New and Being Renewed for New Jerusalem

In Revelation 21:1-2, John tells us, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth….And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem.” Both the creation and the city are new. We are looking at an article in the Christian journal Affirmation & Critique*. It states,

The new creation is new because God has been wrought into it; the New Jerusalem is new because it is full of God. In order to be part of the New Jerusalem—the new creation of God and for God—the believers in Christ need to be thoroughly and absolutely renewed (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23). Since Christ Himself is the realm of newness, the New Jerusalem will be the ultimate consummation of Christ as the realm of newness and as newness itself.

Christ is the realm of newness and because of this, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). To get into Christ by believing is to have a positional change from the old creation to the new creation.

After this beginning, we still need an ongoing, inward, experiential renewing. This dispositional change is presented to us in Romans 12:2, “be transformed by the renewing of the mind” and Ephesians 4:23, “be renewed in the spirit of your mind.”

In the daily process of renewing (2 Cor. 4:16), God’s element of newness is added into our being to replace and discharge our old element, as the renewing Spirit (Titus 3:5) imparts the divine newness into our being to make us a new creation with the divine life and nature. Through this process of renewing, we are transferred from the realm of the old creation into the realm of the new creation to become the New Jerusalem (Col. 3:10; Rev. 21:2).

First we believe into Christ to become the new creation in Him. Then the Spirit works within us throughout our Christian life to renew our whole being, including inward attitudes and outward living. This produces an organic transfer in us which brings us fully into the new creation for New Jerusalem.

* Affirmation & Critique (A&C) is a Christian Journal published twice a year, © Living Stream Ministry. A&C presents Bible truths in a scholarly manner, with references to and citations from a variety of publications over the entire Christian era. A&C exhibits much appreciation for the person and work of Jesus Christ and our life with Him. This group of posts has short extracts from the article The New Jerusalem—the Consummation of the Divine Economy according to the High Peak of the Divine Revelation by Ron Kangas in the Fall 2010 issue.

Posted by Don on October 30, 2015

https://newjerusalem12.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/new-and-being-renewed-for-new-jerusalem/