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HearHim.net
The New Creation and the New Birth
What does creation have to do with redemption?
What is the new creation and the new birth? When
does the old stop and the new begin? How is the new
creation related to the old creation … and what is
the difference between them? Did God leave His rest
to re-create? Did He make a mistake with His rst
attempt at creation? These are some of the question
we’ll begin to answer in this writing.
T
he writers of the New Testament often speak
of creation in the same breath as redemption.
 John starts his version of the gospel making
sure that his audience understands that the God he
speaks about is the God who created all things andthrough whom all things exist.
“The original, authentic Word was face to face with
God from the very beginning. God Himself is the
content of this communication – revealing His perso-nal presence and unique expression in all that exists.In fact there is nothing original or innovative outside
of Him! He is the only Creator and the source of allinspiration and creativity. Everything that is, has‘Made by God’ stamped on its existence.(John 1:1-4 Translated by Andre Rabe)When Paul explores the scale of reconciliation inone of his most powerful writings, he starts with
reminding us about the person we are dealing with
 – the Creator of all things:
“He is the image of the invisible God, the rstborn
of all creation. For by him all things were created, inheaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether
thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—allthings were created through him and for him. Andhe is before all things, and in him all things hold
together. And he is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the rstborn from the dead,
that in everything he might be preeminent. For inhim all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,and through him to reconcile to himself all things,whether on earth or in heaven, making peace bythe blood of his cross.” (Col 1:15-20)
The psalmist said it this way: “The earth is the LORD’s
and the fullness thereof, the world and those whodwell therein,” Ps 24:1So how is redemption connected with creation?The Creator has not forsaken His creation.The Creator has not given up on His creation.
He has not renounced His declaration that what He
made is good.
God believes that everything He made can be saved.
Evil did not obliterate God’s original creation. Evildid not succeed in perverting creation to such an
extent, that it was not worth saving. Evil could twist,pervert and suppress what God created, but it could
not utterly corrupt it.God still sees a value, in fallen creation, which isworth pursuing and paying the utmost price for.
The new creation is nothing less than God’s ar
-mation of the original creation.
In the new creation God declares that what He made
originally was not a mistake, that creation is worth
renewing and restoring.
When God nished creation, He entered His rest on
the seventh day – an eternal day. (All the other days
have a beginning and an end, the seventh day has noend) Heb 4 also reveals that God ceased from all His
work, entered His rest and has never left that rest.
God did not become dissatised with what He made
and consequently started working on a brand new
plan for something that never existed before. Thenew creation was not another act of creating or
April 22, 2011
 Page 1
http://hearhim.net/wordpress/2011/04/22/the-new-creation-and-the-new-birth/
 Andre Rabe
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HearHim.net
The New Creation and the New Birth
work which required God to stop resting and start
creating again. God is satised with what He origi
-
nally created and condently waits for its return
to His original design.
God is not nervous about what He made … He is not
anxious about your life. What He imagined origi-
nally when He rst thought of you, is still His only
reference to who you are. Agree with God and beat peace.Let’s look at one of the most popular scriptures re-garding the new creation: 2 Cor 5:14-17
“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have
concluded this: that one has died for all, thereforeall have died; and he died for all, that those who
live might no longer live for themselves but for him
who for their sake died and was raised.From now on, therefore, we regard no one accor-
ding to the esh. Even though we once regarded
Christ according to the esh, we regard him thus no
longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a newcreation. The old has passed away; behold, the new
has come. All this is from God, who through Christ
reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of 
reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling
the world to himself, not counting their trespassesagainst them”
I want to specically focus on verse 17: Therefore,
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.The ‘if’ in this sentence has often been seen as a
conditional ‘if’. But Paul uses this ‘if’ as a conclusion,not as a condition. See for instance Rom 8:31 as well:
If God is for us, who can be against us? Can you seethat the ‘if’ is a conclusion … not a condition?
Also notice the word ‘therefore’. Whenever you see
the word ‘therefore’, ask, what is it there for. You see
verse 17 is the conclusion of verse 14-16 in whichPaul makes it as clear as can be that all where in-cluded in the death of Christ. That is why Paul canno longer look at any man from a human point of view. History recorded the death of one man, buteternity saw humanity included in that event.The word ‘new’ was translated from ‘kainos’ andrefers to that which is new, especially in freshnessand age. In other words that which has not beenaffected by time.The word ‘creation’ was translated from ‘ktisis’.
Strongs dene it as: original formation, building,
creation, creature, ordinance. It comes from the
word ‘ktiz?’ which Strongs denes as follows:
Probably akin to G2932 (through the idea of the pro-
prietorship of the manufacturer); to fabricate, thatis, found (formoriginally): – create, Creator, make.It is also interesting to note that ‘any man’ can alsobe translated ‘any thing’.
The new creation, therefore, is the original creation
that was found again by its founder and cleansedfrom the affects of time, renewed and refreshed.
The old creation is also the original creation, but in
a state of decay as it was subjected to corruption.In the same way as there is only one Creator, thereis only one creation.This one original creation has been in differentstates, namely ‘old’ or corrupted by the events intime, and ‘new’ or cleansed from the decay of timeand restored to its authentic glory.
There is no such thing as an evil creation – evil never
created anything.The only thing Satan can give birth to, is lies.In His death He did the unthinkable, He reachedback into the irreversibility of time and loosened
the grip of corrupting events from His creation. He
reaches back into timeless eternity and restores the
rst creation to a place of blameless innocence, wi
-
thout a trace of decay or any evidence that it wasever touched by sin.In Christ God preserved the logic that was in thebeginning, the design that was untouched by thefall, the motivation behind all of creation. In Christ
the Creator nds His creation and establishes such
a unity that it can never be lost again.
April 22, 2011
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HearHim.net
The New Creation and the New Birth
If there is anything in Christ, if indeed all thingsconsist in Him, then in Him we see God’s authenticthought and design for everything restored. It canmean nothing less than the original creation being
restored to that place of relationship to God, as if sin
never existed, as if time never decayed.
When the Word became esh, when the Creator
became a creation, the relation between them funda-
mentally changed. This act of incarnation, in which
the Creator embraces his creation, in which Godunites Himself with humanity, is the beginning of 
reconciliation and the end of hostility. Incarnation
is how God releases His creation from corruption
and arms once again that what He made is good
… when He said man is His image and likeness, Hemeant it.
I’m sure you have often heard this scripture used in
the context of individual conversion, to show how
a person’s life changes when they meet Christ. And
I can understand that. When we look at the messin which we lived before Christ and the peace we
received when we received Him, this verse makes alot of sense. However, the new creation has a largercontext and relevance than your individual life and
experience. God sees the universal renewal of allthat exists to His authentic thought before the fall.We can individually participate in that renewal …but the new creation is a larger event that yourindividual decision.The new birth.
When we understand the new creation, it is not di
-cult to understand the new birth. The new testamentuses the words ‘born again’ only in the book of Peter!
 John 3 actually speaks about born from above. The
word which some bibles translated ‘again’ is theGreek word ‘an?then’ which means: from above;
by analogy from the rst; by implication anew: –from above, again, from the beginning (very rst),
the top. As with the new creation, this refers to arenewal, a restoration of the original.Let’s have a look at these verses in detail. John 3
speaks of two births – what is born of esh and
what is born of spirit, our natural birth and ourspirit birth. He refers to these births in differentways, namely: the spirit birth is also referred toas ‘born from above’, and the natural birth is alsoreferred to as born of water – the natural wombfrom which we came.Many sermon’s have been preached on ‘you mustbe born again’ as if this is something a person can
do. However, in the same passage Jesus says: “unless
one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enterthe kingdom of God.” As little as you contributedto your natural birth, as little you are capable of contributing to your spirit birth. Jesus is stating a fact to Nicodemus: to see thekingdom of God, to even have an appetite for spiri-tual things, you have to have a spirit dimension …a part of you that has its origin ‘from above’All men have spirits. There are multitudes of scriptures that show that all men have a spirit.
In Gen 6:3 God says that the life within esh is His
spirit! : “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever,
for he is esh: his days shall be 120 years.”
Num 16:22 (and others) refers to God as “the God
of the spirits of all esh”.
 Job 27:3 calls man’s breath ‘the spirit of God is inmy nostrils’There are too many to mention. The truth is thatman has a spirit dimension, a part that originates
‘from above’. It is because Nicodemus had an origin
beyond esh, a spirit dimension, that He had an
appetite for spiritual things.
But when and how does this renewal happen? What
is the basis and beginning of this new creation, this
new birth?“By His boundless mercy we have been born againto an ever-living hope through the resurrection of  Jesus Christ from the dead” 1 Pet 1:3
“You have been regenerated (born again), not from
April 22, 2011
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