New Creation Realities

“For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

In this Colossian epistle, we may well linger over the two little prepositions, “with” and “in”, as they express our union with Christ. The former always expresses our union with Christ in the sense of identification with Him. The latter seems to express it in the sense of position and possession in Him.

“Dead” with Christ.
“Buried” with Christ.
“Quickened” with Christ.
“Risen” with Christ.
“Hid” with Christ.
“Appear” with Christ.

Did He die? So did we by identification with Him. Was He buried? So have we been, and the old way of life is gone. Was He quickened again from death? So are we quickened to newness of life through our identification with Him. Was He raised? So are we. Is He now hidden and invisible? So are we, insofar as our true life is concerned. Will He yet “appear in glory”? So shall we, “with Him”. All these experiences which we see objectively in Him have their counterpart subjectively in ourselves through our identification with Him.

On the other hand, that preposition “in” expresses our position and possession in Christ. The believer is:

a “saint” in Christ (1:2)
has “faith” in Christ (1:4)
is “reconciled” in Christ (1:22)
has “redemption” in Christ (1: 14)
is to “walk”in Christ (2:6)
is “complete” in Christ (2:10)

Oh, this Christ-believer union is wonderful! In varying aspect and metaphor it recurs throughout the New Testament, and gives us joy beyond telling. It is everlastingly indissoluble. Our Beloved is ours and we are His for ever. Heaven’s undying rapture will consist in the consummation and continuity of this oneness with Him. Oh, to give Him, here and now, the full revenue of His blood-bought estate in us!—our uttermost devotion as expressed by separatedness to Him, communion in prayer, and humble serving. And all the while let us remember that our true life is “hid” with Him in God!

Our joint-possession with Christ is a doctrine at which we can only marvel perpetually. It could never have been invented; and it is too amazing not to be true. A young woman in New York once wrote: “Yesterday, I was worth fifty dollars. Today I am worth millions.” She had married a millionaire, and they had a common purse. She continued, “But what are all our millions, compared with my beloved himself?” Finally, she added, “What was my bit to him? Yet he said it meant more than all his millions, if my heart came with it.”

– J. Sidlow Baxter.

John 14:6 has not only been a challenge, but has been a thrilling joy. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” What a confession that was! …
He not only said, “I am the Way,” but He said, “I am the Truth,” or, “I am the Reality.”
When I saw that word translated Reality, it gripped me. Continue reading →

“We have become partakers of Christ” (Hebrews 3:14).

One cannot make a study of the New Testament without experiencing something of the nature of a shock, in view of the glaring difference between the Christian life as we customarily live it and the ideal set forth by the Master.

We are to walk as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6). We are to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44). We are to forgive as Jesus forgave — even as He, in the shame and anguish of the cross, looked down upon those who blasphemed while they murdered Him, and forgave (Colossians 3:13). We are to be aggressively kind toward those who hate us; yes, we are actually to pray for those who despitefully use us (Matthew 5:44). We are to be overcomers — more than conquerors (Romans 8:37). Enough! We dare go no further. It would only increase our shame and our pain. We stand indicted.

Why does not the Savior, so tender and so understanding, so loving and so wise, make requirements more in keeping with human nature? Why does He not demand of us what we might reasonably attain? He bids us soar, yet we have no wings. Is there a way out? Yes, there is. Paul found it — we can all find it!

We have been proceeding upon a false basis. We have conceived of the Christian life as an imitation of Christ. It is not an imitation of Christ. It is a participation in Christ.

To proceed on the basis of imitation will plunge us into just the sort of “slough of despond” Paul found himself in when he wrote Romans 7. Only when Christ nullifies the force of my inherent “self-life” and communicates to me a divine life does Christian living in its true sense become at all possible for me. What is impossible to me as an imitator of Christ becomes perfectly natural as a participant of Christ.

“An angel of the Lord stood by him… saying, Arise quickly!.. So he went out and followed him” (Acts 12:7,9).

There are some who would gladly follow the Lord completely and who understand what it means to be entirely given up to him, but do not see how they can maintain it. They don’t see the hand of God outstretched to lift them up and sustain them; they don’t dare to trust His promise, so they are afraid to start.

In some ways they are like Peter in the prison at Jerusalem. They are in bondage to sin just as he was in bondage to Herod; they know they are chained to the world just as Peter was chained to soldiers on either side. Their prison is dark, and its iron gate shut.

In this situation the gospel comes to them as the angel of the Lord came to Peter while he slept between his keepers — and shakes them, saying, “Get up and follow me.”

But here is the difference: Peter got up, put on his clothes and followed, almost as in a dream. But these people just sit there, still in their chains, and say, “But what about these chains — how will they be broken off? And the soldiers on each side of me — who will protect me from them? And how do I get past the the iron gate and the sentries?”

The difficulties along the way frighten and weaken them. If only they would get up at the call of the gospel and give themselves completely to follow the Lord Jesus, He would go with them. And then, just like Peter in the prison, the way would open up in the light of His presence, every enemy would sleep on, every barrier would swing wide open, and they would step easily and delightedly into a way of happiness and a path of peace.

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (II Corinthians 5:17).

The gospel proclaims a new creation: a new tree — union with a new root — being grafted on to a new stock. This is not to improve the old, but to be translated into a new position.

Take another illustration. Here is a man, let us suppose, who has failed in business. He is not only hopelessly insolvent; his credit is gone, and his name is disgraced. All efforts of his own to retrieve his position are utterly fruitless; he is beyond all hope of recovery in that direction. But hope comes to him from another quarter. Let us suppose he is taken into partnership by one whose name stands high in the commercial world. He becomes a partner in a wealthy and honorable firm. All his debts are paid by that firm, and the past is cancelled. But this is not all. He gets an entirely new standing. His old name is set aside, forgotten, buried forever. He has now a new name. In that name he transacts all his business. His old name is never again mentioned.

We have here a faint shadow of what the gospel bestows. To be a believer in Christ is to have passed out of our old position — to lose our old name — and to take our stand on an entirely new ground. We are baptized “into the name of the Lord”; we are “in Christ.” This is not a privilege that comes to the believer by degrees; it is complete and absolute at once. And the moment the transition takes place, the believer stands, not on the ground of probation, but on the ground of redemption.

This truth is fundamental. The “in Christ” of standing is the foundation of all practical godliness, of all Christian service. We must start here, or we cannot take a single step in the way of holiness.