THE NEW-CREATION CHRISTIAN
Miles J. Stanford
"If any man be in
Christ, he is a new creation; old things are [judicially] passed away; behold, all
things are become new [creation]" (2 Cor. 5:17).
It is essential for the believer to
realize that through his identification with Christ on the Cross (Gal. 2:20), he has been
positionally separated (death means separation) from the first Adam, and made a new
creation in the resurrected and ascended Last Adam, who is now his Christian life (Col.
3:3).
The first Adam was but a figure of
the Last Adam. "Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had
not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of Him
that was to come" (Rom. 5:14).
Writer F.W. Grant
makes
clear the absolute difference between the first and Last Adams:
Many think that Adam in the Garden was
actually God's first thought, instead of being merely a first step towards the
accomplishment of what was really His first and eternal thought.
Thus to them "the times of the
restoration of all things" becomes necessary, a getting back to a supposed
Adamic state. And in this way both the state of Adam in the Garden is unscripturally
exalted, and the work of Christ and its consequences really, though unintentionally,
denigrated (Leaves, p. 268).
The Lord Jesus Christ's
work is
different in character and results, Godward, from anything that could be of Adam. It
was one such as the "Only Begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father"
alone could accomplish. Peerless in His person and work, the position which He has
taken as the result of it with the Father is one suited not to the first man,
"of
the earth, earthy," "but of the Second Man, the Lord from heaven."
Taking His seat at the right hand of the
Father, He is become Head of a "new creation," not Restorer of
the "old." He is not the first Adam set up again,
but
the "Last Adam," and He is "the beginning of the creation of
God." All things are restored, but not to the primitive condition before
the fall. They are all "made new." The old condition
of things is positionally done away (2 Cor. 5:17) (pp. 214,215).
THE OLD CREATION --
The first (now
old) creation was made by the Lord Jesus, with the first Adam as its head.
"For by Him were all things
created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be
thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers--all things were created by Him"
(Col. 1:16).
When Adam sinned the entire
race died in him, as did all creation. "As in Adam all die" (1 Cor.
15:22). The resultant judgment and condemnation were judicially accomplished on the
Cross in the death of Christ unto sin.
"God
sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the
flesh" (Rom. 8:3).
"The day of the Lord will come as
a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the
elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are in it, shall
be burned up ....
"Nevertheless we, according to
His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness"
(2 Peter 3:10,13).
Calvary judicially ended Adam and all of
his creation.
THE NEW CREATION --
When
the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father on
high, there was a completely new beginning.
"These things saith the Amen, the
faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God" (Rev. 3:14).
"Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again
unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3).
ALL NEW IN CHRIST JESUS --
All now is
created anew in Christ Jesus, by the Father.
"Therefore, if any man be in
Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away, behold, all things are become
new" (2 Cor. 5:17).
"For in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation" (Gal.
6:15).
WILLIAM KELLY
sets forth the total newness of all in Christ Jesus:
"Christ is the Head of the
Church" (Eph. 5:23). The Lord Jesus is Head of the Body--such is His
relationship to the Church. And how is He Head of the Body? Not because He is
the first-born of all creation simply; nay, not because He is creator of all.
Neither His headship of all creation as the Heir of all things, nor His creatorial rights,
would in themselves give a sufficient title to be the Head of the Body.
"FROM THE
DEAD" -- The distinctive character is that He is
"the beginning,
the first-born from the dead"--not merely the first-born of, but the firstborn
out
of. He is the first-born from among the dead, as well as the Head and
first-born Heir of all subsisting creation. Thus it is that He rises into a
new
creation, leaving behind that which had fallen under vanity or death through its
sinning chief, the first Adam.
"UNTO THE
FATHER" -- And now He is risen from the dead and ascended to the Father, the
beginning of a new order of existence altogether. As He is the Head, so the
Church is His Body--founded, indeed, on the Lord Jesus, but on Him dead and risen.
As
such--not born merely, but risen again from the dead--He is the beginning.
All question, therefore, of what existed before His death, resurrection and ascension is
at once excluded. He who believes this would understand that it was still an
unrevealed secret during Old Testament (OT) times.
The OT dealings of God were
not only not on the principle of a body on earth, united to a glorified Head, once dead
and risen, but incompatible with such a state of things. Thus the believer knows and
is sure by divine teaching that the Lord Jesus was not merely the highest of that creation
which has been already, but the beginning of a new thing and its Head. This
He was pleased to begin in resurrection from the dead and ascension to the Father.
It was in no wise the old
thing, elevated by the glory of Him who had deigned to descend into it, but a
totally
new state of things, of which the risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ is both the
Head and the Beginning. As it is said, "Who is the beginning, the
first-born from the dead; that in all things He might have the pre-eminence."
"And ye are complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and power"
(Col. 1:18; 2:10) (Lectures--NT, Vol. II, p. 291).
In that there is such a sad lack of
knowledge today of the believer's new-creation position in Christ, we include several
pages on the subject from The Bible Treasury (June 1887, Vol. 12, pp. 88-91).
The material was written by a Plymouth Brethren writer simply identified by the initial R.
THE
BEGINNING OF THE CREATION OF GOD
Few findings are more calculated to give
stability and comfort to the heart of a saint in passing through this world than the
conviction that, according to the counsels of the Father, he has been introduced in a
divinely effective way into an entirely new order of things, and that he is
eternally established therein upon immutable scriptural guarantees.
So wonderful and so impressive
is this discovery of the "new creation," that most of those who have any
adequate apprehension of it can probably remember what a moment it was to them, when, in
all blessedness, it broke upon their souls. It opened up a lovely and an
incomparable scene, revealing at the same time their own integral part in it, in the
length of it and the breadth of it, without restriction and without reserve.
If Laodicea set forth a
spurious and apostatizing form of Christianity, denying the power of godliness, such as in
its incipient state at least is disclosing itself everywhere around us, the title which
our sovereign Lord takes at such a moment is peculiarly refreshing to every awakened
heart. It indicates to us a new glory inalienably reserved to Him, and distinctly
suggests to our souls that sinless, cloudless, domain into which He has brought us even
now. (Eph. 2:6).
How many dear children of
God there are who have never known deliverance from the power of the old man, the law, the
world, and the devil, simply because they have never learned the truth of the new
creation! They have known their deliverance as sinners from their sins, from guilt
and judgment, but they know not the further deliverance which grace effects for them as
believers.
FIRST-ADAM DEATH
Yet it is not possible
that I can say with truth and candor, I know that I am part, a veritable part, of the new
creation, until I am divinely assured that for faith every link has been broken that
connected me judicially and morally with the old Adam, and the effete [barren]
creation of which he was constituted the responsible head.
The only innocent man of
the old creation, set in a paradise of earthly blessing, sinned away his innocence and his
Eden directly the hot breath of the Enemy touched his cheek. Thus he sank into a
debased and fallen being, under the sentence of death, with its premonitions too, in every
sorrow and suffering which befell him in the cursed scene he went forth to occupy, under
the pressure of sin and its penalties. Such was the first man in the first creation
in the results of his responsibility.
LAST-ADAM
LIFE
Into that same fallen creation, when
morally it had ripened to the utmost, "in the consummation of the ages"
(Heb. 9:26), came the Second Man, the Last Adam, God's new-creation Man. He was not
set in paradise, but in the blighted scene that the first of the race had turned that
paradise into; and the only perfect Man that ever trod the earth has died out of it!
What a character do these two Adams--the
first and the Last--impart to the old creation! The first man of the earth, created
in innocence, and set in Eden--yea, in a garden which the Lord God had planted for him-yet
becoming disobedient and self-willed, brought upon himself the catastrophe of a moral and
physical ruin involving all his race.
The Second Man, from heaven--the
untainted, the holy, and the true-in the same creation in grace, but being hated and
rejected, died out of it, thus abrogating, and morally closing to faith, that creation
forever, for all who have died to it with and in Him!
Rising, then, from among the dead by the
glory of the Father, ascending in the power of a new and endless life, He is
"the
beginning of the new creation of God"; "the beginning"
of that which will have no ending, the Head of that unchangeable order of things which
grace loves to unfold to faith, and that will find its illumination and display in the
Glory forever!
OUR
ALL-NEW POSITION
Of the old creation we read,
"All
things were made by Him"; and again "All things were created
by
Him and for Him." Not so the new creation, for the formula of that
is "in Him." It is "the creation of God" with
Christ its Head, as the former was by Christ, with Adam its head.
Accordingly, in Ephesians--the birthbook,
or book of the generations of the new creation--we are said to be God's "workmanship,
having been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God hath before prepared that we
should walk in them." So that this new creation, and the works morally
suited in character to it, are as truly as the old creation divinely formed and prepared.
And, what is of deepest moment, they are
altogether and exclusively in Christ in every respect. Thus we are chosen in
Him, have redemption in Him, are made nigh, sealed, blessed, accepted, and seated in the
heavenlies in Him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance (Eph. 1). In the
next Epistle we read, "And have put on the new man, that is renewed in knowledge
after the image of Him that created him; where there is neither Greek nor Jew,
circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all,
and in all" (Col. 3).
Clearly we see here the righteous title of
Christ as sovereign Head of the new creation, and the same Scriptures constitute our
title-deed to this inheritance in Him, in whom all its moral characteristics find full and
blessed display.
Now in Romans 6: 11 we get
the first mention of this new ground: "So reckon ye also yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Jesus Christ." Also in
verse 23, "The wages of sin is death"--that is the old creation--"but
the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord"--that is the new
creation.
For, be it observed, it is not only
eternal life, but "in Christ Jesus our Lord," which establishes
it as this new, positive order of blessing which is ours in union with Him, as
"the
beginning of the creation of God," and which is perfectly exemplified only in
the moral beauty of His own character.
PRESENT
PORTION
For, note, it is not that this
new
creation is a matter of hope, or a matter of attainment, but there it is, a positive
present portion. We are actually upon the virgin soil, as it were, of a new
creation--"in Christ, a new creation"; the words are forcible in their
terseness and sublime in their simplicity!
"The old things have
[positionally] passed away"; this is indispensable, for it is not possible that
we should have at the same time a standing in Adam to answer for ourselves, and a standing
in Christ who has answered for us. It is the total relegation, morally, for faith,
of the former and abrogated creation, now no longer acknowledged, and carrying with it a
final repudiation of the flesh and its activities, so that it has no longer a recognized
existence, and even "Christ after the flesh" is not known.
With what vigor and pungency does Paul
write to the Galatians: "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. For in
Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new
creation" (Gal. 6:14,15). In what a superb manner are the world, and the
flesh, and its righteousness brushed out of the way, that the new creation may
stand prominently forth in a supremely salient style!
If we now turn to John 20, we see Him who
is also "the Amen, the faithful and true witness," emphatically as
"the
beginning of the creation of God." "Touch Me not," He
says to the weeping Magdalene; the tears and the touch alike belong to the old creation,
and have no place now.
He knows no man after the
flesh; His mother and his natural brethren disappear from the scene. To all this He
has died, and in His death parted company with all its associations--the favored home at
Bethany even He visits no more! And everything was over, too, for His disciples at
the moment; houseless, homeless, and orphans indeed!
LIFE OUT OF DEATH
But hark, "Go tell My brethren, I
ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God"!
Magnificent words of faith--the new-born message of a risen and ascended Lord and
Saviour! The corn of wheat which had died is bursting forth its prolific fruit, and
this resurrection word on the first day of the week is as the shout of a conqueror, a
clarion note of victory, as the Lord of glory enters triumphantly upon the new ground He
has won, and into which it is His prerogative, as also His peculiar joy, to conduct His
own along with Himself.
How far have we accounted, reckoned, this
portion to be ours? How far have we realized that we are identified with Him who is
"the
beginning of the [new] creation of God"? That He has in that character
formed new and abiding relationships into which He has introduced us? That He has,
in the tender love of His heart, greeted us with "Peace" as we crossed the
threshold of this new heavenly creation?
And that He Himself has given us of His
ascended life, in the power of the Holy Spirit, that we might go forth in all the
wonderful elevation of spirit and tender grace of heart that belongs to His own character,
"...always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life
also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body" (2 Cor. 4:10)?
May He deepen in our souls the recognition of all that
necessarily follows from the fact, that in these days of defection and declension, we,
through grace, have been eternally positioned in the same life, the same position, the
same character of blessing, with Him who, as first-born from among the dead, is "the
beginning of the [new] creation of God"?
ALL
SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS
Finally, an unknown (to
me) author shares a series of spiritual blessings that are ours as new creations in Christ
Jesus:
- From the Word of God we have a life that
cannot be forfeited. We have been given eternal life in Christ.
- From this same Word of God we declare that we have a
relationship
that can never be abrogated. We who were the sons of wrath have been declared to be
sons of God.
- We have a righteousness that can never be
tarnished.
- We have an acceptance that can never be
questioned. No angel or demon--not Satan himself--can stand between us and the
accomplishment of the promise.
- We have been judged in a judgment that can
never be repeated. He who calls the future as the past is the One who cried out,
"It is finished!"
- We have a title that can never be clouded.
- We have a position that can never be
invalidated. Our Father has seated us in Christ in the Heavenlies.
In addition to this we have:
- A standing that can never be disputed.
No one can ever bar us from our right to rest in His presence.
- We have a justification that can never be
reversed. We have been declared just, and there is no court to overrule our God.
- We have a seal that can never be violated.
Our Father has positioned us in His Beloved Son and put upon us the seal of the
Holy Spirit.
- We have an inheritance, that can never be
alienated. The Lord who died, to give us the promises, rose from the dead to be the
executor of His own estate.
- We have a wealth that can never be
depleted. Our Father has with His Son freely given us all things.
- We have a resource that can never be
diminished. God's fountain will flow to us forever.
- We have a bank that can never be closed.
Our Father is able to keep that which we have committed unto Him.
Here we have a third set of seven treasures freely
provided for us by our Father:
- We have a possession that can never be
measured. The eternal Heavens are ours and Eternity also.
- We have a portion that can never be
denied. Our Father who gave us His Son gives us freely all things in Him.
- We have a peace that can never be
destroyed. There is no foe who can ever break through the hedge that He has placed
around us.
- We have a love that can never be abated.
This is true because His name is Love, and the fruit of His Spirit is Love.
- We have a joy that can never be
surpassed--another fruit of His Spirit.
- We have a grace that can never be
arrested. Nothing can stop the flow of that which is our Father's very nature.
- We have a strength that can never be
weakened. For it is His strength that is made perfect in our weakness.
There is still a fourth set of seven wonders that are ours
in Christ:
- We have a power that can never be
exhausted.
- We have a salvation that can never be
annulled.
- We have a forgiveness that can never be
rescinded.
- We have a deliverance that can never be
thwarted.
- We have a preservation that can never be
hindered.
- We have an assurance that can never be
dishonored.
- We have a new nature that can never be
changed.
There is yet a fifth set of seven prerogatives that are
ours in Christ:
- We have a fruit, the fruit of the Spirit,
that can never be destroyed.
- We have a hunger that can never be
unsatisfied.
- We have an approach, an access, that can
never be blocked.
- We have a blessing that can never be
interrupted.
- We have an attraction--Christ--that can
never be surpassed.
- We have a food that can never be
adulterated.
- We have a comfort that can never be
absent.
We also have some Spirit-dependent responsibilities:
- We have a persecution that cannot be
evaded.
- We have a suffering that can never be
omitted.
- We have a warfare that can never be
shunned.
- We have a ministry that can never be
shifted.
- We have a message that can never be
repressed.
- We have a walk that can never be
neglected.
- We have a service that can never be
unrewarded.
But if we have those seven obligations
that are put upon us by the Word of God, we have a seventh seven of triumphs:
- We have a Bible that can never be
destroyed.
- We have an Intercessor who can never be
disqualified.
- We have a Victor who can never be
vanquished.
- We have a resurrection and
ascension
that can never be prevented.
- We have a destiny that can never be
diverted.
- We have a hope that can never be
disappointed.
- We have a glory that can never be dimmed.
Therefore we, as new creations in
Christ, have the right to turn away from all the old-creation criteria. When we
put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we were re-created in Him, and His "all
things" are ours, and we are Christ's, and Christ is God's (1 Cor. 3:22,23).
It is as essential, if not more so,
to keep the two Adams apart as it is Israel and the Church!
"Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus, our Lord. According as His
divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through
the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue" (2 Peter 1:2,3).
WHICH MAN?
The Word of God
presents the illustrations of circumcision and baptism
to depict how we are cut off and removed from Adam, in order to be legitimately and
spiritually born into living union with the Lord Jesus Christ risen from among the dead.
"Ye are complete in Him, who is
Head of all principality and power; in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision
made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ (on
the Cross); buried with Him in baptism, in which also ye are risen with Him ... and you,
being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He made alive together
with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses" (Col. 2:10-13).
Nor did our Father stop at resurrection,
but went right on to position us in the heavenlies in the ascended Lord Jesus.
"And
hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus." "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (Eph. 2:6;
1:3).
It is our privilege and responsibility to
rest in Him where He is, because that is where we are positionally. Abide above!
At the same time He abides in us down here, by the Spirit. "Abide in me,
and I in you." "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (John 15:4; Col.
1:27). Reciprocal union, the ultimate in oneness! And it is the ministry
of the indwelling Spirit of Christ to make these priceless positional possessions
progressively experiential in our present pilgrimage.
So far so good. We are no longer in
the fleshly Adam, but in spiritual life-union with the risen and ascended Last Adam.
"Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit" (Rom. 8:9).
Yet for all this, there still seems to be something radically
wrong--"something rotten in Denmark." Although we are not in the old Adam,
that old man remains in us. Judicially condemned and destroyed in the death of the Cross,
yet God has chosen to have the old man experientially abide in our mortal body. Why
should such a thing be?
Our Father leaves the Adamic life and
nature within for the same reason that He positioned us in Adam in the first place.
Then, it was in order that we might have a personal and responsible part in our
salvation, enabled by His grace to choose the Saviour and thereby pass from death unto
life eternal.
Now, the indwelling Adamic life plays an
important role concerning our spiritual growth. Satan's worst contributes to God's
best. The personal needs generated by the indwelling sinful life are designed by the
Father to turn us from self-centeredness to Christ-centeredness.
Sin within also provides us with a choice:
Which life and nature will we respond to and live by? Romans 7 defeat will
also teach us the necessity of depending upon the Spirit of Christ. It is He alone
who can free us from the domination of the old man and, in turn, develop in us the growth
of the spotless new man.
But the real issue is not moral goodness
or evil, spiritual health or sickness. The scriptural consideration concerning the
Christian life is:
Which man? God can
accept nothing that emanates from the old man, no matter how good it may seem to be.
John Darby made it all too plain:
"What would you do if you wanted to
make something of a crab tree? Not nurture, and prune, and dig about, and feed it.
That God has done with His fig tree (Israel). If you know anything at all
about it, you will cut it down and graft it. Until you find out that the old man is
utterly bad, and that there is no mending it, you will not give it up. If you
cultivate the old crab tree you will have fair blossoms but only bigger and more sour crab
apples."
On the other hand, God fully accepts
everything that comes from the righteous source, His Son and our Life. The old man
brings forth nothing acceptable; the new man brings forth nothing unacceptable.
Therefore the issue of spiritual growth consists not in what is being changed, but
who
is being depended upon. Just who is the source of our daily life, growth, and
service?
Although the Lord Jesus is the sole source
of our Christian life and service, there is a very real and powerful antagonist within.
"For to me to live is Christ." "But I see another law in my
members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of
sin" (Phil. 1:21; Rom. 7:23). Civil war!
When we discover the strength and
sinfulness of the old man and try to subdue and conquer him, we soon find ourselves to be
a "wretched man" in the defeat of Romans 7. When we finally
realize through bitter experience and utter failure that we can neither change nor oust
our malevolent old man, the faithful Spirit refers us to the completed work of the Cross.
"Ye have put off the old
man" (Col. 3:9). But if he has been put off, why does he continue to cover
me with shame? That is the question. The answer is that he was put off
judicially
at the Cross in our death unto sin and Adam. How then can we experience the reality
of a positional work that was accomplished nearly twenty centuries ago?
Think for a moment. Were not your
personal sins judicially dealt with back there at Calvary, and do you not experientially
enjoy the saving results of that finished work today? Of course you do!
Similarly, you are now to apply your faith concerning the principle of sin
indwelling the Adamic life. We know that our old man was condemned at the Cross, and
there we died unto--out of the realm of--his right to reign over us.
"Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin" (Rom. 6: 11).
The Comforter's present ministry to us is
to minister the things of the Lord Jesus (John 16:13-15). He initiates nothing, but
receives and administers from the Person and finished work of Christ. As we count
upon that work of the Cross, He applies that crucifixion experientially to the old man
within. "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth
alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12: 24). Life
out of .death! "For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus'
sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal body" (2 Cor.
4: 10).
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