A New Creation A New Beginning
This post will discuss a New Creation as I understand it revealed from Genesis, Christ’s first coming and finished work, and the new birth. Hopefully this post will be clear, accurate, and brief (CAB).
Genesis 1:26 God said, Let Us [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] make mankind in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the [tame] beasts, and over all of the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth.
Genesis 1:31 And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good (suitable, pleasant) and He approved it completely. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
God had created man in His image and gave him his responsibility. When the days of creation were finished God made an observation about it (Genesis 1:31). He said, approvingly, His creation was ‘very good’. Only God is good! (Matt 19:17; Lk 19:19) I believe God saw Himself in His work. Let’s add a detail to God’s creation of man.
Genesis 2:7 Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being. Man was now alive with a spirit and the life of God in him. God was living His life through Adam. Adam was spiritually alive! Now we see God living in His creature (creation, created being). In this we also see God’s intent in the beginning. God lived in Adam and Eve. God lived His life in and through Adam (He clothed His invisible self with Adam’s humanity). It is in this way God walked and talked with Adam. In the Garden God was not outside of Adam but indwelt Adam. Adam was perfect and his soul reflected God. It was through Adam God named all the animals. It was through this process that no suitable mate was found, by God, for Adam. This was the first Adam. Ther was a problem in Eden.
Adam and Eve sinned. Because of this sin Adam died spiritually. Why? Indirectly sin was the cause BUT Adam died when God’s life and the spirit left Adam. In Genesis 3:3 we see God’s instruction and warning to Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; If Adam did eat he would die. God left Adam and as warned, Adam died. He was no longer in God’s image; Adam was corrupted and a sinner. He was forsaken by God and put out of the Garden. Please note that many teach we are made in the image of God and the reference quoted is Genesis 1:26. Adam fall changed the original created image and likeness – when he sinned and became fallen man.
All mankind now would no longer be born in the image of the likeness of God. All mankind would be born in the image of fallen Adam; spiritually dead and with an identity of a sinner. This would be a problem for man. This is how, through Adam, all men sinned (died;man needed life! Life is what was lost in the fall) (Romans 5:12).
Man had a problem but our God did not! God had a plan before the foundation of the world – the solution to man’s dilemma was in place, it was Jesus Christ. It was God’s plan that all men and women, who may be saved, would be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (the last Adam, a life giving source 1 Cor. 15:45). We will see the same picture of a man, but this time, born in the image of God. God again would show us His original purpose for the creation of man.
We see this in the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Everyone is familiar with the ‘Christmas’ story, the birth of Jesus Christ, so we will not go into it. I want to draw your attention to Matthew 1:23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” As we believe and understand Jesus was 100% God and 100% man (His man (physical body like we have was referred to in scripture as ‘the Son of Man). Jesus was like us with very distinct difference; He was without sin and His flesh nature was not fallen, He was perfect as Adam had been before the fall. This is why scripture (Romans 5:12) imparts the title of His physical being as the last Adam). Jesus cane down out of heaven and through the virgin birth clothed Him-self (put on, stepped into humanity). It is exactly the same picture as was Adam was in the creation story (slightly different because He was born in the image not created) The result of this sinless birth Jesus is referred to as ‘only begotten’ (John 1:14, 18, 3:16, 18, 1 John 4:9). He was also the ’first born among many brethren’. (Romans 8:29). Who are these brethren? All of us who are saved and perfect in His sight! God the Father was walking and talking through Jesus, the Son of Man, as He had done in Adam before the fall! This is why Jesus could say to Phillip in John 14:9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Also Jesus said He only speaks what the Father says in John 16:15. God was living in and through Jesus just as He was in Adam. This completes the second picture of the invisible God putting on humanity so He could be seen by the world.
Is there another picture? Yes! Most everyone knows the story in John 3 between Jesus and Nicodemus. What was this conversation about? It was about how a man could be saved and being able to see the kingdom of God. It was about how and why a man MUST be born-again. It is about a person having to be born of the water (born physically through child birth) and being born-again from above (regenerated, recreated, made new, made a new creation) by the spirit of God. As mentioned, God’s intent with creation of man was so He, the invisible God could live in a human so the world could see Him as He acts through a saved person. This is the exact same picture and reality of God living in Adam before the fall, in Jesus Christ while He was on earth, God was acting (walking and speaking, doing works of righteousness through Jesus the man. How dies thus play out through us? What is the dynamic of Christ in us our hope of Glory?
We now will devote the rest of the post to the child of God. Let’s bring Paul into the conversation. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. This was for me just words on the page of my bible. I quoted it often. I did not have a clue what this really meant and what impact it has for the child of God.
Jesus brings to light in John Chapter 3 that a person must be born-again by the spirit. Think back to Adam and his fall, he died spiritually and in him we all died spiritually. We were alive but we had no life. We were dead and needed life!
Please return to New Creation New Identity to see the impact of the source of Life coming down from heaven to step into man, is made a new Creation when God againbecomes man’s life source when he is born-again from the dead.
God Bless,
Brad Heath
New Creation New Identity 