For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God. (Galatians 6:12-16 NKJV)
And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." (Revelation 21:5 RSVA)
If you are in Christ, your involvement with God goes far beyond "becoming a Christian" or "joining a church." You are called to be a new creation. Regardless of color, gender or race, you have been begotten of the Father into one new humanity that is other worldly in nature-old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. If you are in Christ you have been divinely baptized into one body by one Spirit. That body is not governed by man's laws of organization, but by the life and nature of the One who created it. Your hope of righteousness does not rest in personal piety but in the divine nature that has been placed within you. You owe everything you are and everything you ever will be to your Creator. You are His ongoing workmanship. He who began the work in you will finish it to the praise of His glory.
Referring to this New Covenant, the New Testament speaks of a new genesis, a new birth, a new Adam, a new humanity, a new Israel, a new circumcision, a New Jerusalem and more. Such is the heavenly environment you are called and empowered to live in.
God's old covenant with natural Israel was sealed by circumcision in the flesh, which was a sign of a more efficacious circumcision to come. In the old history, natural Jerusalem entered into bondage with all her children. In the new history the Jerusalem that is above is free. She is the mother of us all (Galatians 4:26). The old covenant ended with the destruction of the Jerusalem temple (Hebrews 8:13), but the new history ends with the New Jerusalem, coming down from above.
The old humanity in Adam, the earthly man, passed away at the cross. The history of the heavenly Man began when Christ, the Last Adam, rose from the dead. Everything is now heavenly. The new creation, the New Jerusalem, the Zion of God, and our very existence are in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Our citizenship is in heaven, ". . . we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Corinthians 5:1). According to the book of Hebrews, we have already come to the heavenly Jerusalem and to the heavenly assembly, the church of the firstborn (Hebrews 12: 22-24). In this new covenant, circumcision is made without hands (Colossians 2:11) and is of the heart in the Spirit (Romans 2:29), not the flesh.
It is our earnest prayer that as you read the following pages, the Holy Spirit will make the death of the old humanity in Adam a fact in your life, and that you will be empowered in Christ as never before. We pray that the realities of the new creation will become your guiding rule of life.
