The latest instalment of our ‘A-Z of Christian Faith’ focussed on the letter N: N is for New. God is a God of new things (Is 43:19, Rev 21:5) and we considered some of these new things tonight.
New Birth & New Life
God, ‘in his great mercy…has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.’ (1 Pet 1:3) ‘If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Cor 5:17) Paul describes this new life as being radically different to how we used to live (Eph 4:22-24), because God has given us a new nature, a new self. (Col 3:6-10) Our part is to count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ (Rom 6:11-14), allowing ourselves to participate in the divine nature and therefore allowing new life to grow within us as naturally as new life gives way to growth in babies!
New Covenant
This new life is possible because of the new covenant God has made. The sacrifices of the Old Testament point to the once-for-all sacrifice made by Jesus; both Jeremiah and Ezekiel prophesied about the new covenant God would make. (Jer 31:31, Ezek 11:19)
The Tabernacle, the priestly sacrifices for sin and all that we read about in the Old Testament were simply pointing the way to ‘Christ… the mediator of a new covenant’ (Heb 9:15) whose blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Heb 12:24) As a result of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, our sins have been forgiven; our lawless acts are remembered no more and therefore ‘we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body.’ (Heb 10:19-20) Every week when we take Communion and we remember the new covenant instituted at Calvary, we celebrate this new and better way; we celebrate the fact that God’s arms are wide open and we can come boldly before the very throne of God.
New Creativity
The God of creation continues to create and plants creativity within all of us, giving us a new song to sing (Ps 98:1, Ps 144:9, Rev 5:9, Rev 14:3) and letting us pour new wine into new wineskins (Mark 2:22) We have to be willing to embrace new things and not remain rooted in the past.
New Thinking
We are to be ‘made new in the attitude of our minds’ (Eph 4:23-24), allowing God to transform and renew our thinking (Rom 12:2). Transformation in our behaviour comes as our attitudes are changed and we allow God’s love to motivate us. God wants us to be continually renewed and to filter our thinking, our actions, our being and doing through love. In photography, colour filters can be used to change how a picture looks: the use of a yellow filter results in a slight boost to contrast, and is particularly effective in portraiture as it covers up blemishes whereas orange filters offer a medium contrast, and so are suited for capturing landscapes where clouds or other brighter details needs a little enhancement against darker details, while red filters provide the strongest effects and so are often used for dramatic landscapes or even for architecture.
The filter we need to have on our thinking is God’s love. ‘What would Jesus do? How does God see this person? What does God say about this situation?’ These are the questions we need to be applying to our thinking and actions so that we truly are acting in love rather than reacting in anger, fear or panic.
New Name
Ultimately, those who are victorious in God will be given a new name. (Rev 2:17) That new name embodies all that God is doing in making us new creations; as Rend Collective sing, ‘Create in me a work of art… ‘cause You’re not finished with me yet.’ (‘Create In Me’, Rend Collective) We may not be able to see that finished product yet, but when we are face to face with God, He will give us a new name, a name that combines His divine pleasure in us as well as capturing the whole essence not only of who we are but who we were created to be.
New Heavens & A New Earth
God is also busy preparing new heavens and a new earth, prophesied about in Isaiah 65:17 and seen in Rev 21:1-2. We live in a sin-stained world and long for what God is preparingfor us. C. S. Lewis captures something of the joy which will be ours one day in his final Narnia book, ‘The Last Battle’: “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now…Come further up, come further in!” There is so much to look forward to in God!