It is profoundly interesting to notice, in the third chapter of the Book of Genesis, that the first man who was called to stand amid the ruins of the old creation, was also the first to hear of, and rejoice in, the glories of the new Adam, like millions of his posterity, tried what the old creation could do for him in the way of finding a hiding-place and a covering. He sewed fig-leaves together, as a covering, and when that failed to satisfy his conscience and hush his fears, he tried to find a covert behind the trees of the garden. Bat neither was of any use. The old creation could never furnish a covert or a covering. And why? Because all that pertains to the old creation is under the power of the enemy. Do what you will with the old creation, and the old Adam nature, and it must all prove valueless, inasmuch as it must all end in death. The grave is the only terminus for all that pertains to the old creation. Men may weary and labor themselves in the vain attempt to obliterate the traces of death and the curse. They may seek to persuade themselves that this world is a fair and lovely spot, and they may enlist all their energies in the work of decking it out and gilding it over; but, ah! it is " all vanity and vexation of spirit." The ruin and wretchedness will make their appearance through the thickest gilding and the most elaborate decking. The thorn and the thistle are there. Disease and death, sight and tears, broken hearts and furrowed brows, blighted prospects and blasted hopes, poverty and misery-all these things rise up in terrific array, and proclaim the fruitless-ness of every effort to mend the old creation, or improve the old Adam nature.
Now, as we have already said, Adam was the first to hear of all this. " And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Gen. 3:17-19.
So much for the old creation and the old Adamic nature. " Cursed is the ground;" and " dust thou art." Do what you will, and you cannot alter either of these solemn declarations. Even though you could mend the world, you are only mending a cursed thing; and even though you could improve old Adamic nature, your improvements must go down to the dust. All-all must end in the tomb-the dark, silent tomb. Let a man pursue the most brilliant career, let him wreathe his brow with laurels, let him adorn his name with the highest titles, let him heap up untold wealth, let him live in luxury and splendor, let him reach the summit of human greatness and earthly glory, let literature and science combine all their powers to enlighten, to refine, and to elevate him; and after all, that prediction must stand out before his eye, " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Thus it is with all. The prince and the peasant, the noble and the beggar, the hoary veteran whose breast is adorned with the medals of many splendid victories, and the raw recruit of yesterday, the tender and delicate lady who could not endure a single soil, and the poor creature whose days have been spent amidst the most squalid misery-all must go down to the grave and mingle with the dust of the earth.
Oh! that men would think of this! It would surely tend to teach them the vanity of all the resources of the old creation, and all the efforts and all the attainments of the old Adam nature. It would prove an immense relief to thousands of earnest spirits who are, at this moment, honestly, but fruitlessly, seeking to prop up the tottering ruin of old Adamic nature upon the sandy foundation of a cursed earth. " Cursed is the ground......dust thou art." What a commentary! Faith alone can read it aright. "The natural man" cannot understand it. He will seek to mend the world and improve himself. Indeed, one special point of difference, between the way of faith and "the way of Cain, " will be found in this, that the former has to do with the new creation, the latter with the old.
Adam took the first step in the way of faith, when he called his wife's name, " the mother of all living.'' There was uncommon moral grandeur in this utterance. He had just heard the solemn declaration, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return; " and one may ask, " Where was there aught of 'life' to be looked for amid the ' dust' of the old creation? " Surely, no where; but Adam's faith looked up from all the ruin within and around him, and beheld visions of the new creation breaking forth in celestial brightness, to cheer the heart amid the wreck of the old. There was something beyond the "dust" of death, and faith laid hold thereon. Adam judged that the promise concerning " the seed of the woman " could only find its accomplishment in the new creation; and he judged rightly. His judgment was the judgment of faith.
But, be it remembered, it was from God's revelation that Adam learned to look beyond himself and beyond the old creation for that life of which he spoke. Before the light of that revelation had shone upon him. he had tried all the resources of the old creation. Like millions of his descendants, he tried what his own efforts could produce, ere he received life, as " the gift of God," in the new creation. He had to learn, after his peculiar fashion, that,
"If human efforts are in vain,
In Christ it is we stand."
All must learn this, in one way or another. " The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Rom. 6) All must take their stand with Adam amid the ruin and desolation of the old creation, and hearken to the solemn decree," dust thou art;" and, Oh! thrice happy they who, while these accents are falling on their ear, can look up, and with that certainty which faith finds in God's revelation, speak of life in the midst of death. Happy they who can, with faith's eagle gaze, look beyond "death's cold flood" to that fair scene of life and immortality which is found in the new creation.
Reader, this is a present reality. We should not be satisfied with merely saying, as so many do, " I know that dust I am, and unto dust must I return; but I hope to get to heaven when I die." This will never do. The grand point is, now, to see the end of the old creation-the death and burial of the old Adamic nature-and the new creation in Christ Jesus. This is a sublime truth. Let us seek to get hold of it in simple faith. When Christ lay buried in the silent tomb, old Adam was proved a wreck, and the old creation a ruin. There was no hope from either the one or the other; and hence, everything hinged upon this question, " Is there to be anything beyond that tomb? Shall there be any movement of life in you silent chamber? " Such was the grand question raised at the tomb of Jesus, while angels and principalities, above and below, waited to hear the reply, and see the issue. Nor had they long to wait. At the appointed moment, forth came the Conqueror, in power and majesty, to set up, on the foundation of His accomplished atonement, the new creation of God. The old creation could furnish no such foundation. Men may dig, and dig for ages, in search of a foundation, but all in vain; for, as they penetrate from depth to depth, they meet just the one material, namely, " dust." There is nothing but dust, in the old creation, or in the Adamic nature.
Now, it is interesting and instructive to see that this great doctrine of new creation was revealed, in measure, to Adam at the very moment in which the old creation lay in ruins around him, and in which he saw himself a ruin in the midst of ruins. When he called his wife's name " Eve," he just stepped from the wreck of the old creation on to the imperishable and immovable rock of the new; and as he stood upon that rock, he could calmly look on and see the wreck descending beneath the dark waters of death, knowing that those waters could never reach to where he stood, and that he should need you wreck no more. There was, I repeat it, uncommon moral grandeur in all this. Adam was able, to let go the whole world, as he passed, in the energy of an artless faith, into that new scene which God's word had introduced to his heart; and, moreover, he was sustained from day to day, from hour to hour, and from moment to moment, amid the " labor and sorrow" of the whole creation, by the power of that same precious principle; for he had to learn, after his own peculiar fashion, and in his measure, the meaning of that word, " The just shall live by faith."
Nor was it merely life that Adam obtained, in the new creation, but righteousness likewise; for, " Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." With the furnishing of this coat Adam had nothing whatever to do. Both the life and the righteousness belonged to the new creation. This one fact made them as free as they were permanent, and as permanent as they were free. Man could not earn them, but God gave them, and Satan could not take them. Man has to earn bread by the sweat of his face, in the old creation; but in the new creation he gets the best bread for nothing. All is free in the new creation. And, blessed be God, the hiss of the old serpent can never be heard throughout the wide and hallowed range of that new creation. This gives great rest to the heart. Satan can never get into, and man can never be thrust out from, the heavenly Paradise. The motto inscribed by the hand of redeeming love, on the portal of that holy and happy enclosure is, " They shall go no more out." Precious motto! The bare idea that one could ever be put out would destroy all the happiness within. But all is sure, all is solid, all is eternal. The new creation shall endure forever. It can never grow old, and all who belong to it partake of its eternal stability.
Well, beloved Christian reader, you belong to this new creation now. Remember this. You have, in the Person of Christ, passed out of the old creation into the new. This precious truth is at once the basis of your eternal security, and of your present separation from all that appertains to the old world. The morals of the Christian life take their tone and complexion from the sublime truth of the new creation. The question is no longer to be, " What harm is there in this, that, or the other pursuit?" Such a question should never once be raised by one who belongs to the new creation. The grand and all-important inquiry for such an one is, " How can I best promote the glory of Him who has rescued me from the wreck of the old creation, and placed me on the rock of the new?" Oh! that Christ were our absorbing object! Would that, losing sight of self and all its thoughts, feelings, and interests-earth, and all pertaining thereto-human thoughts, opinions, and reasonings, we might be wholly taken up with the Person, the glory, and the cause of Christ! God grant it to us, in His abundant mercy! There is nothing in the old creation worth living for. " Dust thou art" is stamped upon everything. And yet, alas! though we know this upon divine authority, how little we live in the power of it! How prone we are to forget it in the midst of surrounding influences!
May God the Holy Ghost work in us a more earnest, influential, abiding faith in all that most precious truth which connects us with the new creation, so that we may pass along through this world as those who are dead to all below, and whose " life is hid with Christ in God."
"We're not of the world that fadeth away,
We're not of the night, hut children of day;
The chains that once bound us, by Jesus are riven;
We're strangers on earth, and our home is in heaven."