RECONCILIATION: NEW CREATION
There are two lines on which God is working. First, in the recovery of man, secondly, in the accomplishment of His eternal purpose and counsel. We have the one in the gospel of Luke and the epistle to the Romans, the other in the gospel of John and the epistle to the Ephesians. Reconciliation is connected with the first, and new creation with the second.
Reconciliation supposes a previous state of alienation, enmity, and distance. New creation is the introduction of that which is entirely new. The one is brought about by the gospel, one part of which is the ministry of reconciliation; the ministry of what has been effected in the death of Christ. New creation is the sovereign work of God.
Reconciliation involves the removal of the condition of alienation and enmity, and the bringing into a state of order agreeable to God, so that where there was alienation, there is now divine complacency. We have been reconciled to God by the death of His Son, Rom 5: 10. That which brought in the distance has been removed in the death of Christ, and at the same time the love of God has been manifested. When this is received by faith, all sense of distance and alienation is removed, and the believer can boast in God, Rom 5: 2. Again, “you ... has it reconciled in the body of his flesh through death; to present you holy and unblamable and irreproachable before it [the godhead]”, Col 1: 22. That which was irreconcilable has been removed in the death of Christ, that we might be reconciled in His life. This involves a work of God in man: “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you”.
This great work of grace in the recovery of man is illustrated in the parable of Luke 15. We see how the three Persons in the Godhead are all engaged in this work, and each has His own joy in it. In the return of the son we see the effect of three ministries illustrated, the gospel of the grace of God, the ministry of the new covenant, and the ministry of reconciliation. The result is that the son is brought home in a manner agreeable to the father, so that the father is complacent in him. He could say, “let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found”, v 23.
But there is something beyond this. God had thoughts of blessing for man before the world began, before ever sin came in, when it was no question of meeting man’s need, but of God acting for His own pleasure “according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began”, 2 Tim 1: 9. “According as he has chosen us in him before the world’s foundation”. “Having marked us out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will”, Eph 1: 4, 5. This is another line of truth, unfolded in the ministry of the apostle Paul. New creation has come to light as part of this ministry. It is by the work of God in new creation that these counsels are being worked out. Hence all this will stand when all else will have passed away.
It has never been God’s way to restore that which has broken, see Jer 18: 1-3. The first creation has been marred by sin, and man hopelessly ruined. In Christ, God has begun anew. “If any one be in Christ, there is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold all things have become new”, 2 Cor 5: 17. “In Christ Jesus neither is circumcision any thing, nor uncircumcision; but new creation”, Gal 6: 15. No improvement, nor renovation of man in the flesh avails anything.
The assembly is composed of those who are created anew in Christ Jesus, nothing of the first order of man comes into it. What is spoken of as the one new man (a collective thought embracing the work of God in all the saints) is a new creation, Eph 4: 24; Col 3: 10, 11. Nothing of the old order comes into the new. “We are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus”, Eph 2: 10. Ultimately all that is old will actually pass away, only that which is new will remain, 1 Pet 3: 11-13. This embraces the new heavens and the new earth.
It is in new creation that God is working out what He had purposed before the ages of time, and all this will abide after the ages of time. What we speak of as the millennium will be the reconciliation of all things under the headship of Christ. This will be succeeded by the final and eternal state, Rev 21: 1-7. This will be the rest of God. Then He will say, “It is done”. For this we wait. Yet even now by faith and in the Spirit we may have entrance into this new and eternal order of things. In Christ we are of this new creation. We may take account of ourselves as such, if we are to understand and enter into the purpose of God, to which we have been called in His grace. This belongs to a “man in Christ”.
And see the Spirit’s power
Has op’d the heavenly door,
Has brought me to that favoured hour
When toil shall all be o’er.
Reconciliation has been effected for us in the death of Christ, it is ministered to us in the gospel, and it is received by faith. The result of receiving it is that we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Rom 5: 11.
From The Believer’s Friend vol 23 (1931)