THIS PASSAGE IS very clear and luminous in unfolding the meaning of the new creation, which happens when one is in Christ: “Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). “He is a new creation.”
There have been three stark miracles in our world. The first was when life was introduced into dead matter and creation came into being. Scientists can produce life from life, but they cannot produce life. The second miracle was the introduction of Jesus Christ into our history. He didn’t just perform miracles; He was a miracle—a miracle of being. He rose in sinless grandeur above saint and sinner—a miracle of being. Then being a miracle would He perform miracles? The answer is that being a miracle it would be a miracle if He didn’t perform miracles. The third miracle is the miracle of the new birth. “He is a new creation.” The new birth is a miracle; it cannot be accounted for except by the intervention of divine power, creating a new type of being as different from the ordinary man as the ordinary man is different from the animal.
In the first creation the account says that “the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep” (Gen. 1:2). That is the picture of the inner life of the unregenerate: (1) “without form”—no purpose running through it, no goal before it, chaos; (2) “and void”—empty. The life of the modern man seems so full. He is preoccupied with many things, but down underneath these outer things there is a growing emptiness. The life of the modern man could be described as outer revival, inner decay. This inner vacuum is intolerable, for nature and human nature abhor a vacuum. “Void” could be written across the soul of modern man.
O Spirit of Creation, move across the face of this formless void in the hearts of dullness-afflicted men. May a new creation come into being—the creation of a new type of person, and may it begin in me. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: My life must be a continuing miracle, an example of the third miracle—the miracle of the new creation.
