New Creation in Christ: the Effect of being Joined to Jesus (1 Cor 15; Rom 6:5-14)
- Living in the New, not the Old:
- Here is a challenge to grasp the implications of what the Bible says about our radical new status
- and see two huge ways in which being in the New Creation changes everything.
Play Audio:
- Recap:
- There is a cosmic struggle between God and the forces of evil
- God created a beautiful and perfect world
- But evil got in and is trying to destroy everything
- There is a cosmic struggle between God and the forces of evil
- God’s plan is to eradicate all evil for ever: all injustice, oppression & pain
- Becoming a Christian is switching sides and joining God
- The Battle of allegiance
- What right does God have to fight evil? —He is the creator and so he has a right to tell people not to do evil
- God’s enemies challenge this and say “God has no right to demand my allegiance”
- So the battle is mainly fought in the area of belief and allegiance
- God’s Battle Plan
- Make the issues increasingly clear
- His law provoked rebellion
- His love and goodness provoke it even more, and force people into a decision
- Make the issues increasingly clear
- Rescue comes from being Joined to Jesus
- Torrey Canyon
Torrey Canyon
- God did this by sending Jesus to be born into the Old Creation, defeating sin by his death, and being raised as the first of the New Creation
- Jesus came from heaven taking on a human body,
- died in his physical body,
- and then was raised from the dead as the very first human of the new creation.
- That is why he was called “the firstborn from the dead” Rev 1:5
- If we are joined to him, the same thing happens to us
- Today we are going to talk about how our lives are different because of this
1. The Two Creations
- This is an intro to the first passage today
- One of the clearest presentations of the New Covenant in the entire Bible!
1 Corinthians 15
- Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel
- that I preached to you,
- that you received
- and on which you stand,
- 2.and by which you are being saved, (if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.)
- For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received—
- that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
- 4.and that he was buried,
- and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
…
- For just as death came through a human,
—the resurrection of the dead also came through a human. - For just as in Adam all die,
—so also in Christ all will be made alive.
… - So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
- However, the spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and then the spiritual.
- The first man is from the earth, made of dust; the second man is from heaven.
- Like the one made of dust, so too are those made of dust, and like the one from heaven, so too those who are of heaven.
- And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, let us also bear the image of the man of heaven.
- Now this is what I am saying, brothers and sisters: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
NET Bible, plus revisions by AMF
- Adam was made of dust
- atoms and molecules of this universe
- Our bodies are the same basic stuff as the world around us
- I am made of this same stuff
- and when I die, I return to dust
- Jesus was raised in the Spirit
- a new kind of material
- How can we be made of the Holy Spirit?
- Similarly our New Creation identities are made of the stuff of the Spirit
- but as we said before, these two kinds of stuff are completely different
- if we are made of one, what do we have to do with the other?
- how do we get from one to the other?
- from perishable dust, to immortal Spirit?
- The new creation has already begun, but the old is still here.
- Our main problem comes from the fact we are living in both at the same time
2. Getting from the Old to the New
- Definition of a Christian: in Christ
- So how to we get from the old to the new?
- the answer is by being joined to Jesus who made the transition
- we died with him and are being raised with him
Two Creations
3. Living in the New (Freedom & Power)
- Story of Larry’s goldfish
Image source: pngimg.com
- So what practical difference does it make?
- Our second main passage today is Romans 6
Romans 6:5–14
| Old Creation | New Creation |
|---|---|
| 5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, | we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection. |
| 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him | so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. |
| 7 (For someone who has died | has been freed from sin.) |
| 8 Now if we died with Christ, | we believe that we will also live with him.↓ |
| ↪he is never going to die again; death no longer is his master.↓ | 9 We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead,↩ |
| 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, | but the life he lives, he lives to God. |
| 11 So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, | but alive to God in Christ Jesus. |
| 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, 13 and do not present the members of your body to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, | but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and the members of your body to God as instruments to be used for righteousness. |
| 14 For sin will not be your master, because you are not under law | but under grace. |
based on NET Bible
- Christ’s story has become our story
- Is it the Spirit in us or Jesus—amounts to the same thing
- The Spirit is the channel of Jesus
- Once again, this is the New Creation life within us
- God has put a piece of eternity inside us.
- You are called to live out of this new reality
- Every bit of the love of Jesus you show for another person is made of the stuff of eternity
- Nothing you do for God will be lost
- This will survive till the end of time
- The name of our church comes from this truth!