The New Creation
Table of Contents
The New Creation: Part 1
It would effectually deliver the mind from a thousand perplexities, could we only get a clear sense of what is meant by that one expression, " A new creation" It would, at once, serve to show us the utter fruitlessness of attempting to mend the world, or to mend the old Adam nature. No one who had really entered into the sublime and precious doctrine involved in a new creation, could ever speak of "making the best of both worlds." We might just as well speak of making the best of " an old garment" and " a new piece." The two things are wholly incompatible; and, hence, the "best" you can "make" of them is but to "make the rent worse." Man, in his religious wisdom, his pious philosophy, thinks he can combine the two; but Christ declares that to attempt to combine them, is to make the rent worse. Christ did not come to mend the old world, but to die and find a grave in it, that, by dying and rising again, He might take us clean out of the old world into the new. To make use of Christ and His gospel for the purpose of mending the old world or the old Adam nature, is one of Satan's most crafty and subtle devices. It is a fatal snare into which thousands are, at this moment, falling.
I would ask my reader to open his Bible, at the third chapter of Genesis, and ponder these words, " So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." (ver. 24.) Here we find the old Adam nature driven clean out of Paradise, and not only so, but " every way" of returning thither closed against him. Old Adam could never eat of the tree of life. Old Adam could not make the best of both worlds. He had lost one altogether, and he had neither title nor capacity for another. By sin he was ruined as belonging to the old creation, and naught save death and resurrection could introduce him into the new. " If any man be in Christ he is a new creation" (2 Cor. 5) " In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation." (Gal. 6) True Christianity presents "a new man " moving in " a new creation." Spurious or false Christianity attempts to improve the old man and the old creation. In other words, it attempts to " put a new piece upon an old garment;" and, even though that "newpiece" be the profession of Christianity, yet do the words of Christ hold true, that " the rent is made worse." Indeed, it will ever be found that, the newer or better the " piece," the worse "the rent." The worst "rent" that has ever yet been made is the result of tacking the name of Christ upon the old Adam nature. Satan's masterpiece is to take up each " new piece " of divine revelation, and place it as a patch upon old Adam.
There is great power in the words, " turned every way." There is no way in which the old nature can get life. It must die out of the old creation, and be quickened into the new. " God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." (Gal. 6:14.) "Every way" is sedulously closed against fallen humanity. It must die. So the word of God declares. But the father of lies has, from the very outset, been seeking to set this simple truth aside. He knows what a potent instrument it is, and has therefore ever sought to hinder its action, by all means in his power. He is never better pleased than when he sees men, and particularly Christian men, digging and delving, in order to open a way for old Adam to get back to the tree of life. He has no objection to morality, to philanthropy, to religion. In a word, he will allow the very name of Christ to be tacked on to the old nature, in order to quash the grand truth of a "new creation."
But it is all in vain. The hand of God placed a flaming sword to turn a every way;" and the Holy Ghost, by the apostle, has set the sharp edge of His sword, for the same purpose, when He declares that, " Neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation." God's " rule" for the old creation, and all pertaining thereto is, ''death and resurrection." Wherefore, it follows, that no work can be more fruitless than seeking to mend the world, or to mend the old nature. It cannot be done. The cross of Christ was not designed to mend the world or the flesh, but to crucify both the one and the other. When the Lord Jesus Christ lay in the silent tomb, there was an end of the old creation; and when He rose, it was as " the beginning, the first-begotten from among the dead "-the Head of the new creation.
Now, when Christ died, all the redeemed died with Him; when He was buried, all the redeemed were buried with Him; when He rose, all the redeemed rose with Him. Thus it was in God's view. The Head and members are one, and can never be separated. They belong to the new creation, in which " all things are of God." There is not a single atom of the old Adam or his world, in the new creation, for if there were, it could not be said that " all things are of God." It is not possible, therefore, to make the best of both worlds, seeing that, in the new world, there is not so much as a jot or tittle belonging-to the old; nor is there aught in the old world belonging to the new. The only question is, Which shall we have? My reader is, at this moment, attached either to that world of which Satan is the god, or to that of which Christ is the Head. To make the best of the two is as impossible as to combine the sun's meridian splendor with midnight's gloom.
And, be it remembered, there is no middle ground. We cannot be half in the old creation, and half in the new. We must be wholly in the one or wholly in the other. If we are in the old creation, we have death and judgment before us. If we are in the new creation, we have death and judgment behind us. The old Adam must meet death and judgment. The flaming sword shuts him out from life, and shuts him up to death and judgment.
But my reader may feel disposed to ask, " How am I to pass out of the old creation into the new? " The answer is, by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. " Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." (John 5:24.) This is the way to pass into the new creation. It is done in a moment. Faith in God's word connects the soul with Christ, and being connected with Christ, we are part and parcel of the new creation. A tree planted in Eden was part of the old creation; a soul planted in Christ, by faith, is part of the new.
This is very simple; and it is as precious as it is simple. There is not a single spot or stain of sin in the new creation. There is no wrath or judgment in the new creation. Satan's arrows cannot reach us, nor his snares be laid, in the new creation. The grave is the boundary of Satan's power; but the new creation begins at the other side of the grave. All our blessings, all our joys, all our dignities, all our privileges are in the new creation, and, therefore, lie far beyond the range of the enemy's power. The Lord be praised for this blessed assurance! What full emancipation it gives from the things of earth and nature-from the old creation and all its belongings! Moreover, it gives such liberty and elevation, such holy fixedness and repose. To be able to say, " I belong to that new creation, wherein all things are of God," is to know one's entire deliverance from everything that could be against us. There is naught but absolute, divine, and eternal perfection in the new creation, and the very weakest believer is part and parcel thereof.
True it is, we are " Here in the body pent," and " we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened." We bear about with us a body of sin and death, which is allied to the old creation, and must either crumble into dust, or be changed in a moment, at the coming of Christ; but this in no wise affects our position in the new creation. We may have to endure bodily pain, together with toil and conflict, in this wilderness world; but our standing is in the new creation. We are linked with One " who is the beginning" of all God's ways in that new sphere in which we are called to " live, and move, and have our being."
And, now, if it be asked, " What are the practical results of all this truth?" the apostle gives the answer; "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." (Col. 3:1-3.) Here, then, is the practical result. We are to " seek," and " set our affection upon things above." How much is involved in the expression, " things above!" It furnishes us with a very simple rule, by which to measure everything that may be presented to us. We have only to ask, " Does this thing range itself under the head of ' things above?" Does it belong to the new creation? If not, I shall not seek or set my affection upon it. The apostle does not say, " Seeing now, that ye are saved, endeavor to make the best of both worlds." Ah! no; Paul had no such idea as this. To him the cross of Christ was the boundary of the old creation, and a risen Christ the beginning of the new.
Thus it should be with each true believer. There is no exception. " Ye are dead." Here is the end of the old creation. " Your life is hid with Christ in God." Here is the beginning of the new. The rule is very simple where the heart is true to Christ; but, where the affection is set on '' things on the earth," a man will reason, and argue, and quote scripture in abundance, in defense of the most worldly practices and covetous designs. The Bible, alas I is often used to defend the practices of old Adam in the old world, and also to justify the Christian in his vain attempts to mend the old nature and the old creation. But, I repeat it, where the eye is single, the rule of " the new creation" is as simple as possible.
But some will say, "Must we not attend to our various callings?" Unquestionably. We have our new creation duties as well as our new creation privileges. The remainder of the Epistle to the Colossians sets forth the relationships and responsibilities connected with our new creation standing. Husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants are all recognized and instructed. We can discharge the functions belonging to these several positions in the fullest harmony with our new standing in a risen Christ. We have ample guidance for every relationship in which, as Christians, we stand; nor should we be found in any position for which the Holy Ghost has not furnished us with instructions as to our conduct. The fact of His not having mentioned this or that position should be quite enough to show us that He never intended us to be found therein.
May the Lord lead us to understand this sublime and practical truth of " the new creation, and give us power, in the Spirit to walk as those who belong to that high and holy sphere of being.
The New Creation: Part 2
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."