“…a new creation. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” Galatians 6:15,16
In the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the believers in Corinth, he wrote concerning Christ’s death, and what it would mean for born-again believers in Christ. He wrote that as a result, “…those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” (2 Cor. 5:14) The motivating factor with regard to the voluntary death of Christ on the cross was His compelling and constraining love. These great and wonderful truths bring the believer to the point of living this experience, Christ being the life, goal, and the very means of doing the will of God, glorifying Him. It is then that the Apostle Paul presents all believers of all time a fundamental truth which became reality for the believers the moment they believed and were born again. He wrote: “Therefore, if anyone is IN CHRIST, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17) Why does he write this, and why is it so very important to grasp?
When Christ finished His work on the cross, it was a perfect accomplishment of God’s pre-ordained means of justifying sinful men by faith. So perfect was Christ’s work, and the testimony of His perfect righteousness in His shed blood, that the sins of all men for all time and eternity were paid for. Though all men would not turn to God, and receive such a gift by faith, many would, and be saved from the wrath to come. Immediately after Jesus bowed His head and gave up His spirit to the Father in death, His work was ratified, confirmed by God to have been accepted before the Father as the sole remedy for sin, and the salvation for men. As a part of this “great salvation” which God would provide through His Son, every believer in Christ, upon receiving the Spirit of God sent by the Son and the Father, to indwell in the heart and soul, would receive the very life of Christ by the Spirit. On the one hand, all that had been of the flesh, unbelief, and sin, in the old life of the believer had been crucified with Christ and had been buried with Him in God’s sight. Also, all sin in the present, and future, in the life of the believer would have been dealt with in the eyes of God, totally by the death of Christ. Only in the matter of communion with God would sin remain a factor in the experience of Christ’s fulness and blessing. But even in this God would provide the perfect remedy by confession and repentance, so that God would faithfully pardon and cleanse from sin, so that fellowship with God could be restored, and continue.
When Jesus was conducting His ministry on earth, preaching the gospel, healing the sick, and delivering many from Satan’s grip upon them by his demons, He made clear that there was a definite and decisive difference between that which was of sinful man, the flesh, and that which was of God by the Spirit. He declared: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life.” (Jn. 6:63) The “old things” which had passed away, according to the Apostle Paul, was all that was of the flesh. As Jesus would put it in His parables, it was the “old garments,” and “old wine skins” of the past, which belonged to all that was associated with sinful flesh. When the new birth came about, all that changed. The believer’s life became Christ, the fulness of God, revealed to men as their all-sufficient Savior and Lord, King and their All. All had now been provided for them IN CHRIST, that they should live by the Spirit, reigning in life by Christ. All things became possible to them, to Christ by His power in them.
Dear Father, Fulfill Thy purposes today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.