A New Creature

A New Creature.

“Oh, but I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now.” (Bob Dylan, My Back Pages).

Are we truly new creatures in Christ, or merely improved versions of the old creatures? After we become new, do we just gradually become old again? If we are born again, does that mean we acquire a new bloodline?

Maybe our newness looks something like this… In the beginning, the Spirit hovered over the chaos and darkness, and then finally breathed life into His creatures, allowing them to live into their new beings. And in the new beginning, the same Holy Spirit hovers over the darkness of sin, and seeks to breathe new life into humanity once again, producing people born from above, creating a whole new creature. Only the breath of the Spirit is capable of creating those who can be progressively renewed from one degree of glory to another, providing a new hope and destination of eternal glory with the triune God. Our newness is utterly dependent on the Spirit’s creation-power.

The Spirit doesn’t merely reform or revive the old creature, He transforms it, literally renews it, making it new again.

• It’s not like patching up an old coat, it’s wearing a whole different coat.
• It’s not like an incorrigible person who is reformed into changing his behavior or is rehabilitated into civilized society. Instead, the incorrigible person receives an entirely new conscience.
• It’s not like an unmotivated student who is reeducated into being a good student at a different school. Instead, the unmotivated student receives a heart transplant.
• In this case, it’s not like being adopted into a new family, it’s being born from above and given a new spiritual bloodline, complete with a new eternal family and an incorruptible inheritance. Think of it: Being born again means we live into the spiritual gene pool of the Godhead, given a heavenly DNA and the vast potential of brand new hereditary traits!
• It’s not like a broken branch being grafted back onto the same vine. Instead, the broken branch is grafted onto a totally different vine, generating new fruit, a red grape branch grafted onto a green grape vine, producing green grapes, not red.
• It’s not just an epiphany with the old mind, it’s a transfiguration into a new mind.

Becoming a new creature is not a resuscitation, it’s a resurrection. It’s not merely resuscitating an old spirit just to breathe the same old air. We’re talking about a resurrection into a new spirit, breathing fresh air from the exhale of the Holy Spirit into our new lives, gradually transforming each of us into a life of newness, from one level of brightness to the next. And the more the Spirit changes us, the newer we become. We are new creatures, and getting newer all the time.

Bible Study: The following scriptures are intended to inspire and stimulate further thinking and discussion on the fact of being a new creature in Christ. Please read slowly, savoring each biblical excerpt. Most verses are taken from the Amplified Version  (AMP).

1. “O sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things.” (Psalm 98:1).

2. “Therefore if any person is ingrafted in Christ, the Messiah, he is a new creature altogether, a new creation; the old previous moral and spiritual condition has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

3. “Behold, I make all things new.” (Revelation 21:5).

4. “All of us, as with unveiled faces, because we continued to behold and to reflect like mirrors the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

5. “God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great is your faithfulness!” (Lamentations 3:22-33 – MSG).

6. “Do not be conformed to this world – this age, fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs. But be transformed, changed by the entire renewal of your mind – by its new ideals and its new attitudes – so that you may prove for yourselves what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:2).

7. “Offer and yield yourself to God as though you have been raised to perpetual life.” (Romans 6:13).

8. “Therefore we do not become discouraged – utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear. Though our outer self is decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being progressively renewed day after day. For this slight distress of the passing hour is ever more and more abundantly preparing, producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory – beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!” (2 Corinthians 4:16-17).

9. “He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but because of His own pity and mercy, by the cleansing bath of the new birth and renewing of the Holy Spirit.” (Titus 3:5).

10. “Therefore you are no longer outsiders – exiles, migrants and aliens, excluded from the rights of citizens; but you now share citizenship with the saints – God’s own people, consecrated and set apart for Himself; and you belong to God’s own household.” (Ephesians 2:19).

11. “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits… who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” (Psalm 103:2,5 – NIV).

12. “Strip yourselves of your former nature – put off and discard your old unrenewed self – which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion; and be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind – having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude; and put on the new nature, the regenerate self, created in God’s image, Godlike in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:22-24).

13. “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew the right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Grant me the joy of your saving help again, and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.” (Psalm 51:10-12 – BCP).

14. “Do not lie to one another, for you have stripped off the old unregenerate self with its evil practices and have clothed yourselves with the new spiritual self, which is ever in the process of being renewed and remolded into fuller and more perfect knowledge upon knowledge, according to the image, the likeness of Him who created it. In this new creation all distinctions vanish; there is no room for and there can be neither Greek nor Jew, nor difference between nations whether alien barbarians or Scythians, who are the most savage of all, nor slave or free man; but Christ is all in all – everything and everywhere, to all men, without distinction of person.”.. Clothe yourselves, therefore, with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, as God’s own picked representatives, His own chosen ones, who are purified and holy and well-beloved by God Himself.” (Colossians 3:9-11 – AMP, NRSV).

15. “Your mercy and lovingkindness, O Lord, extend to the skies, and your faithfulness to the clouds; For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.” (Psalm 36:9).

16. “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never, no never, be thirsty any more. But the water that I will give him shall become a spring of water welling up, flowing and bubbling, continually within him into eternal life.” (John 4:14).

17. “If the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then He who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will restore to life your own short-lived, perishable bodies through His Spirit living in you.” (Romans 8:11).

18. “Praised, honored, and blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah! By His boundless mercy we have been born again to an ever living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; Born anew into an inheritance which is beyond the reach of change and decay, unsullied and unfading, reserved in heaven for you, who are being guarded, garrisoned, by God’s power through your faith till you fully inherit that final salvation that is ready to be revealed for you in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3-5).