AM I A NEW CREATURE?
“If any man be in Christ,” says the Apostle, “he is a new creature.” In the first part of this sentence it is more than intimated, that some men are not in Christ, are not true Christians. Such was the fact in the days of the Apostle; such it is now. There still are enemies to the cross of Christ. There still are open opposers, decent objectors, and multitudes thoroughly indifferent to Christ and heaven, the soul and eternity. We see them all around us. The world is full of them. In the straight and narrow path that leadeth heavenward, only infrequent prints of the feet of travellers are to be seen; while the broad road is thronged by an unnumbered multitude, regardless whence they came, and whither they are going.
The few who have chosen to desert their companions in folly and sin, and become Christian pilgrims, in search of a heavenly city, are called by the Apostle “new creatures.” This, and other language of similar import, the sacred writers frequently employ, to describe a regenerate state, a transformation from the complete dominion of sin to the dominion of holiness. Every truly converted soul is turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. This is no eastern allegory, no oriental fiction, no dream of a disordered fancy, but the simple statement of a tremendously important fact—a fact, which, whether regarded or not, takes fast hold on the interests of the soul, and the destinies of eternity.
The new birth, the new creation in Christ Jesus, regeneration, &c. are words of strange and unimaginable import to many minds. And well they may be. These persons know little about them, and what little they suppose they know, is often any thing but truth. They may talk but they do not understand. They may fancy, but fancy and fact are seldom at one.
Notwithstanding the mystery which, in the view of many, hangs over this subject, to the honest and humble mind it may be simplified and rendered intelligible; and this is what I shall now attempt.
The new creation produces no change in any of our bodily or mental faculties. The subject of it sees with the same eyes, hears with the same ears, and labours with the same hands, which he had before. Neither is the sight of his literal eye, nor the hearing of his ear, nor the vigour of his hand strengthened. The same also may be said as to any change of his mental faculties. No person, by becoming spiritually a new creature, receives a new understanding, or a new imagination, or a new memory, conscience, or faculty of choice. His mental faculties may indeed be invigorated, through the influence of the Spirit, and by a proper use; still, they are not essentially changed.—In what, then, does the great change of which we are speaking consist? In what respects is the subject of it a new creature?
Man, in the full extent of his capacities and affections, possesses something more than mere organs by which to look abroad upon the earth, and hear the voice of his fellow man, and procure subsistence for his perishing body. He is something more than a mental being, who can recollect, and reason, and imagine. He can wish as well as see; desire as well as hear; love as well as recollect; hate as well as reason; choose and refuse as well as imagine. The existence of powers and faculties, corporeal and mental, is comparatively a small matter. How are they employed—is the great question. How does a man feel? What are his affections? What are his principles? What is his practice? These are questions which go deep into the soul, and discover what a man is, in the sight of Him who looketh on the heart, and cannot be deceived.
I say, then, with reference to the point before us, that the truly regenerate soul has a new object of supreme affection.
Formerly self was first and last with him. Morning, noon, and night,—in youth and manhood, and declining years,—at home, and abroad, in the church and in the field, seeking property or bestowing it on the destitute, in health and in sickness, in life and in death, the unregenerate heart pours forth its highest affections upon self. If it looks upward to God and abroad to his kingdom, these are regarded as secondary objects. He cannot think complacently of God, as ruling for himself, for the display of his perfections, for the manifestation of his character, and as making the impenitent sinner illustrate that character throughout the universe and through eternity. Such thoughts, if they force themselves into his mind, are unwelcome intruders, and are banished, as you would drive from your house a suspected guest, who you feared would rob you of your treasures, and deprive you of life. Just so it is with self. Whatever it suspects as inimical to its little, paltry ends, it eyes with suspicion and fixed hostility, and opposes with all the vigour that sin and Satan can impart. God, his character, his government, his perfections, his will,—these are objects that cross the path and thwart the purposes of self. Both cannot be first. ‘Ye will love the one and hate the other.’ This is the irreversible law of man’s moral nature.—The selfish person may for a time be ignorant of his selfishness, and may think himself actuated by noble, generous, disinterested views; but even when the wrappers are taken off, and his true character is revealed, still, he will continue to love himself. Still, he will dread and hate the holy character and government of Jehovah.
But he is a new creature. That Divine character, once so hateful, is now lovely; that government once so dreaded, is seen to be established in wisdom and goodness; while those perfections, once odious, break forth and beam out with a heavenly splendour, the source of joy and of unfailing confidence to all holy beings. ‘Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let thy glory be above all the earth.’—Truly this is a great and wonderful change. ‘Old things have passed away; all things have become new.’ The principle, which ran through and actuated the whole man—the entire mass of his moral nature, has been changed, renewed, supplanted. A new and hitherto unknown principle has entered the heart, from which the former occupant has fled abashed. The ground, formerly overgrown with the weeds and tares of selfishness, now brings forth, under divine culture, the fruits of holiness,—one of the first of which is supreme love to God, itself the seed, the germinant principle, the proof, the pledge, of all the rest.—It may be said then with perfect truth, that when a man becomes a Christian, he has a new God,—a new object of supreme regard, affection, and veneration. Self formerly occupied the throne; but self is now upon the footstool and in the dust that covers it, while God, his Maker, Redeemer, and Judge, is enthroned in his rightful supremacy.
The regenerate man is a new creature, because he has a new rule of duty.
Formerly his own inclination, his own will, provided there was no outward impediment which prevented, directed his actions. Who does not wish to gratify his own desires? Who would not do it if he could?
But here is a new creature. The first question the new born soul puts forth, is that of Saul, ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’ The will of another being, a being invisible to human eye, impalpable to human touch, whose literal voice no man hears, is now the rule of duty to the new creature. The law of God takes the place of man’s desires, wishes, and propensities. He who formerly took council of his own selfish heart, now yields to the revealed word; he who once sought to please himself, now seeks to obey his heavenly Master; he who followed his own headlong propensities, now holds them in check, while he consults the lively and life-giving oracles of truth. And these utter no uncertain, ambiguous responses, but plainly point out the path of duty, which, to the regenerate man, is the path of peace.
The unregenerate man, on becoming a true Christian, exhibits a marked novelty, a noticeable transformation of character, in the trait here specified. He puts aside his old rules of duty, whether they were his own will, or supposed advantage, or the maxims of the world; and, in place of them, adopts God’s law as the standard by which to estimate his character, mould his affections, and regulate his conduct. This is a great change, very great; greater far than most people imagine.—Reader, Do you know what it implies? Are you ready to adopt the will of God as your rule of duty? You must do it, or you can never be a new creature. Heaven and hell turn on this pivot. Let God’s will govern; and holiness, heaven, peace in life, triumph in death, and joys, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, are yours. Follow your own will, in opposition to that of God, and you shut yourself out from Heaven, cut yourself off from all holy affections, and poison the fountains of life in your soul. You deprive yourself of all certain present peace, plant thorns in your dying pillow, and make the final Judge your eternal enemy, murder hope, and shut yourself up in the prison of despair.
What can be more proper than that a creature of yesterday and liable to err, should look up to his Creator, who is from eternity to eternity, and who cannot err, for instruction and guidance? Would it be proper that children scarcely out of the cradle, should follow their short-sighted and perverse whims, rather than the kind and wise commands of their experienced parents? Your child has lived three years. You have lived thirty. Surely it is proper that the child of three should be directed by the parent of thirty years. And is there no propriety that the creature of thirty should be directed by the all wise and eternal Creator? The simple statement of the subject carries home conviction to every mind with irresistible force.
Another distinctive trait of the new creature is, new views of man’s native character.
The moral, reputable, but impenitent man, may, by reading, by observation and reflection, become convinced that something is wrong about man—very wrong. He may see that unhesitating truth, and fearless honesty, and straight forward integrity are but seldom to be met with. He may know that pride, and vanity, and jealousy, and envy, and suspicion, and anger, weave a large portion of the web of human life. He may call falsehood contemptible, and intemperance beastly. He may acknowledge that laws are necessary to intimidate, that judges and courts are required to convict, and that prisons and penitentiaries are indispensable to confine the thief and the robber. All this presents to his mind a dark picture of human life and character. But then he contemplates another part of the picture, and finds some relief. He sees the kindlier sympathies of our nature discovering themselves in various forms. He sees conjugal, parental and filial affection warm and vigorous in many bosoms, and the sight is pleasing. But he does not see that the father and mother and child may all be supremely selfish, while exhibiting the generous natural affections. He does not see, at least he is not apt to see, that all these and similar principles of human conduct come under that description of which the Saviour said, ‘Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.’ There is no holiness in them. They do not spring from holiness; they do not produce holiness. Who thinks when he sees the red-breast bearing in its bill food for its young, that the bird is holy? Yet has it not affection for its young? Is not the sight pleasant? Others must have different feelings from mine, if it be not so. Often have I watched the efforts and parental solicitude of the warblers of the woods, and admired the wisdom of the God of nature, who feedeth the young ravens when they cry. Is the fond mother, rocking her sleeping infant, and smiling as it smiles, therefore holy? Is her love to her child necessarily connected with love to God, and with penitence for her sins? There are those that tell us that these natural and kindly affections, of which, (were we destitute,) we should be below the very brutes, are proof and exhibition of holiness! ‘Blind leaders of the blind!’
But here is a new creature. He sees, that the most amiable unrenewed men, in all their moral, accountable exercises, are sinful, only sinful, and sinful without any mixture of holiness. Once he did not believe this. It was a harsh and uncomfortable view of the human character and condition. Or if he did believe it, as a doctrine too plainly revealed to be doubted, still it was a bare intellectual assent to a repulsive dogma of revelation. But now it comes home to his bosom, as a truth of awful, personal import. ‘I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
Truly, here is a great change. He who exalted now abases; he who excused now convicts; he who justified now condemns, himself. He who rose in opposition to God’s laws, now rejoices to submit to them. He who raised objections, sought out difficulties, and uttered complaints of injustice and partiality, now ascribes righteousness to his Maker, and takes shame to himself. He sees, realizes, and feels through his whole soul, that the only difficulty was in an impenitent, selfish, unhumbled, unholy heart, that, knowing its Lord’s will, would not do it. The truly regenerate man knows, by an evidence of consciousness and personal feeling equal to demonstration, that the natural heart is enmity to God. He has felt this enmity in his own heart, and he knows that, as in a glass face answereth to face, so does the heart of man to man.
The new creature has a new foundation for his hope of acceptance with God.
Formerly he was as good as his neighbours. He was no hypocrite. He did not make any great pretensions to religion, it is true, but he was honest in his dealings, kind to the poor, and ready to do what he could to relieve the suffering and deliver the oppressed. Or if his circumstances did not admit of his really doing this, he was disposed to do it. Had he possessed the means, he certainly should have done it; and he who looketh on the heart and requires only according to what a man hath, will readily take the will for the deed.—Some make a great merit of their sobriety. They are not intemperate, not dishonest, not profane, respect the Sabbath, read their Bibles, have read them for a long time, attend meeting regularly:—surely, putting all this together, their characters must stand fair, and their hopes be good.
But here is a new creature. He no longer compares himself with his neighbour. He examines himself by the law of God, and he cries ‘Woe is me, for I am undone; I have broken God’s holy laws, and there is no health, no strength, no soundness in me. I am guilty. I am ruined.’ His honesty, integrity, and kindness, his attention to the means of grace, his attendance in the sanctuary, his reading of God’s word, all his feelings and actions are now seen to be defiled. He can no longer look to them for hope. He turns away from these refuges of lies, and flies to the hope set before him in the gospel. He no longer balances his good deeds against his defective ones. He no longer attempts to number his benevolent actions and weigh his holy desires. He feels that he never did a good deed, not one; that he never performed a benevolent action, not one; that he never entertained a right feeling, not one. In the light which heaven pours down upon his book of debt and credit, which he has been keeping so long, astonished he perceives, that the sum total of his life stands against him in characters black with sin. He despairs of all hope from himself. His own fancied merit, the idol so long worshipped, now is a burden of sin that would sink him to perdition, were there not outstretched a divine arm to rescue him from impending ruin, and raise him to hope and peace. He turns, self-loathing, to the cross of Christ, and sees that thereon only can a sinner like him hang his hope of forgiveness and heaven. It is the blood of Christ, applied to his accusing conscience, that alone can calm his agitation, and speak peace to his troubled soul.
Here, then, is a great change. Every thing else is renounced as a ground of hope before God, but Christ and his cross. Truly, the regenerate man is a new creature. He has a new Saviour. Jesus, formerly a despised Nazarene, deserving none of his confidence or love, is now his Lord and his God. ‘Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.’
Reader, is it so with you? Is self, or God, your object of supreme love? Is your own will, or the will of God, your rule of duty? Do you think yourself commendable or abominable in the sight of God? Do you trust to your own merit for salvation, or do you see and deeply feel, that it is only by repentance for sin, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that any can be saved?
THE END.