As stated in our previous post,

“All that, by the Lord’s grace, we shall ultimately have through the “change” of the resurrection as members of the body of Christ – all the heavenly things, including full fellowship and communion with the Father and with our Lord – are reckoned as having their beginning in the present life. He, therefore, who knows not such a beginning of the new life, and its holy spirit now, has no reason whatever to believe that he has been begotten of the holy spirit – that he is a new creature in Christ. These new creatures are reckoned as having been raised up out of the state of sin and death into a new condition of life, and love of righteousness.”

Symbolically, they are ushered into the Holy of the Tabernacle, where they have the light of the Golden Lampstand, and partake of the spiritual Shewbread (placed upon the Table of Shewbread), and may offer the spiritual Incense to God (upon the Golden Incense Altar), and have fellowship with him “IN Christ Jesus” – as members of the Ecclesia, “the Church which is his body.”

This is a figurative resurrection from the dead – a figure and earnest of the real resurrection from the dead which shall come to each of these if they prove loyal to God and faithful to their covenant as members of the body of Christ – to be dead with their Head, that they may also live with him, through participation in his resurrection. –Rom 6:5,8.

Counting the new life as beginning now – counting ourselves as members of the New Creation, which by and by is to be glorified, we ask ourselves with the Apostle, what great thing must God work, then, in us and for us, eventually, if present foretastes of his goodness and grace are so superlatively grand? The Apostle answers such a query (Verse 7) assuring us that “in the ages to come God will show forth the exceeding riches of his grace through [in] his kindness toward us [who are] in Christ Jesus.” He does not attempt to tell us what these riches will amount to. He would have us see that God is rich in mercy, rich in grace, and rich in every other grand and estimable quality, and he would have us trust that so rich a Father will do for his adopted children “exceedingly abundantly more than we could ask or think.” Indeed, he assures us elsewhere that it is impossible for him to explain or for us to comprehend “the riches of our inheritance.” “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that loved him; but God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit.” – 1 Cor 2:9,10; Eph 3:19.

Nevertheless, the revelation by his spirit is only an approximate one. We cannot clearly discern those unseen things; we cannot comprehend them with our finite natural minds. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be;” but with the new mind we can, even though but vaguely, grasp the thought of our Heavenly Father’s riches of grace and love, and can draw analogies from the things of this present life, and thus gain some idea of the glorious things which await us. As we see our heavenly Father’s provision for the natural man, – a little lower than the angels, – as we look at the beautiful flowers of earth, and taste of its delicious fruits, it is but another step for the consecrated heart to realize that the rich Father who planned so beneficently for his human sons, and who permits so many of these blessings to come to mankind, even in its fallen condition, is no less rich in love and mercy toward his spiritual sons, and will make abundant provision for them also. And that as he has provided harmonies of music for the natural ear, and pleasant odors and flavors and scenes for the senses of the natural man, so, only on a more exalted plane, there will be gratifications for all the high qualities of heart and of mind for the New Creation; – there will be what will correspond to the present beauties of nature, but higher and grander, for those who shall gain the new nature. There will be that which will correspond to the flowers and the birds, the fields and the trees, the mountains and the valleys. There will be that which will correspond to the most delightful gratifications of the eye, the ear, the nose and the mouth, and to the most pleasurable thrills of the heart. Thus, does faith, based upon a knowledge of the riches of grace and love in our heavenly Father, enable the new creature to see the things invisible and to rejoice in the wonderful things only partially disclosed at the present time.

From this exalted position and favor and fellowship with God, associated in the heavenlies in Christ, we are enabled by faith to rejoice in those promises of our Father’s Word, which assure us that we shall be permitted to cooperate with him in the great work of the next age, the Millennial Age, in showing forth his praises, in lifting up so many as will of the world of mankind out of their present fallen condition, – up to full restitution of that which was lost in Adam and redeemed by Christ.

We notice (Verses 8-10) how carefully the Apostle seeks to guard us against the thought that any of these blessings have come to us on account of our own merit. He reiterates, “By grace are ye saved through faith.” And if by grace, no longer of works, as he elsewhere points out. (Rom 11:6.) If of works it would not be of grace. As members of the fallen race, we were incapable of doing any work which our holy God could accept – we were dead, corrupted, foul, under condemnation as children of wrath, when he had mercy upon us, and opened up the way of life. Our present standing, therefore, as new creatures, is not the result of anything that the old creature did, or could have done. It is not of ourselves; it is a gift of God.

This lesson must be thoroughly appreciated, else we will be continually in danger of falling. The grace is not of ourselves, certainly, and we may say also that although we exercised some faith at the beginning (else we could never have come to him at all, to accept his favors), yet the faith by which we were enabled to accomplish our consecration even unto death (to take the second step), and thus to become new creatures in Christ, was not of ourselves – we had no such faith when God laid hold upon us. He developed in us that faith by the revelations of his love, through his promises, through his Word.

If our present standing were the result of our own efforts or “works,” there would probably be some room for boasting; – it would imply that we were not so fallen that we could not have lifted ourselves out of the miry clay of sin, – on the line of the Evolution Theory. But such theories are not recognized in the divine Word and must not be recognized by any who would maintain their standing as new creatures in Christ. On the contrary, so far from considering the New Creature as an evolution of the old creature, the Apostle would have us understand distinctly that it is a new and separate creation. We were created in Christ Jesus, God’s workmanship – prepared for good works, but not by good works.

The Apostle assures us that God foreordained that this New Creation should progress in good works (put on the graces of the spirit). To become new creatures in Christ we gladly surrendered our all to the Lord, that we might know his will and do it; and having accepted us in Christ, he informs us that it is his good pleasure that our entire life should be renewed, that we should discard entirely from our hearts, our minds, our wills, everything sinful, everything unholy, and that so far as possible our mortal bodies should be brought into subjection to our new minds, and that we should walk in newness of life, even on this side the vail – thus giving evidence of our sincerity, developing character and becoming meet “for the inheritance of the saints in light,” in glory. Whoever is not disposed to walk in the Lord’s ways of holiness and opposition to sin, and in cultivation of the mind, the spirit of the Lord, the holy spirit, surely deceives himself, if he thinks he has passed from death unto life, and that he is a new creature in Christ Jesus.”  (R3165)