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SUBJECT: 18 REV 21:15 A New Creation
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A New Creation
by
C. H. SPURGEON
1834-1892
"He that sat upon the throne said, Behold I make all things new."--
Rev_21:5.
Men generally venerate antiquity. It were hard to say which has the
stronger power over the human mind--antiquity or novelty. While men
will frequently dote upon the old, they are most easily dazzled by the new.
Anything new has at least one attraction. Restless spirits consider that the
new must be better than the old. Though often disappointed, they are still
ready to be caught by the same bait, and, like the Athenians of Mars Hill,
spend their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new
thing. And as for ourselves, dear friends, mournfully as we sometimes
think of the flight of time, we are wont cheerfully to look out upon the
new epochs as they begin to dawn upon us. If our calendar suggests some
dismal memories in the past, our calculation forestalls some happier
prospects in the future. And it will sometimes happen that we leave so
much anxiety, adversity, and chastisement behind us, that it is a relief to
hope that the tide has turned, and that a course of comfort, prosperity, and
mercy lies before us. One weeps over the past and the lost. I suppose the
best of men must do so at times. I am sure those of us who are not the
best, feel often constrained to pour out some such a lamentation as this:--
"Much of our time has run to waste;
Our sins, how great the sum!
Lord, give us pardon for the past,
And strength for days to come."
I do not know but it is sometimes as well, when one has been plunged in
sorrow, or feels ashamed of his past life--after having regretted that which
is bygone and repented of it, and sorrowed over it--to feel as if he breathed
another atmosphere, and had started on a fresh career. Having thrown
away the old sword, he is now about to see what he can do with the new:
having put off an old garment, he is desirous to walk more worthily of his
vocation with fresh ones that are provided for him. Perhaps the thought of
freshness, the fact of new time having dawned on our path, may be a little
help to those of us who are dull and heavy, and we may be stirred up to
action, or, if not to action, it may awaken earnest hope that the infusion of
a new start into our lives, new vigour instead of the old lethargy, new love
instead of the old lukewarmness, new zeal instead of the old
deathlikeness; new, pertinacious, persevering industry for Christ, instead
of the old idleness, may result. God grant that it may be so!
Looking at the text in this light, I think it speaks to everyone here present-
-Would you begin anew, lo, there is one who can help you to do so! From
the throne where sits the once crucified but now glorified Saviour, there
comes a whisper of hope to each and every soul who would be made new,
and would begin life anew. "Behold I make all things new." In trying to
bring out the thoughts contained in this exclamation from the throne,
from the Emperor of the Universe, from the court of the King of Kings,
we shall first speak, very briefly, of the new creation; secondly, we should
bid you adore the great Regenerator; and, in the third place, we shall ask
you to behold with attention the fact before you, with a view of receiving
benefit from it. Observe the text speaks of:--
I. A New Creation.
"I make." That is a divine word. "I make all things." That, also, is divine.
"I make all things new." This our Lord Jesus Christ has done upon the
greatest scale. We must view his purpose. It is the purpose and intention
of the Lord Jesus to make this world entirely new. You recollect how it
was made at first--pure and perfect. It sang with its sister-spheres the song
of joy and reverence. It was a fair world, full of everything that was
lovely, beautiful, happy, holy. And if we might be permitted to dream for
a moment of what it would have been if it had continued as God created
it, one might fancy what a blessed world it would be at this moment. Had
it possessed a teeming population like its present one, and if, one by one,
those godly ones had been caught away, like Elijah, without knowing
death, to be succeeded by pious descendants--oh! what a blessed world it
would have been! A world where every man would have been a priest, and
every house a temple, and every garment a vestment, and every meal a
sacrifice, and every place holiness to the Lord, for the tabernacle of God
would have been among them, and God himself would have dwelt among
them! What songs would have hailed the rising of the sun--the birds of
paradise carolling on every hill and in every dale their Maker's praise!
What songs would have ushered in the stillness of the night! Ay, and
angels, hovering over this fair world, would oft have heard the strain of
joy breaking the silence of midnight, as glad and pure hearts beheld the
eyes of the Creator beaming down upon them from the stars which stud
the vault of heaven. But there came a serpent, and his craft spoiled it all.
He whispered into the ears of a mother Eve; she fell, and we fell with her,
and what a world this now is! If a man walks about in it with his eyes
open, he will see it to be a horrible sphere. I do not mean that its rivers,
its lakes, its valleys, its mountains are repulsive. Nay, it is a world fit
for angels, naturally; but it is a horrible world morally. As I walked the
other day down the streets of Paris, and saw the soldiers with their pretty
dresses, and the knives and forks which they carried with them to carve
men and make a meal for death, I could not help thinking--this is a pretty
world, this is. Only let one man lift his finger, and a hundred thousand
men are ready to meet a hundred thousand other men, all intent upon
doing--what? Why, upon cutting each other's throats, upon tearing out
each other's bleeding hearts, and wading up to their knees in each other's
gore, till the ditches be full of blood, horses and men all mingled, and left
to be food for dogs and for carrion crows. And then the victors on either
side in the fray, return, and beat the drums, and sound the trumpets, and
say, "Glory! glory! see what we have done." Devils could not be worse
than men when their passions are let loose. Dogs would scarce tear each
other as men do. Men of intellect sit down, and put their fingers to their
foreheads, racking their brains to find out new ways of using gunpowder,
and shot, and shell, so as to be able to blow twenty thousand souls into
eternity as easily as twenty might be massacred by present appliances.
And he is considered a clever man, a patriot, a benefactor of his own
nation, who, by dint of genius, can discover some new way of destroying
his fellow creatures. Oh! it is a horrible world, appalling to think of.
When God looks at it, I wonder he does not stamp it out, just as you and I
do a spark of coal that flies upon our carpet from the fire. It is a dreadful
world. But Jesus Christ, who knew that we should never make this world
much better, let us do what we would with it, designed from the very first
to make a new world of it. Truly, truly, this seems to me to be a glorious
purpose. To make a world is something wonderful, but to make a world
new is something more wonderful still. When God spake and said, "Let
there be light," it was a fiat which showed him to be divine. Yet there was
nothing then to resist his will; he had no opponent; he could build as he
pleased, and there was none to pluck down. But when Jesus Christ comes
to make a new world, there is everything opposed to him. When he saith,
"Let there be light," darkness saith, "There shall not be light." When he
says, "Let there be order," chaos says, "Nay, I will maintain confusion."
When he says, "Let there be holiness, let there be love, let there be truth,"
the principalities and powers of evil withstand him, and say, "There shall
not be holiness, there shall be sin; there shall not be love, there shall be
hate; there shall not be truth, there shall be error; there shall not be the
worship of God, there shall be the worship of stocks and stones; men shall
bow down before idols which their own hands have made." And yet, for
all that, Jesus Christ, coming in the form of a man, revealing himself as
the Son of God, determines to make all things new; and be assured,
brethren and sisters, he will do it. What though he pleases to take his
time, and to use humble instrumentalities to effect his purposes, yet do it
he will. The day shall come when this world shall be as fair as it was at
the primeval Sabbath; when there shall be a new heaven and a new earth,
wherein shall dwell righteousness. The ancient prophecy shall be fulfilled
to the letter. God shall dwell among men, peace shall be domiciled on
earth, and glory shall be ascribed to God in the highest. This great work
of Christ, this grand design of making this old world into a new one, shall
be carried into effect.
In order to accomplish this, it hath come to pass that Christ has made for
us a new covenant. The old covenant was, "Do this and live." That
covenant was a sentence of death upon us all. We could not do, therefore
we could not live, and so we died. The new covenant has nothing in it
contingent upon creature doing, but it bases all its provisions upon Christ
having done the world. "I will, and you shall," this is the language of the
new covenant. The covenant of law, in which we were weak through the
flesh, left us mangled and broken. The covenant of grace reveals God's
kindness towards us, and our part thereof has been fulfilled for us by our
surety, Christ Jesus. Thus it runs, "Their sins and their iniquities will I
remember no more for ever; a new heart also will I give them, and a right
spirit will I put within them." The old world is still under the old
covenant of works, and its children perish, for they cannot carry out the
conditions of the covenant, they cannot keep God's law, they break it
constantly, and they die. But the children of grace are under the new
covenant of grace, and through the precious blood, which is the penalty of
the old broken covenant, and through the spotless righteousness of Christ,
which is the fulfilment and magnifying of the old covenant, the Christian
stands secure, and rejoices that he is saved. Christ has thus made his
people dwell under a new covenant, instead of under the old one.
In addition to the new covenant, Christ has been pleased to make us new
men. His saints are "new creatures in Christ Jesus." They have a new
nature. God has breathed into them a new life. The Holy Spirit, though
the old nature is still there, has been pleased to put within them a new
nature. There is now a contending force within them--the old carnal
nature inclining to evil, and the new God-given nature panting after
perfection. They are new men, "begotten again unto a lively hope by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." This new nature is moved by
new principles. The old nature needed to be awed with threatenings, or
bribed with rewards; the new nature feels the impulse of love. Gratitude is
its mainspring: "We love him because he first loved us." No mercenary
motive now stirs the new creature:--
"My God, I love thee--not because
I hope for heaven thereby,
Nor yet because who love thee not
Must burn eternally."
I love thee, O my Saviour, because on the cross thou didst bear shame,
and spitting, and manifold disgrace for me. New principles stir the new
nature which God has given. And this new nature is conscious of new
emotions. It loves what once it hated; it hates what once it loved. It finds
blight where once it sought for bliss, and finds bliss where once it found
nothing but bitterness. It leaps at the sound which was once dull to its
ears--the name of a precious Christ. It rejoices in hopes which once
seemed idle as dreams. It is filled with a divine enthusiasm which it once
rejected as fanatical. It is conscious now of living in a new element,
breathing a fresh air, partaking of new food, drinking out of new wells not
digged by men or filled from the earth. The man is new--new in
principles, and new in emotions.
And now the man is also new in relationship. He was an heir to wrath; he
is now a child of God. He was a bond-slave; he is now a freeman. He was
the Ishmael who dwelt in the wilderness; he is now the Isaac, and dwells
with Sarah after the tenor of the new covenant. He rejoices in Christ
Jesus, and feasts to the full. He was the citizen of earth once; he is now a
citizen of heaven. He once found his all beneath the clouds; but now his
all is beyond the stars. He has new relationships. Christ is his brother;
God is his father; the angels are his friends; and the despised people of
God are his best and nearest kinsfolk. And hence the man has new
aspirations. He now pants to glorify God. What cared he about the glory
of God once? He now pants to see God; once he would have paid the fare,
if it had cost his life, that he might escape from the presence of the Lord.
Now he hungers and thirsts after the living God; yea, if his soul had
wings, and he could break the fetters of this mortality, he would mount at
once to dwell where Jesus is. Dear friends, are you new men? If you are,
you understand what it is; if you are not, I know I cannot explain it to you.
Oh! to be born again is a great mystery; blessed is the soul that
comprehends it! But he that knows it not will never learn it by the lip; he
can only know it by the Spirit of God causing him also to be made a new
creature in Christ Jesus.
Thus far I have said that the object of Christ was to make a new world,
and he began by making a new covenant. Then, through his Spirit, he
goes on to make new men under the new covenant, and you will see that
by this means he makes a new society. Swelling words have been spoken
and great attempts taken in hand to renovate society, but you can never
renovate society till you have renovated the individual members who
compose society. You may build a brick house, if you please; but, build it
as you like, it will be a house of brick upon whatever principles of
architecture it may be constructed; not until that brick shall be
transformed to marble can you hope to "dwell in marble halls." So men
may launch their divers theories, and patent their social inventions, but
after they have re-shaped the society of sinners, they will leave it a sinful
society still. It is otherwise with Christ. By making new men he makes a
new society, which society he calls his "Church". That Church he sends
into the world to act upon the rest of mankind. Verily the day will come--
whether it shall be at his second advent or before his second advent, I do
not know--the day when from the east to the west, and from the north to
the south, there shall be a new world as far as men are concerned. There
shall be no injustice towards the poor; there shall be no envying of the
rich; there shall be no law to make men slaves; there shall be no power to
oppress, because there shall be no will to do it. Our Lord Jesus Christ
shall put a new heart into earth's kings, and then he shall come himself to
take their thrones and their crowns, and to be himself our Universal King,
and in his day shall the righteous flourish.
Now I believe the way for us to regard that happy day in which he will
make all things new; that happy day when the lion shall eat straw like the
ox, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, when the sword shall be
turned into the sickle, and the spear into the pruning hook--the way for us
to regard that day, I think, is not standing with our mouths open
expecting it, but by setting to work after the Master's own fashion, seeking
to bring it about, to gather out the elect from mankind, to illustrate the
gospel practically in our lives, and so to do as Jesus did among the sons of
men; promoting light, and peace, and truth, and holiness, and happiness
as God may help us.
I wish we had more time to enter fully into this part of the subject. We
have not, and, therefore, we must leave it, but may you and I have a part
in this new creation! Turning to our second point, I want you to:--
II. Adore This Great Regenerator.
He says, "Behold I make all things new." Behold him! He is a man
dressed in the common garments of the poor! He hath no form nor
comeliness, and when you shall see him there is no beauty in him that you
should desire him. He has come to make the world new. He has no
soldiery, no book of laws, no new philosophy. He had come to make the
world new, and to do this he has brought with him--what? Why, himself.
He spends a life of weariness and sorrow amongst those who despise him,
and if you want to know first and foremost how he makes all things new,
you must see him sweating great drops of blood in the garden--that is the
blood of the new world which he is pouring forth! You must see him
bound, scourged, spat upon, led to the accursed tree. While God's wrath
for sin is yet unspent, the world cannot be new; but when that wrath on
account of sin is all poured upon the head of the great Substitute, then the
world stands in a new relation to God, and it can be a new world. See the
Saviour then, in groans and pangs which cannot be described, bearing the
curse of God, for he made him to be sin for us, though he knew no sin.
The curse fell on him, as it is written, "Cursed is every one that hangeth
on a tree." It pleased the Father to bruise him; he hath put him to grief; he
hath made his soul to be an offering for sin." That dolorous pain, then, of
the Master was the world's new- making. It was then and there that the
world was born again. No mother's pangs, when she brought forth a man-
child, were such as those of Christ when he brought forth the new
creation. It was there in the travail of his soul--did you ever catch that
idea, the travail of his soul?--it was there that the new world was born!
"Behold I make all things new" is a mysterious voice from the broken
heart of a dying Saviour. From the empty tomb, as he rises, I hear it come
in silvery notes, "Behold I make all things new." You must trace the birth
of the new creation up to the grave of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the place
where the cross stood, and where his body lay.
But the actual operations of new-making the world takes place through
the truth which Christ promulgated. After the relation of the world to God
had been changed by the sufferings of Jesus, the world's thought
concerning God came to be changed by the preaching of Jesus. He came
and revealed God to man as man had never seen God before. It was
through him we learned that "God is love." It was through him that we
understood that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life." It is the preaching of the cross of Jesus that is to make
the world new. It is not the philosophies of men, but the wisdom of God
which effects the change. In the presence of Christ your philosophies must
sink into darkness as stars in the presence of the sun.
And it is also by the giving of the Holy Ghost, as the result of the
ascension of Christ on high, that the world is made new. Thus he gives
power to the ministry. There were three thousand new creations in one day
when Peter preached the gospel under the influence of the Holy Spirit. And
that blessed Spirit of God is here tonight. Oh! I would that there might be
some new creations tonight, that that divine heavenly Spirit would come
into some of your souls, and drop there that vital spark of heavenly flame
which shall never be quenched, but shall burn brightly in heaven for ever.
Wherever the gospel is preached, the Spirit is present in that gospel, and
he gives faith to men, gives life to men, and so they are made new, and the
new-making thus goes on.
I have not time--though thoughts crowd into my mind--to speak about the
way in which Christ thus new-makes the world. It is quite certain that
three parts of his history are connected with it. I have only referred to his
death, his burial, and his resurrection, but I might go on to speak of his
constant and prevalent intercessions, for his pleading before the throne is
also a part of the mighty operation; nor can I doubt but that his Second
Advent will be the bringing out of the topstone with shoutings of "Grace,
grace unto it!" Then shall be fulfilled--finally and exhaustively fulfilled--
the saying that is written, "Behold I make all things new." The text begins
with "Behold!" and I am going to close with that same note of admiration.
I want you to:--
III. Behold and to Believe.
Behold, the Lord Jesus is now enthroned in heaven. He it is who makes
all things new. Is not this what some of you here present deeply need? If
you look within, yourselves will see much to disgust and alarm you.
Peradventure, you dare not take stock of yourselves now; you dare not
consider where you are, nor what you are, nor whither you are bound. "To
speak candidly," you say, "I want reforming." Very likely, but you want a
great deal more than mere reformation. I have heard of a being who used
habitually to swear, "God mend me!" Somebody said, "Better make a new
one." That is the case with full many of you. You are saying, "Well, I will
turn over a new leaf." You had better shut the book up altogether, and
never turn over any more leaves, for all the pages are alike bad. "Oh!
well," says one, "I shall try if I cannot alter." I wish you would try God's
altering of you, instead of altering yourselves. "Well, but surely, surely, I
may wash and be clean; I will try to make myself as clean as possible?"
Yes, yes, that is all very well; but what if you have a corpse in the house?
I would have you make it clean, yet that will not make it live. However
much you may wash it, it is corrupt still. You may reform yourselves as
much as ever you please, all your reformation will be futile; you need
more, a great deal more than that. The fact is, you must be made new.
Nothing less will do; you must be made new; you must be born again.
"Ah!" says one, "if I could be made new, there might be a chance for me."
Well now, Christ looks down from this throne in heaven, and he says,
"Behold I will make all things new." "Yes," you say, "but he will not
make me new." Why not? Does he not say, "I make all things new"? "But
my heart is as hard as a rock," say you. Well, but he says, "I will make all
things new," so he can give you a new heart. "Oh! but I am so very
stubborn. Aye, aye, but he makes all things new, and he can make you as
tender and sensitive as a little child. Oftentimes a grey-headed sinner has
looked back to his childhood, and remembered the time when he used to
sing his little hymn at his mother's knee, and he has said, 'Ah! I have
been in many strange places since then, and my heart has got seared and
hard; I wish I could get back to what I was then!" Well, you can, you can.
Christ can bring you there. Nay, he can bring you to something better
than you ever were when those golden ringlets hung so plentifully about
that pretty little head of yours, for you were not so innocent then as you
now think you were. Christ can make you really pure in heart; he can
make you a new creature, so that you shall be converted and become as a
little child. "Oh!" say you, "how can I get it? How can I prepare myself for
him?" You do not want to prepare yourself for him. God to him just as
you are; trust him to do it, and he will do it. That is faith, you know--
trust, dependence. Canst thou believe that Christ can save thee? Oh! thou
canst believe that; well now, wilt thou trust him to save thee? Wilt thou
trust him to deliver thee from thy drunkenness, from thine angry temper,
thy pride, thy love of self, thy lusts? Dost thou desire to be a new creature
in Christ Jesus? If so, that very desire must have come from heaven. I
could fain hope that he has already begun the good work in you, and he
that begins it will carry it on. Do not be afraid, however bad thy character,
or however vicious thy disposition. "Behold," says Christ, "I make all
things new." What a wonder it is that a man should ever have a new
heart! You know if a lobster loses its claw in a fight it can get a new claw,
and that is thought to be very marvellous. It would be very wonderful if
men should be able to grow new arms and new legs, but who ever heard
of a creature who grew a new heart? You may have seen a bough lopped
off a tree, and you may have thought that, perhaps, the tree will sprout
again, and there will be a new limb, but who ever heard of old trees
getting new sap and a new core? But my Lord and Master, the crucified
and exalted Saviour, has given new hearts and new cores; he has put the
vital substance into man afresh, and made new creatures of them. I am
glad to notice the tear in your eye, when you think on the past, but wipe it
away now, and look up to the cross and say:--
"Just as I am, without one plea,
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou bid'st me come to thee,
O Lamb, O God, I come."
"Oh! make me a new creature!" If you have said that from your heart, you
are a new creature, dear brother, and we will rejoice together in this
regenerating Saviour.
Let me just say a few words to those of you who love the Lord. You may
have some very bad children, or you have some relatives who are going on
in sin from bad to worse. I earnestly recommend you attentively to
consider my text. "Behold," says Christ, "I make all things new." "No,
no," says the old father, "I used to pray for my boy; he broke my heart; he
brought his mother's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave; but he has gone
away, and I have not heard of him for years, and I am almost afraid to
wish I ever may hear of him again, for he did seem so reckless, that my
only comfort is in trying to forget him." "Yes," says a husband here, "I
have prayed for my wife o many times, that I do feel tempted to give it up;
it is not likely that I shall ever live to see her saved." Oh! but, brethren
and sisters, we do not know; since the Lord saved us, there cannot be any
limits as to what he can do. Look at the text, "Behold I make all things
new." I will pray, "Lord, make my children new." You shall pray, "Lord,
make my wife new." You godly wives, who have ungodly husbands, you
shall pray, "Lord, make our husbands new." You who have dear friends
who lie upon your bosom, as you anxiously think of them, pray the Lord
Jesus to make them new. When our friends are made new, oh! what a
great comfort they are; just as much so as they formerly were a sorrow.
The greater the sinner, the greater the joy to loving believers when they
see him saved. "Behold," says Christ--I do like that word-- "Behold it!
Stand and look at it! See how I took the man when he was up to his neck
in sin, and made him preach the gospel. Can I not do the same again?
Look there and see the dying thief upon the cross, black with a thousand
crimes: I washed him and took him to Paradise the same day; what can I
not do? Behold I make all things new." Courage, my brethren and sisters.
We will not entertain any more doubt about Christ's power to save.
Rather, by God's grace, may we henceforth believe more in him, and,
according to our faith, so shall it be done unto us. If we can only trust him
for those of our friends whose faults seem to us few and light, our little
trust will reap little reward; but if we can go with strong faith in a great
God, and bring great sinners in our arms, and put them down before this
mighty Regenerator of men, and say, "Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make
them new"; and if we will never cease the pleading till we get the
blessing, then we shall see ever-accumulating illustrations of the fact that
Jesus makes all things new; and calling up the witnesses of his redeeming
power, we shall cry in the ears of a drowsy Church and an incredulous
world, "Behold, behold, behold! He makes all things new." The Lord give
us eyes to see it. Amen.
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