Once we really understand what God is seeking, namely, something altogether new for Himself, then we see clearly that we can never bring any contribution from the old realm into that new thing. God wanted to have us for Himself, but He could not bring us as we were into that which His Love purposed. He first did away with us by the Cross of Christ, and then by resurrection provided a new life for us.
" If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new " (2 Cor. 5.17).
Being now new creatures with a new nature, we can enter the kingdom by
this new and living way. The Cross ends the old things by setting aside
altogether our 'old man', and the resurrection imparts to us all that is
necessary for our life in that new realm.
" We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life " (Rom. 6.4).
We have now two worlds before us, the old and the new. You may be a good man in the old creation, but as long as you belong to the old you are under sentence of death, because nothing of the old can go over to the new. The Cross is God's declaration that nothing of the first Adam can pass into eternity. God made, a proclamation throughout the universe saying: 'Through the Cross I have set aside all that is not of Me. The Way back to the Heart of the Father is through the resurrection life of His Son Jesus.
" We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life " (Rom. 6.4).
We have now two worlds before us, the old and the new. You may be a good man in the old creation, but as long as you belong to the old you are under sentence of death, because nothing of the old can go over to the new. The Cross is God's declaration that nothing of the first Adam can pass into eternity. God made, a proclamation throughout the universe saying: 'Through the Cross I have set aside all that is not of Me. The Way back to the Heart of the Father is through the resurrection life of His Son Jesus.
