“that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”
-Romans 8:21-23.
Strolling into Romans 8, we open the door to: “No condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” What a declaration! This causes us to pause, lifting hands in thanksgiving with wonder! But following, immediately thereafter, without hesitation, a principle is laid before us!While in our worship of thanksgiving “for no condemnation in Christ Jesus,” our Father uses the Law of the Spirit to instruct us!
This is what a Father does! He parents His children,guiding them into His agape love; He wants us to understand we are “in Him.” Our life no longer needs to be hung-up on temporal issues, needing rather to invest in our heavenly relationship. We have been created new in Christ Jesus. He nurtures us into a rich provision of divine childhood thru His Spirit and our faith. It is God’s purpose to guide us into participation, but we need to grow-up Spiritually. His word contains both milk and meat; He is waiting to feed and teach, and so much more!
We need, not only to hear, but be vulnerable to a small voice of the Spirit within us. We will learn to respond to our Spirit’s prompting voice once we begin recognizingit. This is faith! If we process God’s Word into our heart, the Spirit will renew our mind Spiritually so that we can live in obedience to His Life created within us! We have the mind of Christ! Grasping and consuming takes our heavy focus, but its within reach.
Our tendency, or sometimes habit, is to assign an earthly perspective to our Creator Father. Our natural world is no longer home-base but we are still cultured in it,cleaving to a few likes and longings. Even though we are set free thru redemption, we still tend to hang-on to a fewcreature comforts. Giving up some things seems hard and unnecessary but they hold back the glory that is ours when we walk in the light as He is in the light, and this is so much better!
When we indulge these natural desires, we quench the Spirit’s voice making it more difficult to hear and making it near impossible to recognize His voice of instruction to us. This is not cultish or dabbling in the “spirit world,” this is recognizing God’s voice in His Spirit. Just because we don’t always hear this small voice does not mean He is not speaking. It might mean our “want to” needs an adjustment!
God’s domain is on the other side of our creation. He already existed in order to make our “here and now” come into being! He made us from the other side of ourcreation where sin does not corrupt. God’s existence is totally a different sphere than everyday corrupted space. It is out of His sphere that He comes into our clay vessel, into us. We have His righteous Life! “There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.”
He wants us to agape love Him! He wants us to choose Him. He woos us, waiting for our desire to match up with His Truth and righteous love. He doesn’t overwhelm us with the power of His presence, He is loving us with His agape Love.
He is Spirit, creating union within our flesh and bone, His Spirit in our spirit. He creates in us His dwelling place.We still breathe earthly breath, see with material eyes and touch with physical fingers while at the same time living in Him, living in His eternal Kingdom we have yet to see.Prayer and song will instruct our own soul, spirit, mind and heart, to focus on our union in Him rather than our natural habitat.
God created us this second time Spiritually with access into His dimension of existence. God, thru Jesus, gives us Himself in the other side of our creation. This is what being “born again” is all about; we are created brand new with righteousness including God’s grace growing us intoSpiritual Life. Growing “in Christ” is growing into Lifeand experiencing God. We actually experience Him where He is now, on the other side of our creation, as well as, where we are now in “our” creation. We are experiencing God where He is, and was before our physical world existed, as well as here and now. We are learning to be who, in Him, we are intended to be!
Not only are we now in Christ Jesus, Christ Jesus is nowin us! Our Father God is alive, in us thru our resurrected Lord Jesus and growing us into His living Body. Our destiny is to rule with Him as King after physically setting up His earthly Kingdom. His purpose is to unite everything in heaven and earth in Him. We are part of His grand purpose!
The shorter catechism captures for us our primary purpose, “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” We are intended to reflect the glory of God, that is, we are to be who He made us to be! How do we do this? (Hint, Galatians 2:20)
The glory of God was given back to humanity through Israel. It was made visible when Moses met with God on the mountain. It was visible in the wilderness tabernacle resting between the two golden cherubim on the mercy seat of The Ark of the Covenant. It was in the cloud above the tabernacle and the fire burning at night. It filled King Solomon’s new Temple in Jerusalem. It was witnessed by Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration. This same glory departed from the Temple in Jerusalem and the Ark of the Covenant disappeared, although it was seen in a vision by John in heaven.
The King of Glory is now on the right hand of the Father giving each of us participation in His plan through a new creation in Christ Jesus. We are now his children growing into sonship so that we can share His glory given to us for His sake.
A trace of His glory is in us, because we have been created new in God’s resurrected Son. His glory depicts the magnificence of who God is and is now given back into humanity thru believers still present on God’s earth,until He removes His Church. We can now glorify Him by letting His light shine to others thru us but our shine time is getting short. The other side of our creation,created in us, is now our home!
The conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus in John 3 give us good context. Here, Jesus distinguishes for Nicodemus flesh from Spirit. Being “born again” is being born of the Spirit. We know from this conversation our new creation “in Christ” is Spiritual, so that, our spirit can be united with God’s Spirit. It is this union, between Jesus reconciling man’s sin, and man’s acceptance of God’s salvation and LIFE, that glorifies God through His creation of man physically and Spiritually. It is also vitalto recognize this act of a second creation is by God Himself. We have this in John 1:12-13:
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
It is essential we understand who we really are “in Christ Jesus.” Equipping ourselves with this knowing, is to be conversant with God’s Word. A starting point is understanding scriptural truth declaring our created re-birth in Christ Jesus by God.
We list in our current Appendix A, over 125 citations referring to people being “in Christ,” “in Him” or inferring this intimate condition of a believer. These references display the blessed glory of being created in Jesus and/or the miraculous blessing of being created new Spiritually by God in Christ Jesus. This is a much grander than the creation of our forefather Adam. It is asupernatural phenomenon of amazing grace. Let me repeat, these scriptures are about us being “created again” but this time Spiritually in Christ Jesus. This is not anidea, a metaphor or symbolic way of explaining what our relationship looks like in Christ. This is the real deal! We are literally created IN CHRIST. Just as Jesus is in the Father, so are we in Jesus. We need to be knowledgeableabout scripture linking our Spiritually created reality with God’s act of performing this astonishing miracle.
Here are four scriptures citing this truth for our minds to ponder. Each of these references has a little different slant while using the same Greek word for “create.” This Greek word connects us back to the Genesis meaning of creating out of nothing. We are looking at each of these four references with a shallow drill down to see their nuanced perspectives:
2Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold the new.
Adam had the glory of God and I suspect he and Eve wore this glory before they saw themselves naked after sin. They were created to show God’s glory and were able to visit God’s presence with confidence and without shame. But Adam and Eve did not have created within them the dynamic of God Himself. When they lost God’s glory because of sin, they were naked! When we are created this second time, from above by God, we are joined into God’s own Spirit forming a dynamic unionglorifying God in our soul. The old is passed; we are Spiritually created new in Jesus.
Adam’s body was good and “perfect” before sin, while ours is in a state of corruption because of sin, but our newcreation is Spiritual. This is the miracle we have within us, joining us to God Himself with the seed of His own nature. Our Identity is changed from corrupted flesh to a new state of Spiritual righteousness, this is the new that has come. Our fleshly identity, including corruption still residing in our flesh, is the old that is passed away. We are redeemed out of corruption and created Spiritually new.
Galatians 6:15: For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.
Man needs redemption by Jesus in order to be acceptable to God and enjoy His fellowship. This verse contrasts the effort of man as compared to the creation work of God. Any righteousness coming out of man falls short of God’s glory and does not qualify for the holy standard defining who we are in Christ Jesus. The work of God only, can create the righteousness required for man to stand before God in fellowship.
Circumcision is an outward act of an inward work. The removal of flesh speaks to our new creation in Christ because we are no longer in the flesh. Our new creation in Christ Jesus takes us out of the flesh and delivers us into the Kingdom of Jesus. This is the result of being born again Spiritually. We still live in flesh but our identity is now in Jesus. We are given God’s resurrection power to put to death the things of the flesh. We are no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit if the Spirit of God lives in us; we are alive in the Spirit of God who dwells in us.
Ephesians 4:24: and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Here we have it! The new creation person receives the seed of God’s own holiness since they are in Christ Jesus. We are created once again in the likeness or image of God, Himself. But this time our new creation births our spirit into God’s Spirit. We now have within us, the Spirit of God who not only raised Jesus from the physical death of crucifixion but also gives to us His resurrection power to live above the flesh, in His Spirit. We have also been given the mind of Christ so that we can discern what will glorify God in our own heart and will. We are already justified and glorified.
If there is a natural body, Paul tells us, there is also a Spiritual body. The first Adam became a living being but the second Adam became a life-giving Spirit. His glorified resurrection body will also be given to us at our rapture but while living in the flesh, God’s glory is planted inside of us, His spirit united with our spirit so that we can now walk in true righteousness and holiness.We are children of God partaking of His nature through His spirit. God is sharing His nature with us and by grace we become like Jesus.
Ephesians 2:10: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10 is a good tool to have in our hand since it is a little more comprehensive. The Greek word for workmanship used in this verse is also a word that can be translated “create” in the sense of making something new. But the emphasis, in this word, is to make something new out of something already existing. It could be used forreshaping something like clay in the hands of the potter.
We are created in Christ for good works. Our “out of nothing” new Spiritual creation is being put in the hands of God’s workmanship forming a vessel intended for His use. We might say, God is shaping a newly created child into the image of the Father, or we might say, God is shaping a newly created child to glorify God in a gifted way.
What we do know is, God is intentional, watching His children. God already prepared before, that we should be walking, not only in His workmanship, but in the nature and character of the image we are Spiritually created, Christ Jesus!
Scripture pictures the “out of nothing” new Spiritualcreation as being shaped to an intended form and called for a specific purpose. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works; God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them!
We can’t explain the mystery of Godliness without knowing who we are in Christ. We can repeat the gospelmessage, this may be enough in some cases. But deeper than this, is our responsibility to respond to God’s intentional calling to each one of us personally. We are honored with a high calling and for stewardship purposes we need to be in the Word making ourselves vulnerable to His indwelling, guiding Holy Spirit.
The Law of the Spirit is setting us free from the law of sin and death, fulfilling the righteous requirement of the Law with the glory of God. In our fleshly vessel, we are being Spiritually trained into the divine reality of faith through grace. God has a great design and we are being called to participate in His grand purpose.
We should pause a moment remembering from where we came. We were not only sinners, we had hostility toward God with no desire to know God. God, on the other hand, pursues us, ministering grace to our rebellious soul to receive redemption. To the praise of His glory, He made us accepted in our Lord Jesus. God faithfully agape lovesus, bringing us into His family through a brand newSpiritual creation.
Without Christ, without hope, we were imprisoned by the grip of sin. We adapted, seeking ways to cope. We pursued pleasures and relief from our bondage. Our fleshculture instructs us to depend upon things in life to provide comfort and the things giving us security for the duration of our physical existence. Our priorities and biases cater to personal tastes and pleasures which we humanly seek in experience.
All of our experiences are rooted and built upon ourtemporal effects during our tenure of deliberate choices. But redemption lifted us out of this earthly bondage and set us free thru the blood and resurrection of Jesus. We were placed into the Kingdom of Jesus becoming Hispersonal possession, learning to depend upon His workmanship to accomplish in us His purpose!
There is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus because the law of the Spirit set us free from the law of sin and death. God has done what the law cannot do. He created Jesus in us, in His own image, and prepared a path for us to walk … in Christ Jesus.
These four verses provide a good perspective of who we are in Christ but they are merely words on a few pages. The law of the Spirit has been given to us; He is abiding in us faithfully nurturing and prompting us in the paths of righteousness which God already has prepared for us to walk.
The ball is in our court! We have the gift of Life within us with a living coach on board 24-7. Who we now are,walking on these paths into glory, is up to us. The source for absolute truth is in God’s word and His interpreter is abiding in us, ready to help and enlighten. All we have to do is ask!
Jesus said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it!”