TWO CREATIONS #4

The ‘baptism into the Holy Spirit and fire’ (Matthew 3:11) is our identity into this new creation. We become new as we receive and accept the incarnate Christ and His invitation. The Holy Spirit is the indwelling of God into His new creation like His breath was into the old. Paul says, “the first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam (Jesus) became a life-giving spirit. The first man is from the earth; the second man is from heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (1 Corinthians 15:47-49) this is the new man! The new creation is now in the image of the heavenly pattern, which is Jesus Christ. We are like Him. He has come to bring this understanding of a new people with a new kingdom. Paul continued, “that mere human nature (the first creation) cannot inherit the kingdom of God. What is perishable cannot inherit what is imperishable” (15:50).

The first creation was the subjective work of God. The second creation is the objective work of God. He simply ‘was’ and created the first. He ‘came’ and created the second. He has created the new spiritual race and it is to bring order and form to the chaos of the earthly race. It is to separate light from darkness, the wasteless deep to form and function, and the night from the day in the hopeless and helpless human condition. His “spirit hovers and moves” (Genesis 1:2) over the earth to draw men to the King and His kingdom. This is called something new, something that did not exist before, and something that was stuck in eternity until Jesus came.

“You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.” Jesus