Light Brings Salt
Volume 3, Issue 12 March 20, 2005
Dedicated to the Systematic Exposition of the Word of God
The New-Creation Christian
by Miles 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.
It is essential for the
believer to realize that through his identification with Christ on the Cross
(Gal.
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.
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
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.
"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
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
"For in
Christ Jesus neither
circumcision availeth anything,
nor uncircumcision, but a new creation" (Gal.
WILLIAM KELLY sets forth the total
newness of all in Christ Jesus:
"Christ is the Head
of the Church" (Eph.
"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 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;
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
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 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
LAST-ADAM LIFE -- Into that same fallen creation, when morally it
had ripened to the utmost, "in the consummation of the ages" (Heb.
What a character do these two
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.
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
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"!
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
"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).
[May '96.]