Such is the change which passes upon Christians through the power of Christ their Lord; they are made new creatures. And this deep mystery of our own renewed being flows out of the mystery of Christ's incarnation. He took our manhood and made it new in Himself, that we might be made new in Him. He hallowed our manhood, and carried it up into the presence of His Father as the firstfruits of a new creation. And we shall be made new creatures through the same power by which He was made man the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost.
I. We are made new creatures by a present change working in our moral nature; that is to say, through our regeneration in holy baptism. By the love of God electing us to a new birth of the spirit, and by the Holy Ghost working through that visible sacrament, we are translated from wrath to grace, from the power of darkness to the kingdom of His dear Son. Old things pass away and all things become new round the regenerate man.
II. But further, Christians are new creatures by present, ever-growing holiness of life by the renewing of their very inmost soul. They are absolutely new creatures new in the truth of moral reality; new altogether, but still the same. It is moral contradiction, moral conflict, the clash of moral antagonists, that makes God and man to be two, and the race of man as divided as it is numerous; and so is it in every living soul changed by the grace of God. He was an evil creature, he is a holy one; that is, he was an old, he is new. When the flesh is subdued to the spirit, and Satan bruised under our feet, this old world passes away as a shadow, and the new stands out as the visible reality from which the shadow fell; and the whole man grows into a saint. The lowliest and most unlettered man, to whom written books are mysteries; the tiller of the ground, the toiling craftsman, the weary trader; the poor mother fostering her children for God; the little ones whose angels do always behold the face of their Father in heaven, all these, by the Spirit of Christ working in them, are changed into a saintly newness and serve with angels, and look into the mystery of God with the cherubim and adore with the seraphim of glory.
III. Let us therefore learn some lessons of encouragement. Unlikely as it may seem, our most confident and cheering hopes will be found to arise out of the awful reality of our regeneration. In you old things are passed, as the night is passed when the darkness is driven before the coming day; and new things are come, as the day is come when the white morning steals up the sky. There may be thronging clouds and weeping showers before midday, but to every penitent man the noon shall come at last. Lastly, live above the world, as partakers of the new creation. He that is "the beginning of the creation of God" is knitting together in one His mystical body, making up the number of His elect; and to this end is He working in each one of us, cleansing and renewing us after His own image. All things about us teem with a new perfection. For a while it must needs be that our eyes are holden; were they but opened we should understand that even now are we in the heavenly city. Its walls stand round about us, and they that were seen in Dothan walk in its streets of gold.
H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. i., p. 19.
In considering this statement of the Apostle, there are two main thoughts which seem to occur for our examination. The former of them concerns itself with the enlargement of feeling and sentiment, with that elevation to a higher spiritual platform which St. Paul describes as characteristic of the Christian life. The second concerns itself with that connection subsisting between that elevation and the condition of being "in Christ."
I. Now the state out of which the Apostle describes himself as having arisen, is one in which he "knew men after the flesh" and he knew Christ after the flesh. In other words, he entertained the common, worldly, merely outward estimate of Christ, of man, and of human life, until his belief of the Saviour's resurrection put that estimate aside and replaced it by another, which was nobler in itself and more in accordance with the actual facts of the case. There is something corresponding to this elevation of thought and feeling in the experience of those persons who in the present day are disciples and followers of the Saviour. They have become emancipated from unworthy thoughts of the Saviour's person and character. They have arrived at a conception of Christ which is markedly and unmistakably above what is usually formed and entertained by the majority of mankind. The superiority of conception consists in a real acceptance of the godhead of Jesus Christ.
II. Let Jesus Christ enter your life, and the commonest act is ennobled by being done for Him. Let Christ into your life, and the present no matter what it is reaches out and fastens itself on to the distant eternity, and becomes the germ of a never-ending existence. The expression "in Christ" is a sort of keynote, to which the whole of St. Paul's statements and arguments are set; and if we can grasp the meaning of this phrase, we are in a fair way to understand everything else. Our being new creatures, then, and therefore fit for the spiritual state of the Redeemed, depends upon our being in Christ. Our being in Christ depends upon our having sincerely accepted and taken to ourselves, by the Spirit's help, the testimony of God concerning His Son Jesus Christ; upon our having appropriated, in fact, His death, and all that flows and follows from it.
G. Calthrop, Penny Pulpit,new series, No. 853.
What must I do to be saved?
I. First of all, it may be right to mention that anxiety for the state of one's soul may be equally real, and yet show itself in different persons in a very different manner. I believe that many good people have been very angry with themselves because they did not weep for their sins, and feel that lively grief which we read of so often in the Scriptures as accompanying repentance. It is of no use to examine nicely into the vehemence or soberness of our feelings, whether of joy or sorrow, of hope or of fear, nor should any one think himself not in earnest because he cannot pass sleepless nights or shed floods of tears for the sinful state in which he has been living.
II. I will suppose that a man is roused sincerely to ask the question, "What must I do to be saved?" and wants some plain and particular directions to serve as his answer. The first rule then to be given is, to be instant in prayer. We might say to such a man, "If you are indeed in earnest, draw near unto God without fear; you are pardoned already for Christ's sake; be sure, therefore, that God loves you enough to give you His Holy Spirit, and to make you that new creature which you wish to be. Pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, that the promise of His Spirit may be fulfilled to you, to guide you safely on your way to heaven." With the practice of prayer, I should earnestly recommend the use of some book of devotion, like Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying" or Bishop Wilson's "Sacra Privata." Books of this kind are sure to furnish, ready to our hand, the very passages of Scripture on which we can dwell most profitably.
III. It is wise to begin a Christian course sincerely, but quietly and soberly; to be not too hasty in endeavouring to reach a very high pitch at first, but to regulate our strength, that it may last out through our whole journey. Leave off at once every known sin; that is the first step, and without that we can do nothing; then be diligent and honest in the duties of your calling, striving to grow in humility and in love to God and man. If you go on with prayer and watchfulness, be not afraid that you will not reach in time the highest point of Christian perfection.
T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. i., p. 10.
References: 2 Corinthians 5:17. T. M. Herbert, Sketches of Sermons, p. 8; J. J. S. Perowne, Sermons,p. 172; J. Edmunds, Sermons in a Village Church,2nd series, p. 94; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xv., No. 881; vol. xx., No. 1183; vol. xxii., No. 1328; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 275; vol. iii., p. 93; G. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation,p. 94; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons and Addresses in Marlborough College,p. 97; Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 186; G. Matheson, Ibid.,vol. xxxv., p. 346; A. Parry, Phases of the Truth,p. 221. 2 Corinthians 5:17; 2 Corinthians 5:18. T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. iv., p. 274.