“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” – 2 Corinthians 5:17 

Scripture reading: Romans 6:1-11

Even though God had blessed Adam and Eve for their task of extending the glorious presence of God over the whole earth, Adam and Eve failed in fulfilling this task. As a result, the chaos and disorder that God had subdued with His six days of creation, slowly but surely, began to return in God’s good and harmonious creation. We know this chaos as sin, death and the devil.

In order for God to fulfill the goal of His creation, He has to deal with this threefold problem of sin, death and the devil. He does so by sending into this broken world, His Son, Who paid the penalty of sin, broke the power of sin, cleansed the pollution of sin, destroyed the partition caused by sin, and defeated death and the devil. When the Lord Jesus arose from the dead on the first day of the week, He demonstrated that He had successfully dealt with the problem of sin, death and the devil by ushering in the new creation that had always been the goal of God’s first creation. When we are united to Christ through faith, we experience the first fruits of this glorious new creation through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Sunday, the first day of the week, is a weekly sign or reminder of our being a new creation in Christ and a promise that one day we will enter into the fullness of the rest of this new creation. 

Suggestions for prayer

Ask the Holy Spirit to direct you in how you can bear witness to those around you that you are a new creation in Christ.

Rev. Dick Moes is pastor emeritus of the Surrey Covenant Reformed Church in Surrey, BC. He and his wife Elsina have five children and 14 grandchildren.