You Are a New Creation!

From a basic hand shovel to a sophisticated backhoe loader—from a rusty metal toy soldier to a humanoid robot that can walk and chat—from a simple kite to a heat-resistant spacecraft capable of studying the surface of the sun—human inventiveness has surpassed all expectations.

Human beings have an affinity for making and altering things. So much so that the United States Patent and Trademark Office is on schedule to issue patent number 10,000,000 in the spring of 2018!

At a large scale, modern society depends on our ability to overcome physical restrictions using ingenuity. We create trucks to transport food, underground plumbing to access water, colossal trains and ships to transport building materials, planes to travel across oceans and over continents, intricate power grids to support our economy, national security, and even physical wellbeing.

At a small scale, we create appliances, computers, phones, tools, books, art, music, clothes, delicious meals, and more.

No doubt, we are intricately linked to the stuff we make, and seem wired to continue producing more of it. Regardless of how uncreative some may consider themselves, everyone likes to make things.

Why?

Humans were made after the “likeness” of God (Gen. 1:26)—and God is a Creator. We were designed to want to create.

In comparison to our Creator, however, our creativity is limited. As Solomon stated, “The thing that has been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun” (Ecc. 1:9).

We cannot make anything appear out of nothing. We can only come up with variations, modifications or blends of already existing raw materials or ideas.

Our version of creating is child’s play compared to God “the Creator of the ends of the earth” (Isa. 40:28). Colossians 1 says that “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, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist” (vs. 16-17).

Yet have you ever wondered if God is done with all His creating? Was His creative genius exhausted with fashioning the Earth and all things and creatures on it, as well as the moon, planets, stars and galaxies?

The answer is no! The apostle Paul presented the Corinthians with God’s most important, ongoing project: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature…” (II Cor. 5:17).

The word translated “creature” is also translated “creation” in other passages such as Mark 10:6. In fact, the New King James Version and other Bible translations render the term “a new creature” as “a new creation.”

Christians are God’s new spiritual creation. At baptism, each of us underwent a dramatic transformation. Following are some spectacular changes that took place when His Spirit entered into you, each tied to a keen ability you have now as a new creation of God.

From Darkness to Light

The first dramatic change occurred when God called you into His truth. Ephesians 5:8 states: “For you were sometimes darkness, but now are you light in the Lord.”

For us to go from darkness to being “light in the Lord,” a significant change had to take place. The transformation happened when we, being darkness, “died” after being “buried” under baptismal water.

It was a process that began at our calling and culminated at baptism, when “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness…shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Cor. 4:6).

Now take a breath and try to wrap your mind around what you just read.

Light is vital. Without it, we would not know there is a universe, as there would be no stars. Without light, this planet would not be able to support life at all.

Darkness, by definition, is the absence of light. When you were darkness, there was zero light in you. How could light ever shine out of darkness? That is a physical impossibility, unless light is miraculously manufactured on the spot, out of nothing.

The Greek word translated “light” in the verse we read is phos, from which comes “photon,” a unit of light. A photon is an elementary particle that cannot be split.

So how did God transform you? In I John 1:5, it states, “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” God, who is the total opposite of what we were before baptism, had to destroy darkness at the spiritual level and start from scratch. Through the Holy Spirit, He made you a new creation out of His own essence—light.

At this point, we became a new creation of spiritual light, and the old darkness remained in the water!

That is why Paul also wrote to the brethren in Thessalonica: “You are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness” (I Thes. 5:5).

Being light allows us the special ability to understand the Word of God, which is also a light (Psa. 119:105). That is why it is essential for us to “keep our lights burning” by studying our Bibles daily. While keeping in mind moderation, how much Bible study do you think you should put in every day? The answer to that depends: How brightly do you want your light to shine?

From Old Man to New Man

The second phenomenal upgrade we experienced when we were reconstructed is described in Colossians 3: “…seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him…” (vs. 9-10).

The phrase “seeing that you have put off” means to “divest wholly oneself.” The word “renewed” means “renovated.” And “of him that created” means “to completely change or transform.” Here again this is describing nothing short of a radical transformation. As with darkness, nothing of the old man remained in us—we are a new creation!

You are simply not that old person anymore. Accept it. You should no longer say, “Well, this is the way I’ve always been.” Now you should state, “This is the new way I am with God’s help.”

Be sure to pray to God regarding this. Admit that your old way did not work and ask Him to show you the new way you should be—and how to do it.

When you were called and baptized, you went from thinking you had life figured out to, as Solomon told God in I Kings 3:7, “I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in.” Paul had a similar attitude in Acts 9:6, who “trembling and astonished said, Lord, what will You have me to do?”

Yet because we already spent so much of our existence as the old man, we can easily forget the difference between old and new. It is then crucial that we make a daily, conscious choice to be a new man, regardless of whether we always feel like it. II Corinthians 4 shows this: “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (vs. 16). If we do not do this, we can start to think the same way we used to, limited to our “old ways”—which can then limit how God can use us.

Ephesians 4:22 adds that we are to “put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.” There is the phrase “put off” again. We need to constantly look for any residue of the old man in our thinking. God’s Spirit in us gives us the power to put the old man back in the baptismal water whenever Satan throws him back at us, and the ability to “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (vs. 24).

This becomes evident not too long after we receive God’s Spirit. We can now receive and apply instruction and correction. Our old attitudes change. Our outlook on life changes. Our friendships change. Our priorities change. Our appearance changes. Our speech changes. Our focus changes. We react well to change, because we have changed. People around us notice. We may hear them say comments along these lines: “You are not the same as you used to be…but you look happier.”

Suddenly, we have purpose. We have hope. We have put on the new man.

From Sinners to “Dead to Sin”

Romans 6 shows a third awesome renovation we experienced: “Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (vs. 11).

Sin is defined as the transgression of God’s Law. This holy, perfect, righteous Law was in effect before the first human walked the Earth—and so was sin (II Pet. 2:4).

We were exposed to sin from birth, and we naturally liked sinning. No, in fact, we loved it. We became skilled at sin because it just fits the desires of the flesh so nicely (Rom. 8:7).

In the world, when someone commits a crime—breaks the law of the land—he is labeled a criminal. That person’s reputation as a lawbreaker precedes him.

Likewise, when we sinned routinely, knowingly or unknowingly, we became “spiritual criminals,” or sinners. Sin was a way of life for us.

God does not sugarcoat the only remedy for sin: “The soul that sins, it shall die” (Ezek. 18:20). According to Romans 6:23, the penalty for sin is death. In this regard, the old saying “the only good criminal is a dead criminal” applies. Your life was infested with incurable sin, and the only way out of a sinful life is for that life to cease.

When God granted us the gift of repentance, we began to see that it is impossible for us to overcome sin in the flesh unless we die. We surrendered and, in effect, said, “You win, God.” We then were buried with Christ by baptism into death (Rom. 6:4).

Now that you are baptized and have God’s Spirit, you are a walking miracle. You—the former sinner—are now “dead to sin” (vs. 2). You are no longer the puppet of sin because, as Colossians 3:3 says, “you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” Sin can no longer find you to play its deadly game.

You may slip and sin, but you are no longer stuck, unable to overcome it before it becomes your lifestyle again. You now have power from God to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and…run with patience the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1).

You went from defeated by sin to a new, sin-defeating creation.

Think about how excited people in the world become when the newest phone, gadget or sports car is released. They are willing to line up for hours, even overnight, to see it. They rejoice!

To a much greater degree, when you became dead to sin, there was tremendous joy in heaven: “…there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents” (Luke 15:10).

No wonder Paul opened Romans 6 with: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (vs. 1-2).

Being dead to sin means to hate and flee from the very same sin we used to love. A sinful life is no longer an alternative.

Realize: To fall back into a life of sin would require a resurrection of the old man—another impossibility. Paul’s question, “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” becomes a rhetorical one. Whenever we unwittingly break God’s Law after having the Holy Spirit in us, it is not because we go from dead to sin back to sinner. It is instead because, out of weakness or temptation, we chose to not fear God at that moment and allow the Holy Spirit to lead us away from sinning. It is a real choice we make each time, and we must be very careful—as we are now without excuse. You are no longer programed to sin as a new creation if you would just allow God to influence you through His Spirit.

From Devil’s Children to Sons of God

Another transformation is in I John 3:10, which states: “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever does not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loves not his brother.”

We have seen so far that we went from darkness to light—from the old man to the new man—from sinners to dead to sin. Satan is the prince of darkness. He is the author of lust, which we saw in Ephesians 4:22 is what drives the old man. How about his role in sin? I John 3:8 answers: “He that commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”

In our former state, we were the children of the devil. We belonged to him and worshipped him as the god of this world by ignorantly doing his will—in many cases sincerely thinking we were serving the true God!

Yet an astonishing flip happened. When God gave us His Spirit, He gave us “power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12). We went from being led by the devil’s spirit to being led by the Spirit of God in us (Rom. 8:14).

Do not limit yourself to thinking we are en route to become the sons of God someday in the distant future. While we are not yet born again, the Bible teaches that now “are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be…” (I John 3:2).

Romans 8:17 expands on the awesome implications of being considered God’s children: “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.”

Further, Galatians 4 states, “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (vs. 6).

You are a new creation—a child of God—now because of His Spirit in you, leading you to do His will and to depart from sin. As such, you now can call on the Father for help. Just as a father wants his children to succeed, our Father in heaven is rooting for us, ensuring we have all we need to succeed.

Recall the example of people willing to wait long hours in line for the release of a new product. Romans 8:19 shows how God’s entire creation is patiently (or rather impatiently) waiting for when we are revealed as well: “For the earnest expectation of the [creation] waits for the manifestation of the sons of God.”

With this in mind, we should meditate on the incredible privilege we have been given: “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God” (I John 3:1).

Being a son of God means we relinquished all rights to decide for ourselves without His guidance—we are now to carry and uphold His name in everything we do.

All Things Become New

We began referencing II Corinthians 5 and verse 17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.”

Yet the story does not end there. The verse continues: “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

When God placed a small amount of His Spirit in us, it had an impact on the prefrontal cortex of our brains—the area that has been scientifically attributed with regulating our decision-making and social behavior. We became a new creation.

Another interesting and relatively recent finding is that the brain releases alpha waves before a new idea is conceived. This causes the brain to “blink,” or momentarily shut down the visual world, to allow a new idea to come forward. New ideas give birth to new creations. All the inventions described at the beginning of this article began with a single new idea.

As the brain must tune out the world to allow for new ideas, we must tune out the world to function properly as a new creation.

Paul said: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13-14).

Our dramatic change now is part of what God will ultimately do to all things. In Revelation 21:1-5, at the far end of God’s Plan, God tells us of “a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away…the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven…”

It also says that “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new…”

If we are now a new creation, imagine what kind of creating we will be involved in by that time in the God Family!

In the meantime, you were given the awesome privilege of going from darkness to light, from an old to a new man, from a sinner to “dead to sin,” and from the devil’s child to a son of God.

Keep all these dramatic changes in mind every day. Never allow yourself to forget the awesome blessings that come from having God’s Spirit work in you. Always remember: You are now a new creation!