Introduction

 My Deepening and Widening Rivers

 

My story, “How I Know From Experience That God Is Real” is like rafting on a long and winding river, starting with my conversion to Christ in 1971.  One definition of “outlet” applies to this rafting metaphor for my life:  “The mouth of a river where it flows into a larger body of water.”  I think of my first twenty years in Chicago, before I met Christ in 1971, as rafting down the Chicago River until, with my conversion to Christ in 1971, the Chicago River flowed into the larger Illinois River.   My 1971 commitment to Christ definitely thrust me into a deeper and wider river for the next 28 years, similar to the famous song,  “Deep and wide, deep and wide, there’s a fountain flowing deep and wide…” During 1971-1999, in this metaphor, I rafted down the Illinois River until it eventually flowed into America’s widest and deepest river, the Mississippi River. For me, my 1999 experience of life-changing insight into Ephesians 2:15, the 14th and last chapter of “My Story,” was the transition from rafting the Illinois River to rafting the massive Mississippi River. This is where I was introduced to this blog’s topic, The New Creation in Christ, early one morning in mid-August of 1999.  I was meditating on recently memorized Bible verses, Ephesians 2:15-16.  In the preceding verses, Ephesians 2:11-14, the apostle Paul had written about barriers separating God’s Old Testament people (the Jews) from non-Jews (called Gentiles).  Speaking of why the Son of God left heaven and took on human flesh, in the context of the barriers separating Jews and non-Jews (the Gentiles), the Apostle Paul wrote: “His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity (in the original Greek language, literally “mankind” or “human race”) out of the two (Jews and Gentiles), thus making peace (Ephesians 2:15), and in this one body to to reconcile both of them to God through the Cross.” (Ephesians 2:16, NIV Bible)

Through an unexpected insight into Ephesians 2:15 that morning in mid-August of 1999, I realized for the first time that sinless Jesus Christ, God the Son through whom this universe was created  (John 1:3: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” NIV Bible), had centuries later mysteriously “merged” with the highest life form he had created in this universe—humanity–starting a new, second human race with himself, as its first member and head.  He (Jesus Christ, the God-man) was the beginning of the New Testament/New Covenant people of God, replacing the Old Testament/Old Covenant people of God, the Jews.  Jews and non-Jews were thus put on equal footing with each other, regarding who gets to be called the people of God, “thus making peace.”  Both groups (Jews and Gentiles) had been in horizontal conflict with each other (Ephesians 2:12-15), regarding who the true people of God were (see, for example, John 4:22).  The insight I received in 1999 was that this horizontal conflict was eliminated at the moment of Jesus’s conception in the womb of his mother Mary–the moment of conception of the new Covenant people of God in the person of its first member and head, Jesus Christ.  I also received the insight from Ephesians 2:16, that beyond their horizontal conflict with each other, Jews and Gentiles had each been in vertical conflict with God, also, because of their resistance to his authority over them–their sins that had separated them from God (Isaiah 59:2).  At the end of his sinless life on earth, Jesus removed the sin that vertically separated both groups (Jews and Gentiles) from God, by dying for their sins (Ephesians 2:16)—taking the punishment they deserve upon himself.  So Jesus eliminated the horizontal conflict between Jews and Gentiles by his life (from the moment of his conception) as the first member of the new humanity, and he eliminated their vertical conflict with God by his death the cross.

I was shocked by this insight that 1999 morning, and that same day I heard him say to me, “You should research the Incarnation of Christ.” I then sensed I was being given an assignment by God to research this topic.  I have done that for 22 years now, since 1999, through four topics of insight in this chronological order:

  1. The New Humanity: the New Testament/New Covenant people of God “in Christ” (under the headship of Christ). Jesus Christ, God the Son, became the first member and therefore the head of this New Humanity when he took on human flesh in the womb of his mother Mary.
  2. The New Creation: A new human race, beginning with Jesus’ conception as a human being in his mother Mary’s womb, the new creation has continued with Jesus’ birth, life, death on the cross, resurrection and relocation/ascension back to heaven (Acts 1:9) where he is now at the right hand of God the Father as the God-man and head of the New Testament people of God.  Jesus will remain there until his Second Coming to earth in the future. One thousand years after his second coming to this earth and his reigning on it with his New Testament people (Revelation 20), this universe becomes “the new heavens and the new earth” (Isaiah 65 and Revelation 21, Romans 8:19-22), that Jesus is now preparing as our future, eternal home (John 14:3).  The New Creation has been expanding beyond Jesus, since his ascension back to the right hand of God the Father, to all his followers who, because of their faith in him, themselves became “new creations in Christ”:  “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has gone, the new has come!”  (2 Corinthians 5:17). 
  3. The New Self: God’s presence on earth has expanded from a single location (the Temple in Old Testament Jerusalem) to billions of locations–the hearts of every follower of Christ in this world–such that God now lives inside every believer in Christ, throughout our world (1 Corinthians 6:29). Thus, every believer now has two “selves”—the “old self” (the sinful old human nature, under the headship of the first human created in Genesis 1:26, named Adam), and the “new self” (the sinless new human nature under the headship of Christ, the first member and head of the second, new humanity. See Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:5-12, 1 Corinthians 15:45-49.)
  4. The New Heaven: The future changed location of God’s throne in the future New Jerusalem on the future New Earth (Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21:1-22:5), where God’s New Testament people (the New Humanity) will live forever in resurrected bodies.

In this blog, we will consider the fabulous benefits of the merger of God the Son, Jesus, with his creation started in Genesis 1, about 4,000 years before Jesus himself was born as a new creatin being, for God’s New Testament people, the new humanity in Christ.

First, foundational to this blog, is my story of how God made himself real to me in my experience, from 1971 to 1999, as I rafted down the Illinois River after committing my life to Christ at age 20, before revealing to me from Ephesians 2:15, in 1999, that Jesus Christ, God the Creator who merged with the humanity he had previously created about 4,000 thousands years earlier, is himself stage one of the fabulous New Creation which reconciled Jews and Gentiles horizontally by creating a new people of God:  “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.” (Galatians 6:16) “

Welcome to my story of rafting down the Illinois River (“My Story:  How I Know From Experience That God is Real”) before my New Creation blog articles take you rafting with me on deeper and wider Mississippi River!