Notes:

A New Creation

The Bible mentions our nature twice:

1) Our old nature which we received from Adam at birth, ‘And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others’ (Eph.2:1-3).

2) Our new nature which we received at the new birth. We were baptized into Christ and became ‘partakers of the divine nature’, (2 Pet.1:4). ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new’, (2 Cor.5:17).

This means:

• We died to who we were in Adam and are now joined to Christ. ‘He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him’ (1 Cor.6:17).
• As a branch is grafted into a vine so we are grafted into ‘Christ who is our life…’(Col 3:4).
• The old covenant was law-giving; the new covenant is life-giving.
• We used to be one kind of creature but now we’re another. We used to be dead but now we’re alive. We used to be darkness, but now we are light, etc. (see Eph.2:1; 5:8).
• In fact this new creation cannot sin and doesn’t even want to sin! ‘Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous…Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God’ (1 John.3:7-9).

But Christians do still sin

Yet, as Christians we do sin. How do you react when you sin?

When a Christian sins, two issues need to be understood – our identity and our behavior.

• Our identity is in Christ; it is who we now are in Him. It is what we are in our spirit.
• The writer to the Hebrews describes us as ‘the spirits of just men made perfect’ (Heb.12:23).
• In Him we are perfect, sinless and incorruptible. Our spirit cannot be corrupted by sin.

• Our behaviour takes place in the realm of our body, our flesh. The relics of sin dwell in our unredeemed body. We can still be tempted, and we are. We can still sin, and sometimes we do.
• When this happens our spirit hates it. That’s because we don’t have a sinful nature. We possess the divine nature and this opposes sin. ‘Now if I do what I will notto do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me…^.For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members’ (Rom.7:20,22-23).
• So when a Christian sins a civil war takes place within him or her. The flesh wars against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.

Look in the mirror to see what is true about you!

• In the midst of this civil war Satan tries to get us to base our identity upon our behaviour.
• We must be clear about the distinction between our behaviour which takes place in the realm of the body and our identity which is who we are in the Spirit. ‘And if Christis in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness’ (Rom.8:10).
• We will only resolve this confusion by looking to God’s Word instead of to our behaviour.
• As a mirror accurately reflects what is true about our appearance so God’s Word reveals what is true about us now as a new creation.
• ‘For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was’ (James 1:23-24).
• James is referring here to a person who finds it difficult to live as he should because he has forgotten who he is.
• Our behaviour doesn’t define us. What Jesus did at the cross is what defines us.
• As we behold in the mirror of God’s Word the glory of who we are in Christ our behaviour will be transformed into the same image.
• What is true of us in our spirit will eventually manifest itself in the way we live. ‘But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord’ (2 Cor.3:18).
• We can’t be who we are until we know who we are.