Do You Act From the Old Creation or New Creation?
If you internalize what the Word of God says of the old and new creation, it stands to open your eyes to much that has confounded people about the troubles we see in life and the world of Christianity.
It’s little secret that those who name Christ are vastly divided into sects and camps with widely varying pictures of what the faith ought to look like, who God is, what He wants of us, and what we may hope for from Him.
From the beginning of the church in the first century, the Bible records the early Christians knew Christ Jesus was “Immanuel” or God with us.
Matt 1:23 – “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”
Jesus said He would give His true followers His Spirit so they could continue to follow Him in his physical absence (Jn 16:5-16). After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the church at Pentecost (Acts 2), this could just as well be translated God in us.
Christ in you is the “hope of glory,” says Colossians 1:27, or more plainly, He is our entire hope, on whom we are to be solely dependent. He is the voice of God, the peace of God, the confirmation of our way, and much more. He imparts His will directly to those who are attuned to His leading, but outside of that “narrow way” where Jesus is truly Lord of one’s life, all bets are off as to what humans come up with in the name of God.
The Bible warned from the beginning that even regenerated Christians acting from their “old creation” selves may not discern the Master’s voice, and accept substitutes.
2 Cor 11 – Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly—and indeed you do bear with me. 2 For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!
Many who name Christ today do indeed “put up with it!” They advocate a Jesus which does not look like the Jesus claimed by someone else, and same is true of their “gospel,” and “Spirit” who says thus and so, but what is the test for authenticity? What we bear witness to ought to align in spirit and kind with the original spirit of the truth and mission of God outlined in His Word.
“But wisdom is justified by all her children,” said Jesus in Lk 7:35 indicating the works of God will bear results that glorify Him. And, “every tree is known by its own fruit,” the Lord said in Lk. 6:44 indicating something similar.
In other words, the proof is in the results. God wants nothing less than our undivided attention and our prime motives to be for His will and kingdom. His aim is to restore the broken relationship between Himself and estranged humans as represented by His blood-bought sheep. This is holiness to the Lord. And, as His own special people, our lives are to be “to the praise of His glory” and as a witness to all that God lives and Jesus Christ was sent by God! (John 17:20-23)
Many will say they know this, but a Christian walk that does not match its talk is proof in itself that God has not been given full control, because all God does is beautiful, nor for that matter does He contradict Himself.
So what about confusion and mutually contradictory teachings by people striving over words all in the name of God? What about rampant sins? What about the weakness of the church’s testimony and influence, and wickedness taking over in so many quarters?
Was all this God’s will or did mankind get his fingers in the cookie dough of what was supposed to be a new creation, and pure; a work of the living God?
Notwithstanding what people may subjectively think and feel, the New Testament says that God is dealing with a “new creation,” and Christians are “new creatures.”
2 Cor 5:16,17 – Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
At issue is do those who name Christ fully know this in their spirits, and can they conduct themselves “in the spirit” with Christ as the head?
Col 1:18 – And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
Does your life match up with this divine dictate? Is the real Jesus Christ the absolute center, and are you absolutely surrendered, and has His Holy Spirit in you been given full control? Thank God we even have the privilege to enter into this reality!
The Word of God says on the cross of Calvary Jesus Christ took back dominion over the system known as the world, alternately called Satan’s kingdom, as mankind had forfeited its authority to that wicked spirit and his fallen angels, but Jesus is truly now Lord of all.
Jn 14:6 – Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
The Word says Jesus Christ won back the right on behalf of man to be Lord of all, and call to Himself His sheep who believe and trust and obey by defeating Satan and his hosts of demon spirits under his authority.
Col. 2:15 – “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”
Old Creation/New Creation
Put in the most plain terms possible, there is no life outside of Christ. The problem with many a Christian is they identify with, and think from, and act from the “old man,” or their natural fleshly selves apart from Christ.
This is more obvious when a Christian clearly sins, but where it so often goes by undetected is when the religious flesh – the old creature supposing to serve God – acts outside of the Lord. This however is entirely possible, and happens all the time.
The scriptures warn explicitly that it is a danger to avoid that humans have a dual nature – both old man, and new man, or old creation/new creation – co-existing in themselves and vying within our very beings for the preeminence.
1 Cor 3 – And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; 3 for you are still carnal.
The Corinthians in chapter 1 had otherwise been commended as those “sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.” Further, said the Apostle Paul, they were “enriched in everything by Him [Christ] in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor 1:2-7). They still were being rebuked as babes and carnal showing the capacity of humans to mix flesh with spirit!
Gal 6:7,8 – Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
Are you born again? Do you see the significance of this? Have you the witness of the Holy Spirit in you, and have you not quenched Him as so many have by listening first to their own innate thoughts, or parroting the theology of their favorite preacher knowing God in their head, not so much their heart? Can you as a new creature say “amen” to the truth when you hear it?
John 3:3-8 – Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Before coming to the Cross and being given a new spirit, humans do not have the indwelling Spirit of God. They are as dead and utterly dominated by the paradigm of wicked spirits who rule invisibly in the world.
Eph 2:1-3 – And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
Those who name the name of Christ Jesus are called to utterly abandon any allegiance or tie with that old paradigm! It is God who declares He has given them the power to do so.
John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name …
The root issue behind so many issues that destroy peace and hope for unity and God’s full will to be done is whether or not Christians fully give themselves to Him, and whether their spirits are truly made alive, and empowered by the Spirit of Jesus – the Holy Spirit.
Mark our words: It is THE root common denominator for why Christians have divided into so many sects, or live lives beneath who God would call them to be, all while claiming their reading of the scriptures or even the witness of God in them backs them in their way.
Gal 5:20 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,
Note “heresies” – false teachings – are a product not of God, but the flesh. As noted, the Word has many terms for this including: the “carnal” man, the “old man,” and the “natural man.”
In a nutshell: Humans are born independently minded, and as sinners due to the Fall, they have the capability to act and think apart from God.
John 6:63 – It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. …
Amazingly enough, our fallen selves may yet think it is they who are serving God, and humans not knowing anything else, may make “flesh their strength.”
Jeremiah 17:5-8
5 Thus says the Lord:“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
And makes flesh his strength,
Whose heart departs from the Lord.
6 For he shall be like a shrub in the desert,
And shall not see when good comes,
But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,
In a salt land which is not inhabited.
7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
8 For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.
Such a paradigm of relying on the natural self, not looking to the life and Spirit of God in them, can go by undetected, and this is why one must always ask what fruits are being produced.
Making flesh one’s strength, and not abiding in Christ in spirit and in truth, is a working definition of Christ NOT having the preeminence as Colossians 1:18 calls for.
Col 1:18 – And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
The Church is called the “body of Christ,” and like disembodied body parts, individual fleshly members may fail to take their directions from God’s Spirit within them, and instead suppose their innate sensibilities, and thoughts and feelings are the way.
Again: without fail this accounts for every single error any Christian ever perpetrated in the name of Christ.
Of course evil spirits may also be complicit in this vile act of man supposing he knows the way, without letting the true Spirit of God lead and guide him.
In the end however, we will all answer to God at the judgement seat of Christ.
The wise will want to seek God now in prayer to avoid acting according to the natural self, repent of carnal ways, and submit to Christ in them so as to act from the new creature in Christ.
New Creature
God is a gentleman and does not force anyone to accept Him, nor does He run roughshod over us in our psyche (our soul) and force us to continue following Him, and pursue His goal of our becoming Christlike (Rom 8:29).
He does command us to voluntarily follow Him however, and this is a great privilege. God is Father, and Father knows what is best for His little children. He also commands us to love Him, but all this is to accomplish a beautiful paradigm called life in the Kingdom of God.
So while one may be born of the spirit, he or she must let God teach them to guard against a “walk” (conducting one’s self) by the root power and motive force of the natural self.
The Word actually declares the old man as out of the picture to those baptized into Christ.
Rom 6 – What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
But this is only activated by real faith! Have your eyes been opened so that you may believe and walk on the ground of Christ’s resurrection as the new person made alive in righteousness and true holiness? (Eph 4:24)
SEE ALSO: You must die to self in order to live in Christ!
Part and portion of this paradigm is that we’re commanded to carry our cross meaning we die to putting self will above God’s will, and all our priorities in life are secondary to God’s will to build His Kingdom, as we look to Jesus, and let Him shine His light on us.
Many have heard things like this, but remember the proof is in the results. If an almighty God is in back of us, and we yet live failing, lukewarm, sinful, or confused lives, can we say Christ is really in full control?
SEE ALSO: How Christians May Pray Deeper
This is not to say God is not with one in such a state at all, and thank God Christians are under grace. Grace is the space God gives us without fear to seek holiness. God loves us greatly, and as one who loves us, and hates sin, He wants us to live fruitful abundant lives, but paradoxically, we must die in order to live.
Theologies that redefine what these things mean are proven false by the fruits they produce (or fail to produce).
The good news is God is ever ready to receive you and heal you if you turn to Him with your whole heart.
He is always ready, and all powerful. The question is what do you really want?
Further reading (with audio): Consecration and prayer – Sunday April 30, 2017
