“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?