The New Creation - Part 1 | Sermon

The theme of this teaching session is “The New  Creation. ” This is one of the great themes of the New Testament and it’s one that many Christians  don’t fully understand. And consequently, they don’t appropriate all that God has made available  to them.

So my purpose will be to teach you about the new creation in Christ. We’ll begin with 2  Corinthians 5:17 and the first part of verse 18. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new  creation; old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new.

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself . . .

I’ll not read any further there. Paul makes a very specific statement that applies  to every person. If anyone is in Christ, the translation says, he is a new creation.

But  the words “he is” are supplied by the translators. The way Paul says it is more dramatic. If anyone  is in Christ, a new creation.

And you should have an exclamation mark there. There’s something  exciting. If anyone is in Christ, a new creation!

And then he says a little further on,  behold. That’s another word that introduces something exciting and dramatic. So, this is an  exciting statement.

It’s not just dry theology, it’s an exciting and wonderful revelation  of what God wants to do for each of us. Paul says if anyone is in Christ, and that  really leaves only two possibilities for every person. Either you are in Christ or you are not in  Christ.

If you are in Christ then a new creation has taken place inside you. In Galatians  6:15 Paul returns to this theme and he says something very far reaching. Galatians 6:15: For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails  anything, but a new creation.

As I understand it, he’s saying the only  thing that really matters in Christ is a new creation. Religious ceremonies won’t do it.  Whether you’re circumcised or not circumcised, baptized or not baptized, that’s not  the important question.

The important question is have you become a new creation  in Jesus Christ? That’s the only thing that ultimately matters. It’s not important whether  we’re Anglicans or Baptists or Presbyterians or Pentecostals.

What matters is are you a new  creation? That’s the question, that’s the issue. Creation is something that only God can  do.

Wherever we find the word create, if it’s properly used, it describes something that  God has done. Man can manufacture, man can repair, man can improve, but only God can create.  And the results of sin in our lives are such that it cannot be repaired, cannot be improved. 

There’s only one thing that will accomplish what’s needed—a creative act of God. In Psalm 51:10,  a great psalm of penitence which David prayed after his sin had been revealed with Bathsheba  and it had been exposed that he was guilty both of adultery and murder. He cries out to God in  repentance and in agony of soul and he says: Create in me a clean heart, O God .

. . He came face to the fact that nothing he could do would meet the need of the situation.

He could  improve himself, he could adjust himself, he could turn over a new leaf but that was not sufficient.  It had to be a creative act of God. And that is true of every one of us.

Where sin has done its  damage in our lives being improved or repaired or adjusted does not meet the need. We are totally  dependent upon the mercy of God for a creative act which He does when we are in Christ. When we  come to God through Jesus Christ, on the basis of His sacrifice on the cross and open ourselves to  God and say, “There’s nothing I can do for myself, I’m totally dependent on what you can do for  me”, then in His faithfulness and in His mercy God moves in and brings about the new creation.

The fact that Paul speaks about a new creation indicates that there has been already a previous  creation. And this previous creation which made the human race in the first place is described  in the book of Genesis 2:7. And if we look at the description of the first creation we’ll see  that in many ways it wonderfully parallels the new creation in Christ.

In fact, you cannot  fully understand the new creation until you have understood the first creation. So we’ll turn  now to Genesis 2:7. What impresses me about the Bible is that it can say so much in so few words. 

Before I became a preacher I was a professional philosopher. And basically, philosophers use very  long words to explain very complicated things which can’t really be understood. When I met  Jesus Christ and became a new creation in Christ, very dramatically one night in an army barrack  room in the British Army in World War II, when I turned to the Bible what impressed me and blessed  me was that God could say such marvelous things in such short, clear, simple words.

And ever since  then it’s been my aim to speak simply. I haven’t always achieved it but I’ve always aimed at it.  In fact, I’ve come to this conclusion concerning myself.

If I can’t say it simply the reason is I  don’t understand it clearly. So I work at it. This present lady that’s with me is my second wife,  my first wife is with the Lord.

Both of them for years have sat on the front row and listened to  my preaching. I always admire them because they’ve had to listen to me so many times struggling  through to get to the place of simplicity. But I work at it until I can say it simply.

So let’s turn to Genesis 2:7 which is really a very exciting verse, a very vivid verse. And the Lord God formed [or molded] man [or Adam] . .

. You need to know that man and Adam are the same word in Hebrew. In  other words, it’s a name as well as a race.

The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground  and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. The previous verse says that at that time it didn’t rain but a mist went up from the ground  and watered the earth. So, the dust out of which the Lord God formed man was moistened dust, it  was clay.

Now, I just believe it happened the way that it’s described. You may not find it easy to  believe that, you have to make your own decision. But I personally believe the Bible tells it  exactly like it is.

And when it says the Lord God, other passages of scripture—particularly the  gospel of John—tell us that it was not God the Father but God the eternal Son who was manifested  in human history as Jesus of Nazareth. Because, John’s gospel tells us by Him [Jesus] all things  were made and without Him was not anything made that was made. We speak of God as revealed in the  Bible as three persons—Father, Son and Spirit.

So if I speak about the first person, that’s the  Father; the second person is the Son; the third person is the Spirit. One God, three persons. It’s very interesting; the first verse of the Bible contains the mystery of God.

It says in the  beginning God created the heavens and the earth. This doesn’t come out in the English translation,  probably not in any translation. But the Hebrew word for God is plural in form.

In fact, it  is Elohim. And im is the plural ending like we would add s at the end of a word in English.  So, the first time God is mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 1:1 it’s plural in form.

But then the  verb created is singular. In Hebrew verbs can be plural or singular. So we have the mystery of  unity and plurality in the Godhead all in the first verse of the Bible.

And when we come to  the 2nd chapter of Genesis, mostly it speaks about the Lord God. That would be Jehovah Elohim.  And I believe in this case it’s referring to the second person of the Godhead, the Son of God,  the eternal Son revealed in human history many, many centuries later as Jesus of Nazareth.

And so, the way I picture it is this—and you be patient with me and if you can’t see it this way  don’t get upset with me. I picture this divine, glorious, holy person, the Son of God, the Lord  God, and there in that perfect setting in the garden that had not yet been marred by sin He  kneels down and He takes clay and He molds a perfect figure of a man. One of the interesting  things about the revelation of God in the Bible is every time He deals with man He has  to stoop.

So to create man He stooped, He kneeled. And, He formed this perfect body  of clay. No human sculptor has ever formed any body as perfect as that, not even Michelangelo. 

But it was just clay, it was lifeless. And then He stooped lower still and He put His divine  lips against the lips of clay and His divine nostrils against the nostrils of clay. And it  says He breathed into him the breath of life.

Now, I didn’t intend to get involved so much  in Hebrew but it’s interesting and I believe I can help you to understand. Hebrew is one of  those languages—I don’t know anything about Chinese. If I did, I’d use those examples. 

But Hebrew is one of those languages where the sound of a word depicts the thing that’s  described. Can you understand? For instance, an earthquake is ra-a-ash.

Thunder is ra-a-am. Can  you hear the thunder in that? The sound of a bell is silsel.

And many other languages, English has  it to a certain extent. Tinkle is the same. But the word for breathe, this is what I’m going to  come to, is a word that’s got a P sound and then it’s got a sound that we don’t have in English. 

In Hebrew it’s called het. It’s a sound made in the throat, it’s an outgoing guttural breath.  I would guess maybe you have it in Chinese, I don’t know.

Lots of languages have it but  the English don’t. Now, the Scottish people do, you see. They say loch which English  people say lock.

See? It’s quite different. Anyhow, this sound—and I have to be careful  here because of the sound system—this is the word.

Viapach. Can you hear that? First of all,  there’s the explosion of the P sound and then there’s the long outgoing breath of the het  sound.

Viapach. And what I want to emphasize is God put all of Himself into that breath. He  breathed Himself into that man.

All the energy of God was released in that breath. And the Spirit  of life from God entered that clay body and the most wonderful transformation took place. The clay  body became a living human being.

Even if we don’t talk about the inner part of man, just the outer  change, he had eyes that could see, nostrils that could smell, a heart that beat. Doctors tell us  that in one human eye there are more than three million working parts. What created a human eye?

I  could never believe that such a thing would happen by accident. That seems to me totally incredible.  Even when I was a philosopher I couldn’t believe that.

Think about that. The very Spirit of  God Himself breathed in, transformed clay into a living body. None of us can understand  all the complexities of a human body.

The more doctors learn the more complicated becomes. What was the source of all that, where did it begin? It began with the Spirit of God breathed  into the clay.

That’s how we came about. You see, as a philosopher I studied all sorts of  theories about the origin of man and the origin of the universe. But none of them really  made sense.

When I met the Lord and then began to read the Bible, the Bible explained me  to myself. It made sense. And it’s gone on doing that for nearly fifty years now.

So, just think about that. What’s the real source of your body? It’s the Spirit of God, the  creative Spirit of God.

See, that makes divine healing very logical because when your watch  goes wrong you don’t take it to the boot maker. To whom do you take it? To the watch maker.

When  your body goes wrong where do you go with it? Why not go to the body maker? He’s the one.

I mean,  I thank God for doctors, I’m not in any sense saying we don’t need doctors. But the ultimate  one who has the real power over every area of your body is the one who created you. I would  say, if you’re a Christian, go to the doctor but never stop short at the doctor.

Trust the doctor  to be the instrument of God Himself. Or maybe, in many cases you just pray and you’re instantly  healed or you’re gradually healed. But what I want to say is if this is a correct account of man’s  creation, then going to God for the healing of your body is not fanaticism, it’s logic.

See, I  was a professional logician. One of the things that’s blessed me about the Bible is it’s the  most logical book in the world. Never feel you need to apologize to anybody for believing  the Bible.

I would say its logic is perfect. So here we have man created. In 1 Thessalonians  5:23, speaking about total man, Paul says: Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify us  completely [or make us completely holy, and then he explains]; and my our whole spirit  and soul and body be preserved blameless .

. . So total man consists of three elements—spirit,  soul and body.

If you go back to the act of creation, the inbreathed Spirit came from God,  came from above. The body of clay came from beneath. And the union of Spirit and body produced  a living soul.

The soul is the individual. The soul is the thing in you that says I, I want,  I like, I feel, I think, I believe, I choose. That’s the soul.

That’s why every soul settles  its own destiny because it’s the soul that has the responsibility to make the choice. So, a man  is spirit from above, soul and body from beneath. And you see, this explains a lot, in a way, in our  experience because there’s something in us that wants to go upward but there’s something in us  that pulls us downwards.

You’ve experienced that, every one of you, at some time in your life.  The philosopher Plato described it this way. It’s just a picture, he said the chariot of the  soul has two horses.

One is white, one is black. The white one always wants to go up, the black  one always wants to go down. So in a sense, we can understand the conflict that every one of us  experiences at some time.

It’s a conflict between that which is from above and that which is from below. And that explains us to ourselves. It also says in the story of the creation God  made man in His own likeness.

And the Bible, as I’ve already said, reveals a triune God, three  in one—Father, Son, Spirit. It also reveals a triune man—spirit, soul, body. So we have a triune  man created in the likeness of a triune God.

Unfortunately, man disobeyed God. He turned away  from God in disobedience and rebellion. The one single word the Bible uses to describe that is  sin.

Another very interesting thing about the Bible is that it’s really the only source of  the revelation of human problems. Outside of the Bible there is no real grasp of the nature  of sin. The Bible not only reveals the problem, thank God it reveals the solution.

But  outside of the Bible there is no real getting to the root of human problems. The  root of human problems is all have sinned. And the only remedy for sin is that which the  Bible prescribes.

It diagnoses the problem, it prescribes the cure. But man turned away  from God in disobedience. His soul made the wrong decision.

He went in the wrong direction.  And the result was it affected every part of his being, his spirit, his soul and his body. Let me say just a simple thing to think of.

The spirit is from above. The spirit is God conscious.  It’s the part of us that can relate directly to God.

The soul is self conscious. The soul is  what uses the word I. I am, I feel, I want, I hurt.

Help me, look at me, I’m important. The  body is world conscious. Through the five senses the body relates to the world around us.

Now, when man sinned each part of him was affected—the spirit, the soul and the body. The  result in man’s spirit was that it was cut off from relationship to God and it became dead.  When we are in sin we are spiritually dead to God.

We look for a moment in Genesis 2:17 the  Lord warned man if he disobeyed and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would  die. It’s here in Genesis 2:17, God is speaking: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and  evil, you shall not eat of it. For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

Notice God says in the day you eat of it you will die. Adam did not die  physically for something like 900 years but he died spiritually.  He was cut off from the life of God.

In the epistle to the Ephesians Paul describes  this. Ephesians 2:1. It’s only part of a sentence but it’s all we need to read: And you God made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins .

. . Not physically dead but spiritually dead.

Cut off from God by our trespasses, our acts  of disobedience, and our sin. Ephesians 2:1. And then in Ephesians 4:17 and following, Paul  describes the situation of those who are dead in sin.

And that description applies to every  one of us here. At some time or another all of us were in this condition. Ephesians 4:17: This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of  the Gentiles walk [or the rest of the nations], in the futility of their mind, having their  understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God [cut off from the life of  God], because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their  hearts; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to licentiousness,  to work all uncleanness with greediness.

That’s a terrible description but it’s true of  every person outside of Christ. By our trespasses and our sins we’ve been cut off from the life  of God, we are in ignorance, we’re in darkness, we don’t know the root of our own problems, we  don’t know the way out of our darkness. And, we have lost the ability to feel.

You’re looking  at somebody right now who can say of himself that exactly describes me. For the first 24 years of my  life that’s how I lived. Let me say—I hope it will not be misunderstood—I was a good Anglican.

I had  been through all the ceremonies of the Anglican Church. And this is no criticism of the Anglican  Church but those ceremonies could not bring about the new creation. Understand what I was saying  before?

It’s not a ceremony; it’s a creative act of God we need. Nothing less will do. If the  ceremony becomes the channel of God’s creative act, that’s wonderful.

But in my case it didn’t. So that’s the condition of the spirit. Cut off from God, alienated, past feeling, dead.

The soul, the result in the soul I would say is rebellion. Every one of  us has in us a rebel. You may or may not have come to grips with the  problem but he’s there.

There’s a rebel that goes his own way, wants to do his own thing and is very, very self-centered. If we go back to Ephesians  2 we just see a description of the rebellious soul. We’re just going on from where we left off,  Ephesians 21 spoke about being dead in the spirit.

Now it says about the soul, verses 2 and 3: . . .

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. Who is the prince of the power of the air? Satan,  that’s right.

And Satan has authority over all who are in rebellion against God. In the book of  Job, chapter 41, there’s the complete chapter that’s devoted to a picture of a sea monster  called Leviathan, which is another picture of Satan. And the last verse of that chapter says  he is king over all the children of pride.

So when we are proud, rebellious, self-assertive,  going our own way, we are under the dominion of Satan. He’s the spirit who is now working  in all the sons of disobedience and all those whose souls are in rebellion against God. And then Paul continues in the next verse: Among whom also we all once  conducted ourselves .

. . We all includes the apostle Paul, all  the apostles, all preachers, all pastors, all evangelists, all people.

We all were once  in this condition until the new creation. Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves  in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desire of the flesh and of the mind, and were by  nature children of wrath, just as the others. There are no exceptions.

We were all like that in  our ignorance, in our darkness, in our rebellion, going our own way, doing our own things. And most  of us quite unaware of our real condition. I know for my own part for at least 10 years before  I met the Lord I was looking desperately for something to satisfy because I wasn’t satisfied. 

Academically I was very successful. If you know anything about the British education system, I  was a scholar of Eton, scholar of King’s College, Cambridge. At the age of 24 I was elected  into a fellowship in King’s College, Cambridge.

Academically I had reached the top.  But inside I was dissatisfied. I knew there must be something more and I didn’t know where it  was.

I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t know how to find it. And although I was so privileged  in my intellectual associations, I really didn’t have anybody around me to tell me. There was  nobody who could tell me what I was looking for.

I looked everywhere. I was highbrow; I went  to the ballet and to the opera. I was lowbrow, I went to the nightclubs and all sorts of other  places I won’t describe.

I tried everything, I had no scruples. I made up my mind either you believe  all the Ten Commandments or you didn’t believe any of them. And I decided they were not for me.

And  the longer I searched and the more I looked the more dissatisfied I became. I did not know; I  was in darkness. I was groping.

I was cut off. And then the Lord Jesus revealed Himself to me  very definitely, very personally. And immediately I knew that’s what I’d been looking for all my  life.

And there are uncounted millions like that in the world today. It’s our responsibility  as Christians at least to be able to tell them how to find what they’re looking for. If  they don’t want it then that’s their problem.

But it’s our responsibility to be able to  say this is what you’ve been looking for all your life and this is how you find it. Now, the third area of man, the body, was also affected by sin and you can describe  the results in the human body in one single word which is corrupt or corruptible. The body became  subject to decay, to getting old, to wrinkles, to stiff joints, to baldness, to sickness.

And  ultimately what’s the end of all that? What’s the end? Death, that’s right.

If we look at  just one sentence in Ephesians 4:22, and we need to return to this verse later. Paul says: Put off concerning your former conduct the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts . .

. So every one of us lives in a corruptible  body. Lots of people fight this.

They try to act as if it weren’t true. They’ll dress  up, they’ll do all sorts of things to conceal from themselves the fact that their body is  decaying. But they can’t change the fact.

So to sum it up, the result of sin in total human  personality is this way. The spirit becomes dead, cut off from the source of its life which  is God. The soul becomes a rebel.

The body becomes subject to decay or corruption. That can  only be changed in one way, by the new creation. Now we’ve looked at the old creation, it will make  much more sense if we look at the new creation.

There is one particular passage in the New  Testament which describes the new creation and how it took place. It’s in John 20:19–22. This  is the description of the evening of Resurrection Sunday.

It describes the first appearance of  the Lord Jesus Christ to His disciples after He had risen from the dead. This is what it says: Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week [that’s what we call Sunday],  when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus  came and stood in the midst and said to them, “Peace be with you. ” And when He had said  this He showed them His hands and His side.

Why did he do that? He wanted to convince them  that they were looking at the same body that they had seen pierced and nailed to the tree. So  He showed them the evidence of the crucifixion in His body so that they would know for sure this was  not somebody different, this was the same person they had seen die on the cross.

Then it says: Then the disciples were glad when they saw the  Lord. Then Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you; as the Father has sent me, I also send you. ” He commissioned them to be His messengers to go out into the world.

And then He did something. And when He had said this He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ” Now I want you to think back to the first creation, the very same person, the second person  of the Godhead had knelt beside that body of clay and breathed into it the breath of life and man  became alive.

Now here He is the same person. He has been through death and hell and the grave.  He’s come out totally victorious and He stands in front of His disciples and He breathes into them  and says receive the Holy Spirit.

Can you see the parallel between the first creation and the new  creation? The word that’s used in Greek for “to breathe into” is used in secular Greek for a flute  player breathing into the mouth of his flute. Now I cannot prove this, everybody is free to make  their own decision.

But it seems to me that Jesus did not just stand and breathe at them but that He  went up to each of them and breathed into them. He put His lips against their lips and breathed in  and said receive holy breath. The same Greek word means spirit and breath.

And when that happened  they were born again. A new creation took place. But we need to appreciate the fullness of what  took place.

In the garden in the first creation He breathed into them divine life. But in the upper  room on Resurrection Sunday He breathed into them a life that had conquered sin, death, hell, the  grave and Satan. A totally victorious life.

A life that could not be defeated, a life that could not  be destroyed, a life that nothing Satan could do could ever affect. And that is the new creation.  That’s what we receive when we meet Jesus.

I am aware that Jesus does not walk into the  room every time in visible form and breathe into us. But I am convinced that every person who is  truly born again must have a personal face to face confrontation with Jesus. Not visibly.

I know this  happened to me. I didn’t understand salvation, I didn’t know anything about being born again.  I just decided to pray one night because I had come to a place of desperation.

I just did not  understand. It was about 11:00 o’clock at night in an army barrack room, I was the only person  awake. For about one hour I couldn’t pray.

I just didn’t now what to pray. I didn’t know  whom I was praying to, I didn’t know what to say. And then I was aware that there was a person  there, I never saw Him.

But His presence caused a tremendous spiritual power to come over me and  I was cast on the floor. For the next hour the Spirit of God flowed into me and through me and  out of me. I didn’t pray a prayer of salvation, I didn’t understand how to be saved but I met Jesus. 

And the next day I was a totally different person. It took me months to discover all the changes that  had taken place in me in that one night. And those changes have lasted for almost fifty years.

So  that’s not a temporary emotional experience. I didn’t know to say I was born  again; I had to learn the religious language. But I had an encounter with Jesus.

I want to say this right. You can join the church and not  be changed. I’m afraid some churches are full of people who have joined and never been  changed.

But, you cannot meet Jesus and stay the same. Salvation is not just saying a prayer or  signing a card. Salvation is a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ.

It doesn’t have to  be dramatic, it can be very quiet, it can be very simple. It can take place at the altar of a  church, it can take place in any kind of setting. God is no respecter of settings or places. 

But there has to be that real vital change. There has to be that new life that is greater  than anything that can ever come against us. I was saved in the British Army.

And the  British Army is not a very godly set of people, to say the least. I thought now I’m a Christian,  God will take me out of the army. He didn’t, He left me there another five years.

He showed  me that I could be a Christian in the army. The same men who had seen me living a very sinful  life saw me leading a totally different life. I wasn’t responsible for the change, I could not  have brought the change about.

Only Jesus could do that. But I was willing, I came to the end of  my own struggles trying to reason it out and work it out, solve life’s problems. And when I came  to the end of myself and met Him the change took place.

If any man is in Christ, a new creation,  exclamation mark. Behold, old things have passed away, all things have become new, and all things  are from God. The new creation is not a patched up job, it’s not God doing a little repair here and  there.

It’s a totally new beginning and it has only one source. That source is God Himself. Let’s look briefly at the changes that take place in human personality as a result of the new  creation, the new birth, salvation.

First of all, the spirit is made alive. Colossians 2:13.  Paul is writing to Christians and says: You being dead in your trespass and  the uncircumcision of your flesh, God has made alive .

. . Alive in the Spirit.

The spirit is reunited with God the source of  its life. New life comes into the spirit. It was separated by sin, now it’s reunited.

The soul is reconciled. The rebel finds peace. That word is used in the passage  from 2 Corinthians 5 that we looked at.

2 Corinthians 5, and I’ll read these words again. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Notice not some things, it’s all  things.

It’s not partly a new beginning, it’s a totally new beginning. The old is  corrupt, God doesn’t mess around with it. He starts something new.

And then it says: Now all things are of God . . .

The whole of the new creation is from God. And then it says: . .

. who has reconciled us to Himself. So that rebel in you and me through the new  creation is reconciled to God.

Now no longer do we go our own way, set our own standards, please  ourselves, live our own life. Now we’re living to please the Lord. We may make many mistakes,  we may have to fall and be picked up many times but our motivation is to please the Lord, not  to go our own way, not to do our own thing.

And then the body receives divine life within from  the Holy Spirit. See, the Spirit of God is the source of physical life. It’s very important  to remember that.

Romans 8:11, Paul says: But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from  the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead shall also give life to your mortal  bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. So when we are reconciled with Christ, when  we receive the Holy Spirit our bodies become temples of the Spirit of God. Then that Spirit  dwelling in us imparts the life of God.

It’s still a mortal body, it’s still going to die, but  there’s something in it that is more powerful than sickness and sin and all the forces that come  against us. See? God has a specific life span for every one of us.

It’s God’s purpose that  we live out our full life span. God promised Israel in Exodus 23, “I will give you a full life  span. ” The source of that life span is the Holy Spirit.

But we have to learn to cooperate with the  Holy Spirit; we have to learn how to yield to the Holy Spirit. I am persuaded many Christians  die before their time because we haven’t all learned how to yield to the Holy Spirit,  how to let Him control our physical bodies. Those are the three changes.

The spirit is  made alive, the soul is reconciled, and the body receives divine life through the Holy Spirit. I would say, going back to the experience of the apostles in the upper room, they passed from  what I call Old Testament salvation to New Testament salvation. Romans 10:9, Paul tells us  what we must do to enter New Testament salvation.

If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord,  and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. So what are the two simple requirements? To confess Jesus as Lord, to believe that  God has raised Him from the dead.

On that Resurrection Sunday evening, for the first time  the disciples believed that God had raised Jesus from the dead. They had already confessed Him as  Lord. They passed from Old Testament salvation to New Testament salvation.

Old Testament  salvation looked forward through all sorts of prophecies and types and shadows to something  that was yet to be done. New Testament salvation looks back to a finished work of redemption by  Jesus on the cross. That’s the dividing line.

Now, before I go further—well, I can’t stop here.  Let’s turn to 1 John 5 for a moment. 1 John 5:4: For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. You understand, when we receive  this divine life from the resurrected Christ, it’s undefeatable. There’s nothing in the  universe that can defeat us because it’s the life that’s defeated Satan, sin, death,  hell and the grave.

You see, if born again Christians would realize what we have we would  turn the world upside down. We are undefeatable. I have five words that I use for the life of the  born again Christian.

It is divine life, it’s God’s life. It is eternal life, not just something  in time, it’s eternal. It’s incorruptible life.

It’s undefeatable life. And it’s indestructible  life. I’d like you to say those words after me and think about what you have in you if  you’re a born again Christian.

All right? Divine life. Eternal life.

Incorruptible life. Undefeatable life. Indestructible life.

You really believe that? Then you know what you have to do? You have to say thank you.

Not to me  but to the Lord. Thank you, thank you, Lord. Let’s take a moment or two to thank Him.

Thank you,  Lord. Thank you, Lord Jesus. See, the simplest expression of faith is saying thank you.

You have  to express your faith somewhere or it’s not real. Now we just have a few moments longer and I  want to go to the climax. I wonder how many of you would suggest what is the climax, the final  end of the Christian life?

Anybody. You can’t be more than wrong. How many of you believe it’s  going to happen?

It’s wonderful to go to heaven, that’s not the end. What is the end? That’s  right, resurrection.

Can we say that word? Resurrection. Let’s say it again.

Resurrection.  See, a lot of Christians have got the idea that going to heaven is the end. Well, it’s wonderful  to know that you’re ready to go to heaven.

That’s marvelous but heaven is just a stage on the  journey, it’s not the end. The end is when the Lord Jesus comes our bodies are called forth out  of the grave; spirit, soul and body are reunited and we are complete, we’re absolutely what we  ought to be. Then the new creation is complete.

Let’s look at the words of Paul for a moment;  I want you to see in Philippians 3 Paul’s goal. It was not heaven, it was resurrection.  Philippians 3, we’ll begin at verse 8.

But indeed I also count all things lost for the  excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all  things, and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having  my own righteousness which is from the Law, but that which is through the faith in Christ,  the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His  resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; if by any means  I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. What was his goal? The resurrection from  the dead.

And then he goes on to say: Not that I have already attained, or have  already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus  has laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I  do; forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which  are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. You see what his goal was?

Resurrection. That’s logical because when my body is still in the  grave, the new creation is far from complete. The new creation involves spirit, soul and  body.

But when Jesus comes and my body is called forth out of the tomb, my spirit and  soul are reunited with my body and I rise up perfect. That’s the goal of the new creation. Let me just read some words to you later on in Philippians 3, verses 20–21: For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for  the savior, the Lord Jesus Christ .

. . Are you eagerly waiting for the savior?

. . .

who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious  body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. So when Jesus comes and we see Him, the new creation will be completed by the transformation  of our body. And we will have a body like that of the Lord.

You see, Paul says here the present  body is a body of humiliation. It’s a judgment on us for being rebels. And no matter how much care  we may take of it and how nicely we may feed it, it continually reminds us we are humiliated. 

It doesn’t matter what expensive food you eat; sooner or later you’re going to have take a  trip to the toilet. Is that right? That’s right.

How many people are dignified there? Not many. No matter what wonderful, beautiful clothes you wear; you walk a little bit in this hot climate  and you begin to perspire or sweat.

All right? All that is humiliating you, it’s reminding  you this isn’t the end, this is the result of God’s judgment on our sins. But when Jesus comes  we’re delivered from that body of humiliation, we receive a body like His.

He’s able to  change even this body of ours into a body like His. That’s the goal of the Christian life. Now let me close by asking you just two questions, very important.

First of all, have you experienced  the new creation? Not have you been religious but have you experienced the new creation? And secondly: If you have experienced the new creation, are your priorities right?

Can you  say like Paul, forgetting the things behind, reaching forth to the things before, I press  toward the mark for the resurrection. Not as though I’ve already attained. If Paul hadn’t  already attained then neither you nor I have.

I want you to consider those questions just  briefly for a moment. Have you experienced the new creation? If not, you may tonight.

All  you have to do is come to the end of yourself, come to Jesus. Give yourself into His hands and  say, “Lord, make me what you want me to be.