…what counts is a new creation…”
“Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.” Galatians 6:15 (NIV)
This verse, in its original context, applies to how humans enter and express their commitment to God.
No outward religious symbol or lack of it means anything.
The only thing that matters is to be part of the new creation by the new birth.
In Christ, a person undergoes a transformation that results in an entirely new being. Creation again takes place.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians.5:17.
However, we believe this principle also applies to our ongoing relationship with the non-human world.
Currently, it is in a degraded and corrupted condition (a groaning creation Romans 8:22), but God’s intention is to renew and restore it back to what he originally intended (a glorious creation).
God invites our involvement and participation in achieving that agenda.
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.
For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.
For in this hope we were saved.
But hope that is seen is no hope at all.
Who hopes for what they already have?
But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” Romans 8:18-25.
What matters to God is that both people and nature are completely changed!
GROWING THE NEW CREATION!
Planet Earth is not destined for destruction but renewal as God fulfils his promise of a New Creation. Unless God fulfils this promise completely, Satan wins!
- The new creation commenced in the past.
When Jesus rose from the dead, he inaugurated it, introducing a world full of new potential and possibility (I Corinthians 15).
When Christ’s physical body was raised and renewed, God showed what his ultimate intention was for the entire universe: a new order not subject to corruption or death.
- The new creation continues in the present.
Whenever someone comes to faith in Christ, he/she becomes a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), but such actions as predator/weed control, habitat restoration, and eco-friendly lifestyle choices, also contribute to growing the new creation in our day and age.
We can heal creation as it awaits its complete healing.
- The new creation culminates in the future.
When the book of Revelation speaks of the ‘new heavens and a new earth (21:1), it also has God say, ‘Behold I am making all things new.’ (Revelation 21:5 NASB).
Not ‘I am making all new things’–but ‘I am making all things new.’
Not replacement, but renovation.
He will complete the transformation of the entire created order.
