relations in the flesh, however perfect and blessed He was in them, having died for us because our state required it, He has necessarily passed into relationships of a higher order than Jewish associations, or His title as Man on earth, could give: “We know him,” thus “no more.” Hence the abstract nature of the declaration “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, [there is] new creation” {2 Cor. 5:16, 17}, for it is in that connection that he (the apostle) so stands associated with Christ, and not in the old one, as an Israelite, who might claim relationship with Him as the Son of David, and, as the apostle was a Jew, he naturally speaks of (J .BP"Ã") ancient things as passed away, however sanctioned and honored, as they had once been, even by God Himself, in a former dispensation. “All things have become new,” or, according to the reading adopted by some, “New things have come in,” or, “taken place.”
All things are of God, also, in contrast with man in the flesh and all his surroundings, not only divine life, position and righteousness but the whole range of the display of God’s power and glory in Christ, starting from resurrection right on into the new heaven and earth. We ourselves also are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works (Eph. 2:10), which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them; for new creation supposes the action of divine power, and here in the place of death, where we were found {Eph. 2:1-6}, when He thus wrought in quickening power to bring us out of the old creation. It is again and again stated that it is in the new man – the commencement of this new creation in righteousness and holiness and truth {Eph. 4:24}, that God has begun this display of His power.
There would be something strange and incongruous were our souls brought into this association with Christ, as Head of the new creation, and not our bodies. Mr. S. indeed, says, that to “affirm recreation of the body, we must deny its resurrection, which is a very serious matter indeed” (p. 53). Mr. S., however, first assumes, that creation is only to bring forth out of nothing; and then, proceeding to reason from a false premise, can only draw a false conclusion. If new creation is the introduction of new life and power into what previously existed, it may be applied, as it is, to the soul first, and afterwards to the body. If we can see no difficulty in applying new creation power to the soul, without its personal existence or individuality being annulled by it, it may be equally applied to the body, without its identity being at all affected.
Since in the original creation of man, and of sentient life or in the future creation, God chooses to make use of existent material, and to give it life and organism, which it did not possess before, He may equally take up matter which has crumbled to dust, raising “it” spiritual, powerful, and in glory, in new organic form, totally inconceivable in our present state (1 Cor. 15:42), or He may produce similar effects on our present animal organism, as wonderful, and perhaps more wonderful as a display of creative energy, than anything that we have ever known of or believed. Interesting as the change may be, of the caterpillar or chrysalis into a butterfly, yet analogies are proverbially misleading, and certainly have no authority in this case. For the life is the same throughout, though varied in its form, being only the development of powers inherent in the chrysalis, by means of natural laws, which we see in its transformation into the butterfly. The analogy, therefore, which Mr. S. considers conclusive in his favor, however beautiful as a figure, breaks down entirely, for the resurrection of the body is a totally new application and introduction of the mighty power of God into dead, inanimate matter, altogether diverse from any inherent forces or powers of nature existing within us.
It should also be remarked that the heavenly city, the dwelling-place of God, the new Jerusalem, is a creation of an entirely new order, which corresponds with the apostle’s statement concerning the “greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation” (6J4F4H, Heb. 9:11); and this accords with Isa. 45, “Drop down ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness, let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring forth together. I, the Lord, have created it.” Hence, both heaven and earth, being then filled with blessing, the heavenly city the abode of righteousness, and Israel and the nations of those which are saved, walking in the light of it, with righteousness, like streams, springing up out of the earth in the desert. Jehovah says, I have created it, and the Spirit of God connects with it, as we have seen, the subsequent physical recreation of the new heaven and earth.
How opposite is all this to the theory, that the new creation consists only in “a spiritual race, different from anything that had been before produced.” We, indeed, are in Him who is the origin, and commencement, and Head of it; “to create [6J\F0] in Himself of twain, one new man”(Eph. 2:15).
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