If you have been reborn in Christ you are a new creation. You are not just the same old person now with a little Jesus added. You are not someone who has “gotten religion” or taken up a new hobby. You are a work of God Himself raised up to walk in newness of life.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.
Whatever person we were before Jesus passes away and a new person is born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God writes John. A new man, a new creation made by God through the blood of Jesus is the result. A child of God is born through His work.
If anyone is telling you that you are still the same person you were before Jesus they are liars. They are denying the truth of the Bible. They are trying to take away from what the Lord has already done. They are trying to rob Him of His victory.
It may be comfortable to wallow in the past and we may fall back into sin, but that is no longer who we are in Jesus. We are defined only by Him and the Cross. No matter if you were an adulterer, addict, criminal or habitual sinner, the Bible is clear that person from the past is dead and gone for all eternity.
As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
That is one rough group that Paul describes from the past but it is not what they are now. “And such WERE some of you”, they are those things no longer. The blood of Jesus washed that old man away. He is replaced with one who is justified, found innocent and is being changed into the image of Jesus.
We can know this promise of newness is true by looking to the source of our salvation, Jesus. It is such an important point for us that God in His Word links the Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection with our death, burial, and rebirth in Christ. If you believe one is true then you have to believe the other is true.
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.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection
Romans 6:4-5
Do you believe in Jesus’s death on the Cross, burial, and resurrection from the Dead?
Great, now look at what Paul is saying in these verses. Just like Jesus died, was buried and resurrected into new life, so did we in Jesus. It is not two separate concepts. We have been joined with Him in death and reborn with Him into newness of life..not by our work, not by our parents work but by the work of God.
If we trust the work of God was done with Jesus, we must trust the work of God done in us. Why? Because God loves us.
God loves us so much and wants us to walk in the awesome, amazing, refreshing abundance of new life in Jesus that He links the culmination of the plan of redemption of all mankind with our individual rebirth in Christ. If Jesus was resurrected to new life so are we. The same power that raised Jesus raised us.
Does God ever make a mistake? Does God ever do anything halfway?
Of course not, His making us into a new creation is perfect and complete. We can always trust in His work, even when we doubt our own. We are transformed from a life as a slave to sin and death in darkness into a life in the light freed from sin. It is Jesus’ greatest miracle and it happens thousands of times every day.
Are we missing out on this newness of life? Are we living as a new creation? Do we understand that we are no longer defined by what came before Jesus, just by God’s great work?
Life in Jesus is never about what we used to be. We are not who we were. If we are living in the past, we are denying the work of God in us. Let’s grab onto the promise God makes in His Word and choose to accept the awesome work of God that is us this very day. Choose this day who you believe, Jesus and His promises or the world.
Indeed we are new in Christ. God bless you for this.
Amen and thank you! You too!
Yes we are a new man. Just remember, how others see you is what they perceive. If you walk in the same ways as before, have you truely been born into Christ? To be the new man everything about you must also become new. Starting with a heart that is truely changed.
Keep on preaching brother!
Thank you and you too! Yes, we cannot change how others see us but we can understand that the only One that matters knows that we are completely new. Then we walk in that.
God bless you!