Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 5:17; 4:16; Gal. 6:15
Ⅰ
As believers in Christ, we have been made a new creation— 2 Cor. 5:17:
A
The most crucial matter in God's full, all-inclusive salvation is His making us a new creation in Christ—Gal. 6:15.
B
The term new creation is an expression conveying the plain and real fact that we have been saved to be made a new creation—2 Cor. 6:2; 5:17.
C
Like the old creation, the new creation is corporate; in the new creation we all are parts of the new man, the church, composed of the many sons of God—Eph. 2:15; 1:5; Heb. 2:10-12.
D
God's eternal purpose is not just to redeem, to repossess, the fallen old creation but to regenerate man to make him the new creation—John 3:3; 1:12-13; 2 Cor. 5:17.
E
We are a new creation through our organic union with Christ—v. 17:
１
To be in Christ is to be one with Him in life and nature; this is of God through our faith in Christ— 1 Cor. 1:30; Gal. 3:26-28.
２
Apart from this organic union, we remain in the old creation, but by the organic union with the Triune God in Christ, we are in the new creation.
F
The new creation is a person regenerated with the life of God and living in the inner man, not in the outer man— John 3:3, 5-6, 15; 2 Cor. 4:16.
Ⅱ
There is a basic difference between the old creation and the new creation—Gen. 1:1; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; Rev. 21:2:
A
The old creation does not have the divine life and nature, but the new creation has God within it as its life, nature, appearance, and expression.
B
The old creation as an empty vessel has no content of God, but the new creation as a corporate vessel has God as its content—Eph. 1:22-23; 3:19b.
C
The old creation was old because God was not part of it; the new creation is new because God is in it—4:22-24.
D
God's goal is to produce the new creation out of the old creation; the new creation is the old creation transformed by the divine life—2 Cor. 3:18.
E
The new creation—the mingling of God with man— takes place when the Triune God in Christ as the Spirit is wrought into our being; this is the mingling of divinity with humanity—1 Cor. 6:17; Eph. 3:16-17a.
F
The New Jerusalem is new because, as God's new creation, it has God's nature of newness—Rev. 21:2, 5a:
１
Since newness is God, to become new is to become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead by having God wrought into us—Rom. 6:4; 7:6; Eph. 4:23-24.
２
The New Jerusalem will be the ultimate consummation of the realm of newness, which is Christ— 2 Cor. 5:17.
Ⅲ
Christ dealt with the problem of the old creation through His crucifixion, His all-inclusive death on the cross—Luke 23:44-46; Heb. 10:20; Exo. 26:31:
A
The main item terminated by the death of Christ was the old creation.
B
Because Christ died on the cross as the Firstborn of all creation (Col. 1:15), His death terminated the old creation.
C
In the sight of God, the entire old creation was crucif ied with Christ and buried with Him—cf. John 20:5.
Ⅳ
The new creation comes into being by resurrection— 2 Cor. 5:17; 1 Cor. 15:20, 23, 45:
A
In His work in His resurrection, Christ rose up on the f irst day of the week to germinate the new creation— John 20:1:
１
The fact that Christ rose on the f irst day indicates that the universe had a new beginning in Christ's resurrection.
２
Whereas the Lord's death was the termination of the old creation, His resurrection was the germination of the new creation.
３
When the old creation is germinated with the divine life, it becomes the new creation.
B
The germinating element of the new creation is the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit—1 Cor. 15:45b:
１
In His resurrection Christ became the life-giving Spirit to germinate some of those in the old creation to be the new creation—John 20:17.
２
First Corinthians 15:45 implies the old creation with the soul as the center and the new creation with the Spirit as the center.
３
The life-giving Spirit is the center and lifeline of the new creation—v. 45b; 2 Cor. 5:17.
Ⅴ
We are made a new creation by being regenerated— 1 Pet. 1:3; John 3:6:
A
Regeneration causes us to become a new creation, something which has the element of God within it—1:12-13; Ezek. 36:26.
B
Regeneration causes us to have God's life and element, thereby making us a new creation—2 Pet. 1:4.
Ⅵ
In our experience we are in the process of becoming a new creation by being broken and renewed—2 Cor. 5:17; 4:10-12, 16; Eph. 4:23-24:
A
Although our spirit has been regenerated, our soul with its faculties of mind, will, and emotion remains in the old creation and needs to be renewed.
B
To be renewed is to have God's ever-new essence dispensed into us to replace and discharge our old element— 2 Cor. 4:16; Rom. 12:2; Titus 3:5.
C
Through the process of renewing, we are transferred from the realm of the old creation into the realm of the new creation to become the New Jerusalem—Col. 3:10; Rev. 21:2.
Ⅶ
We need to overcome the old creation by living in the ascension of Christ in resurrection—S. S. 2:8-13; 4:6-9; 6:10a:
A
The physical things are part of the old creation; if we desire the physical things of the world, we are living in the old creation.
B
A Christian who lives in the old creation cares for physical things.
C
The old man cares for physical things, but we should be the new man living in ascension as God's new creation in resurrection—Eph. 4:22, 24; 2:4-6.