THE BEGINNING

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." (John 1:1)

"God said, let us make man ..." (Genesis 1:26)

"If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature (creation)." (2 Corinthians 5:17)

God made man, in the beginning, as a creature different from all other created beings. He was a creature of choice. He could and would make decisions according to his own disposition. He was what we call a "free moral agent." He chose to disobey God and in so doing separated himself from God. He died a spiritual death on that day. Death is a separation whether physical or spiritual. Physically: (James 2:26) "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." and spiritually: (Isaiah 59:1) "Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: 2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear."

He had sinned, thus separated himself from God and there was no way he could make restitution for his sin. But God made a promise through Abraham that "in thy seed shall all nations be blessed." And that seed was Christ. That seed reaches back to those faithful ones in any dispensation of religious history just as it reaches forward to us today. [see Devotion No. 2] (Galatians 3:16) "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ."

So, we hear so much about being born again, and it is a Bible subject, but not a mysterious, miraculous manifestation of some sort, but an intelligent conception that man can understand. When man is born again, he is the new creation that Paul talks about. But who is this new creation, this new man? He is one who has been born again (anew) and if anyone is in Christ he is this new creature. He has been born again. Simple, isn't it? How do we get into Christ? The Spirit reveals the entrance in passages such as Romans 6:3 and Galatians 3:27 thus the Spirit performs His part and the water performs its part and thus we are born of the water and the Spirit --- new creatures in Christ Jesus.

Return to the Index