A New Creation By Grace

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

MANY of us have a shady background or a "dark past" as they will like to call it. We all have something in our yesterdays that we are definitely not proud of. How does this affect our first step in reconciling with God?

First thing that we need to establish is the truth that God stands outside time. This means that He sees everything from the beginning to the end. However, this does not mean that He influenced people to become what they have become. God has instituted human freewill and since then, He has been a Great Respecter of that, to the point that even salvation can only come to us by freewill.

Since God stands outside time, He probably knows us better than we know ourselves. For sure, He knows about that past that we are so ashamed of. He knows about every bad thought, bad move, and bad words that had come out of us. Herein lies the Great Love: despite knowing all these things, He still came and died for us.

The bottom line is: God knows about our past and has provided the Way out of it and become a new person. God does not rejoice in punishing us. He delights in extending grace and mercy toward us. Hence, the cross! 

The cross of Jesus Christ will be an eternal testament of a perfectly righteous Holy God making the Way to save us, sinful and wicked humanity. This testament will forever echo in the walls of eternity and will be the imperishable monument of that Great Love with which He loved us.

And the moment we, sinners, accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, God imputes His Son's righteousness to us. This means that God sees you the way He sees His Son. That's unbelievable! Yet that's exactly how it is today. 

His Son did no wrong, while we did not do anything right. His Son did not commit any sin, whereas we sin everyday in our lives. His Son obeyed Him perfectly, while we barely obey our parents. Yet, it was His Son who was nailed at the cross, not us! It was His Son who suffered and died, not us! Therefore, God was so satisfied with what Jesus did that after He raised Him from the dead, He made Him our Great High Priest and have become our representative to the Father. 

Today, God does not look at our righteousness so He could bless us. He looks at the Man at His right hand and what He has done, then turns to us to bless us. Jesus worked and accomplished, and we, His people, get to enjoy the benefits of what He has finished. This is why Christianity is not spelled as 'DO'. It is correctly spelled as 'DONE'. We completely rest and depend on what Christ has done.

Well, one may ask: "How about those criminals who have murdered, raped, robbed, and cheated? If they come to Christ and be a new creation, what about their crimes and all that? Will all those be forgotten?"

These people who have committed crimes will definitely be liable to the law of men. For sure, justice will have to be served. Whichever way they have offended, they must be punished in accordance to the existing laws of the land. After all, a nation's government is established by God to safeguard His people while they are here on earth.

However, just because these criminals are convicted in the eyes of men does not mean they will remain guilty in the eyes of God forever. As His Word declares "if ANYONE is in Christ", this word 'anyone' is inclusive of all sorts of people from different backgrounds, including the very people who nailed Jesus at the cross!

We do not condone sins. We do not make light of criminal offenses. We are irrevocably and strongly against it. However, the Word of God declares in Isaiah 1:18:

"Come now, and let us reason together,”

Says the Lord,

“Though your sins are like scarlet,

They shall be as white as snow;

Though they are red like crimson,

They shall be as wool.".

Criminals may be convicted and punished here on earth as penalties for the crimes they have committed. Yet, if they accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, they are forgiven in the eyes of God.

This is outside human logic. Human reasoning will never be able to completely understand the richness of God's mercy. We will never fully understand how a terrorist against the church would one day become the greatest apostle of all time (Paul). We will never know how a foul-mouthed fisherman would one day stand up and proclaim about the Man he once denied 3 times (Peter). And we will never understand how a king who plotted the murder of his own friend just to steal his wife, gets to be the greatest king of Israel (David).

We are too small to understand grace and we are too short to fathom mercy. Our hands are too small to handle grace and our heads are too minuscule to comprehend mercy. Yet, grace and mercy are the very essence of Jesus Christ. He is grace and mercy personified. If He chooses to extend His grace and mercy to these criminals, who are we to object?

The truth is, we are as sinner as those criminals. It may sound rude but in the eyes of God, a sinner is a sinner, regardless of how big or small the sin is. The 'minor sinner' needs salvation in as much as the 'major sinner' does and vice versa. We are all sinners. We are all dead and spiritually cut off from God. That is why we need resurrection life that comes from the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Unless we are spiritually born again, we will never make it to heaven.

God would not have been unrighteous if He decided to send all of us to the grave. We are sinners and we deserve that. But instead of sending us to the grave, He sent grace in the person of Jesus Christ. Our only part is to receive it, and once we receive it, this grace changes us from within and transform us into the same image of Jesus Christ.