What’s New?
By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
As Theology 101 continues into the new year by pondering God’s new things, we give thought this week to the personal newness salvation brings.
We read about this newness in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
God’s New Covenant calls for and provides the means for sinners to become new creations in Christ. After referencing the primary personal sign of ritual circumcision under the Old Covenant, Galatians 6:15 affirms, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.”
Glancing back at last week’s topic, we should take note that the New Commandment Jesus gave about loving one another as He loves us cannot be fully obeyed until we have been made new creations through faith in Him. Herein we experience divine mercy for our sinful corruption and spiritual deadness.
Many of us had these words of Romans 6:4 pronounced at the time of our Christian baptism: “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.”
God’s goal in providing eternal salvation is that as a new creation we should experience a new life, one that is Christlike and eternal. This same passage in Romans 6 goes on to declare “that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” Hence, we are freed to be new creations in Christ.
This new creative work involves not only a new birth but also the ongoing indwelling of the Holy Spirit. A quick reading of 1 John will encounter a good half dozen references that repeatedly point to God as the source of this new birth, while a reading of Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus in chapter 3 of the Gospel of John reminds us that the Holy Spirit is the agent of this new life.
This spiritual work operates from the inside out and not from the outside in. Natural growth, development, refinement or reformation will not make a sinner a new creation. A radical internal change must occur, and then outward evidences of the Spirit’s creative work will follow.
The overall emphasis is on a change of heart not mere reformation. The end result is a new creation experiencing moral transformation in outlook and actions.
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