The New Creation - 2 Corinthians 5: 17

The New Creation


2 Corinthians 5: 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

To be in Christ is to be vitally function member of His body, for the church is the body of Christ and we are members in particular. The body being the general description of the church and each believer being a particular member. God is using our natural body to help us understand His spiritual body the church. Every hair on our body is a member of the body and has a specific purpose. The English word church comes from the Greek word ekklesia ( ek-klay-see'-ah ) and means a calling out, i.e. (concretely) a popular meeting, especially a religious congregation -assembly, church. One dictionary says it means a people called out, gathered together to discuss the affairs of state.

No one really joins the church except they are born again of the Holy Spirit and this incorporates them into the body of Christ, making them a particular part with some degree of function. 1 Corinthians 12: 12-18 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.

Romans 8: ' But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his '. When we are born again we are in the spirit and Christ is in us not with us, He is with humanity to affect them with His great love to win them to be saved, after we are saved He is in us.

The new creation is the one born of the Spirit of God and old things have passed away and all, not some but all things have become new. Whenever you receive something new, if you have an existing one it immediately becomes old by the introduction of the new one. As believers in Christ the natural life has now become old and dead, that's why it is written that we are buried with Him in baptism. Romans 6: 3-8 ' Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him '. This is the new creation.

Hebrews 8: 13 ' In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away '. The law and it's ordinances is now old because all it typified, figured, and represented has been fulfilled by Jesus Christ who has established a new covenant. The Law has not been destroyed as some think, it is now written in our minds and in our hearts by the Spirit of God, in our minds to create a new understanding and in our hearts to create a new will. The natural old law/covenant said what to do and not to do, but the new Law/covenant of grace says what to think and what not to think, this is more excellent. The old law brought a remembrance of sin, Hebrews 10: 3 ' But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year ': The new one removes sin consciousness by the Holy Spirit living in our hearts convicting us of wrong doing. Hebrews 8: 10 ' For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more '.

We have to be careful that we do not avoid the responsibility of being faithful to Christ by deliberately misinterpreting the passing away of the old covenant. Bear in mind the old law was a representation of spiritual things to come, what has passed away is not the heavenly substance but the representative lifeless rituals. Those who struggle with the old law and it's rules and regulations have not allowed old things to pass away and all things to become new.

Isaiah 43: 18-19 ' Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert '. Here we find a great mystery of how the old creation passes away and the key is found in the wilderness. Throughout the scriptures there is mention of the wilderness. The secret is that the wilderness represents a place or state in which the believer goes thru a devastation which removes the old mentality and concepts of life and the world of the natural man, this is because the mind of Christ is being imparted so that the believer may have God's view of everything. Many , sad to say, rebel and resist this regenerative process and never grow spiritually. They belong to the 30 or 60 fold dimension of the Kingdom of God. Those who belong to the 100 fold realm stay in the potter's Hand and are made properly and orderly. When God brought the Israelites out of Egypt He brought them into the wilderness to get the bondage mentality out of them. You know what they did to Him for His love.

The process of regeneration is the removal of our old life and the impartation of the Life of Jesus Christ . The creation account in Genesis has figured in it the new creation of the church. We the new believers come to Jesus they are not as yet formed, but are without form and void because they are new. The Lord then forms us and make us to become functioning members of His church, not spectators or an audience waiting to be entertained. The church is not a social gathering, it's a fellowship. We are brethren .

There are three stages in being made a fully functioning member of the church. Three is the number of Divine completion, God is not finished until He completes His work in three stages. We have to be careful with listening to teachings that make us the centre of the Gospel and not Jesus Christ, when we are God centred we are heaven bound, when we are self centred we are earth bound and the cares of this life move in and make us unfruitful in the things of God. Men want to make the Gospel more attractive than it is and promise believers things that God Himself do not promise. God is the God of order.

Isaiah 43: 7 ' Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him '. Here are the three stages of spiritual development for the making of the people of God. Here again in Isaiah 45: 18 ' For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else '.

In Ephesians 3: 7 ' Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power '. Paul the Apostle was made a minister, true ministers are made by the Hand of the Lord. Jesus said to the disciples come and follow Him and He will make them fishers of men. There is a making beloved before we can be of eternal value to the Lord.

Here now is a making that no human can or will ever be able to know and understand fully. Jesus Christ was made like unto us, what a grief and devastation this caused him no one will ever know, He faced that all alone there was none with Him. He had to do it to deliver us. Hebrews 2: 14 - 17 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

Jesus Christ was born of a virgin and did not have any hereditary evil internally, nor had He any actual evil; but He had only hereditary evil externally, or from the virgin, His mother; while an ordinary man has evil by heredity from both his parents, and actual evil besides. This is why no one can ever know what it took the Lord to be made like unto us, to be tempted like us and overcome all the evils that plague us. He had to allow Himself to feel the delight that we would feel when we delight in evil, and yet not entertain that delight but conquer and destroy it.

2 Corinthians 5: 21 ' For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him '. Who can grasp the magnitude of the process that Jesus Christ went through in being made like us sinners. What grace and love God has bestowed upon us beloved that we should be called the sons of God. 2 John 3: " Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure ".

God bless you.

In Christ,

Everflowinglife.