Lesslie Newbiggin - New Creation & New Community

Classic Newbiggin:

This presence of a new reality, the presence in the shared life of the Church of the Spirit who is the arrabōn of the kingdom, has become possible because of what Jesus has done, because of his incarnation, his ministry as the obedient child of his Father, his suffering and death, his resurrection, his ascension into heaven, and his session at the right hand of God. When the apostles are asked to explain the new reality, the new power to find joy in tribulation, healing in sickness, freedom in bondage, life in death, this is the explanation they give. It follows that the visible embodiment of this new reality is not a movement that will take control of history and shape the future according to its own vision, not a new imperialism, not a victorious crusade. Its visible embodiment will be a community that lives by this story, a community whose existence is visibly defined in the regular rehearsing and reenactment of this story which has given it birth, the story of the self-emptying of God in the ministry, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Its visible centre as a continuing social entity is that weekly repeated event in which believers share bread and wine as Jesus commanded, as his pledge to them and their pledge to him that they are one with him in his passion and one with him in his victory. Instead of the celebration of the sabbath as the end of God’s old creation, they celebrate the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, as the beginning of the new creation. In this they find enacted and affirmed the meaning and goal of their lives as part of the life of the cosmos, their stories part of the universal story. This story does indeed lead to a glorious end and is therefore filled with meaning, but the end is not some far distant date in terrestrial history. The end is the day when Jesus shall come again, when his hidden rule will become manifest and all things will be seen as they truly are. That is why we repeat at each celebration of the Lord’s Supper the words which encapsulate the whole mystery of the faith: “Christ has died, Christ has risen: Christ shall come again.”

Lesslie J. Newbiggin, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 120-21.

A New Creation

In the song "What About Me?" there is a line, "Now we're standin' on the corner of a world gone home. Nobody's changed, nobody's been saved. And I'm feelin' cold and alone." Many look at this world and conclude that it is anything but redeemed or renewed since the sufferings and miseries of humanity continue unabated. Yet the experience of Christians runs contrary to this, for they believe that God's new creation has burst upon the world proleptically in the resurrection of Christ and in their own sharing in the gift of the Holy Spirit. For me, I know that I am not the same person I was before receiving Christ. There is the sense that I feel as if I am partly dead and partly reborn in a world that is gradually fading away and yet anxiously awaiting to be recreated. On 2 Cor. 5.17 we have a world that is passing away and is at the same time being made new as the Creator's plan to repossess the world for himself ebbs closer and closer. What is more, Christians eagerly look forward to the fulfilment of the exalted Christ's promise in Rev. 21.5, "Behold, I make all things new".