New Jerusalem is New with God’s Newness (2)
New Jerusalem is new because it is of God, in God, and God is wrought into it.
God is newness and newness is God. Oldness is of the old creation, the old I, the old you. When you have God, however, you have the newness. You become new and you become newness. All the new items in the New Testament such as the new heart, the new mind, the new man, and the new creation are new because God has been wrought into these items.*
Ezekiel 36:25 is a prophecy of God’s cleansing His people. This is the base for verses 26-27, “I will also give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you….And I will put My Spirit within you.” We have this new spirit and new heart because God the Spirit has come into us and remains within us.
We are also part of the new man created by Christ on the cross and “in Himself” (Eph. 2:15). In addition 2 Corinthians 5:17 proclaims that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Our newness is not determined by outward actions but “a new creation is what matters” and we should have our walk, our living, in this new creation (Gal. 6:15-16).
In Christ, or not in Christ, is the determining factor. The whole new creation does not appear until Revelation 21:1 but in Christ we are already in the new creation. This is the present foretaste of the newness of New Jerusalem.
* From chapter 27, Witness Lee, God’s New Testament Economy, published by Living Stream Ministry, © Witness Lee, 1986.
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Posted by Don on October 28, 2022
