the old creation and the new creation as revealed in the Bible and in the book of Isaiah

The book of Isaiah is like a miniature of the entire Bible: it has 66 chapters(just as the Bible has 66 books), the first 39 chapters talk mainly about the old creation(and they correspond to the Old Testament, which has 39 books), the last 27 chapters talk about the new creation(corresponding to the New Testament with its 27 books), chapter 40 starts with John the Baptist(the New Testament starts with John the Baptist), etc. This morning I was particularly impressed with the fact that both in Isaiah and in the entire Bible we have two main topics – the old creation and the new creation. The Old Testament deals mainly with the old creation, and the New Testament introduces and deals with the new creation. The new creation is the old creation with God added to it – when God works Himself into man, the man in the old creation becomes a new creation in Christ! God is outside the old creation – even in the Old Testament with the prophets, God was not “in them, in their spirit”, but He was outside of them(since He was not yet processed and consummated to be the life-giving Spirit). In the new creation everything is new because God, the NEW ONE, is in it! Today, we still have the old creation with us – God did not immediately end the old creation as the new creation was brought in. Rather, after our regeneration, there is a long process of transformation, where we the believers are being transformed from being the old creation into being fully the new creation! The old creation will eventually be finished at the end of the millenium / the age of the kingdom, when God will bring in the new heaven and the new earth with the New Jerusalem! Until then we will still have the old creation with us – but we are in the process of transformation, conformation, and glorification, to be fully made God’s masterpiece: His New Creation!

I also enjoyed the steps God takes to at least innitiate and start the process of our being made the new creation in full – this process is revealed in Isaiah in miniature and in the New Testament in its fullness:

• Isaiah 40 starts with the word of comfort spoken to the heart of Jerusalem, the good news that our sins were taken away by Christ on the cross, and now we are forgiven! Christ already paid the price for our sins, all we need to do now is to believe into Him and receive His forgiveness! This speaking of the word of comfort to the heart of Jerusalem is actually the announcing of the gospel!
• The first step of announcing the gospel is the coming of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ(Isa. 40:3-4) – he prepares the way before the Lord’s coming, reminding us to deal with our heart and make straight the way of the Lord! For the Lord to come into our spirit and from our spirit into every part of our being, we need to deal with our heart to make it the proper ground!
• The center of the gospel is the glory of Jehovah – for the new creation! We see that the appearing of Christ as the glory of Jehovah in Isa. 40:5 is the center of the gospel – Christ is the effulgence of God’s glory(Heb. 1:3) and this effulgence is like the shining of the sun! Christ came as the rising of the sun(Luke 1:78), and then He appeared as the glory of Jehovah to be seen by the God-seekers and Christ-believers.
• After this announcement of the gospel, we see that men is like grass and the flower in the field – withering and fading, but the word of God remains forever(Isa. 40:6-8)! All men of flesh, all human being, need to receive Christ, the glory of God, who comes to us as the living and abiding word of God – so that we may be regenerated and have eternal life to live forever(1 Pet. 1:23)!
• Those who receive the word and have been regenerated now are waiting for Jehovah(Isa. 40:29-31) – after we are regenerated, we are “fired” by stopping ourselves with all our doing, living, and activities, and we receive Christ as our replacement! When we wait on Jehovah in such a way, we become like eagles – not just walking and running, but also soaring and transcending! When we are “fired” and replaced, we become the new creation in full!

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to us as the New and Living One! You are the Living and Abiding Word of God! Thank You for regenerating us, Lord! Thank You for the divine life operating in us to make us new every day! Lord, make us Your new creation in full! We want to stop ourselves from all our doing, our activities, and our struggling! Replace us, Lord, with Yourself! Have a way to resurrect our whole being to make us the new creation!

Hallelujah, we have been regenerated through the living and abiding word of God!

We have been regenerated through the living and abiding word of God to be saved from being like perishing and withering grass – and be living and abiding forever! We see this clearly in the following verses:

Isa. 40:7-8 … surely the people are like grass. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
1 Pet. 1:23-25 Having been regenerated not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the living and abiding word of God. For “all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass has withered, and the flower has fallen off, But the word of the Lord abides forever.” And this is the word which has been announced to you as the gospel.

Our God expresses Himself through His speaking – He is a speaking God! And the Word of God is Christ! We see in John 1:1 that the Word is God, and in John 1:14 the Word became flesh to be the Lord Jesus! All men are as withering grass, fading away and being here today and tomorrow are gone – but the word of our God abides forever! The Word of our God is the word of the Lord Jesus, and this very word is the Lord Jesus Himself! When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He didn’t speak from Himself, He didn’t do His own work, and He didn’t express Himself; rather, He spoke from the Father(what He heard, He spoke), He did the work of the Father(what He saw the Father doing, that’s what He did), and He expressed the Father(when people saw Him, they saw the Father). When you listen to the Lord Jesus, you see the Father – God is revealed to you! The Lord Jesus as the living word of God expresses and unveils the Father to us! And He didn’t speak just then when He lived physically in a human form on the earth – Jesus is still speaking today! Jesus is still the living Word of God, and His Words remain forever!

When we hear the Lord’s Word, we see Him! This is how we got saved – we heard the word of God and we saw Jesus! Of course, you don’t see Him physically, but the Word of God spoken to you unveils Christ to you and your immediate response and reaction is to love Him and receive Him. The Word of God is Christ Himself, and Christ is God, Jehovah our Savior. When we come together as believers today, we need to exercise our spirit to speak not ourselves of our own things, but to speak the Lord – so that others may see God as they receive the word! When we exercise to deny ourselves and speak not from ourselves but the Word of God constituted into us, the Lord is present in our speaking and the others can see Jesus! This is a normal occurrence in the church life, where we all learn to speak Christ to one another – and we love getting together to see Jesus being expressed and being present among us!

This is real – the Word of the Lord is real, and it will stand forever! His word stands forever and abides forever in us to enliven us so that we may partake of God’s eternal life for our enjoyment! We have been regenerated through the living and abiding Word of God, and now we enjoy the word of God daily – the Word unveils God to us and brings more God into us! This living word brought the eternal life into us to regenerate us, and we received the eternal life for our daily enjoyment! Hallelujah – we are living and abiding forever because we have the living and abiding Word of God within us, and we enjoy this word daily! [enjoyment from the life-study of Isaiah – as quoted in the Holy Word for the morning revival on the Crystallization-study of Isaiah(2)]

Lord thank You for regenerating us through Your Word! Keep speaking to us, Lord, and help us speak for You and speak You forth! We are not, Lord, but You are! We are like withering grass, but we have been made alive through Your Word! O, Lord, we want to see You and enjoy You more in Your Word! And as we meet, we want to exercise to speak not our own thoughts but speak Christ to the others! Be so real to us, Lord, in Your Word and in the meetings! May we see Jesus and enjoy Jesus until we become Jesus living again!

enjoyment from the Winter School of Truth – the five main functions of the Bible

Every year towards the end we set aside a week to come together and get into the truth – we want to pursue the Lord together. It is such a great opportunity for saints and young ones from everywhere to get together and enter into the Word together, pray-read, enjoy the Lord, and be blended together. This last year we had the Winter School of the Truth in Bower House, and it was a great time, a memorable week with all the saints! Below is brother Reyno’s testimony of what he enjoyed the most in this past Winter School of Truth. [Read this portion also in Spanish / Puede leer esta porción también en español, testimonio del disfrute de la Escuela de invierno de la Verdad -las cinco funciones principales de la Biblia]

This was my 3rd time I went to London for the Winter School of the Truth, and for me this might have been the most enjoyable and the most touching young people’s conference until now. The Lord opened my eyes wide and I came to realise many things concerning the Bible, the God-breathed-out Scriptures!

When we preach the gospel to the people in this world, there will always be times when they ask you questions which are difficult to answer. In these situations we should not come up with theories or possible answers, but we must learn to say ‘I do not know’. God does not tell us everything in the Bible, but He does tell us everything that is related to us. Also, the central thought of the Bible is not only Christ, but Christ and the church. Just as a man needs a wife, Christ needs a bride. We are His Bride, the Body – we are the members with Christ as the Head: we are the church.

What really touched me was that the Word of God is able to make an unbeliever a complete God-man. This happens through five main functions of the Bible. Altough the Bible has many functions, it has five main functions. For example: you come to an unbeliever (maybe your friend) and you give him/her a Bible. You ask him if he just wants to read it a little bit. If he opens the Bible and starts to read, eventually he will read about the Lord Jesus. This is the first main function of the bible: it testifies concerning the Lord Jesus, which can be seen in John 5:39. Once he knows the Bible is about the Lord Jesus, and reads further, he will notice that there is such a thing as salvation. He may think: ”Oh, there is something like salvation, but how can I be saved?” The Bible reveals to us how God saves men in Christ and how men may be saved by faith so that we may know the way of salvation. This is the second main function of the Bible (2 Tim 3:15). Once he knows how to be saved (just by calling on the Name of the Lord!), the Bible causes him to be regenerated in his practical experience. Hallelujah! This is the third main function of the Bible. 1 Peter 1:23 says: ”Having been regenerated not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the living and abiding word of God”. After our regeneration, we are like a little baby, so we need the Word as our spiritual milk to nourish us and make us grow in our spiritual life (1 Pet 2:2). Besides that, we also need Word as the bread of life, which can be seen in Matthew 4:4. Just as we daily need to eat food in a physical way, we must eat from Him every day to nourish our spiritual life to grow in Him. This is the fourth main function of the Bible.

Eventually, for our perfecting, the Bible is profitable to teach, convict, correct, and instruct us in righteousness, so that we, as God-men, may be complete (2 Tim 3:16-17). This is the fifth and last main function of the Bible. This is so wonderful.

During the Winter School of Truth we learned the song called: ”The Bible is God’s Breath”. This is a spiritual song, which really helps us to remember the five main functions of the Bible with all the verse references. Therefore I really enjoyed this song and the relating message during this conference. Hallelujah for the Word of God! The word is able! Amen.