Col. I. 18.] christ the author of the new creation. 4fi5
sinful and guilty. Neither men nor angels could raise them up into an hoi}'- temple to God ; none but the eternal Word or the Son of God incarnate : ' he that buildeth all things is God ' — ra iravra, all these things, the things treated of ; he doth not speak of the first creation, but the second, the restoring of the lapsed world to God.
2. The other honour is that Clirist is Lord of the new creation, as well as the founder and builder of it ; for the world to come is put in subjection to him, not to the angels, Heb. ii. 7. By the Avorld to come is not meant the state of glory, but the state of the church under the times of the gospel. It is made subject to God the Kedeemer ; it is solely and immediately in his power, and under his authority, and cast into a dependence upon him.
II. In a way of causality. So he is the beginning, either as a moral or efficient cause.
1. As a moral meritorious cause. We are renewed by God's creating power, but through the intervening mediation of Christ, or God's creating power is put forth with respect to his merit. The life of grace is purchased by his death : 1 John iv. 9, ' God sent his only- begotten Son into the world, that we might live by him.' Here spirihiaUy , hereafter eternally. For life is opposite to death incurred by sin. We were dead legally, as sentenced to death by the law ; and spiritually, as disabled for the service of our Creator, And how by him ? That he speaketh of ver. 10 — by his being a propitiation. We were in the state of death when the doors of mercy were first opened to us, under the guilt and power of sin ; but we live when the guilt of sin is pardoned, and the power of sin broken. But this life we have not without Christ being a propitiation for our sins, or doing that which was necessary, whereby God without impeachment of honour might show himself placable and propitious to mankind.
2. As an efficient cause ; by the efficacy of his Spirit, who worketh in us as members of Christ's mystical body. Wherefore it is said, 2 Cor. V. 17, ' If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature ; ' and Eph. ii. 10, ' We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.' Whatever grace we have cometh from God through Christ as Mediator, and from him we have it by virtue of our union with him. It is first applied by the converting grace, and then con- tinually supplied by the confirming grace of the Spirit. The infiuence we have from him as our head is life and likeness.
[1.] Life : Gal. ii. 20, ' I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I liv^e ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I now live in the flesh,' &c. Christ is the beginning of the new life, therefore he is called the prince, or author of life. All life is derived from the head to the body, so we derive life from Christ : John vi. 57, ' As I live by the Father, so he that eateth me shall live by me.' We derive life from Christ, as he from the Father.
[2.] Likeness : Gal. iv. 19, ' My little children, of whom I travail in birth till Christ be formed in you,' and 2 Cor. iii. 18. It is for the honour of Christ that his image and superscription should be upon his members, to distinguish them from others. In short, as to life, he is the root : John xv. 1 , 2, 'I am the true vine, and,' <fec. As to like- ness, he is the pattern : Rom. viii. 29, ' Whom he did foreknow, he
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466 CHRIST THE AUTHOR OF THE NEW CREATION, [SeR. VI.
also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren.' Secondly, The reasons of this.
1. It is for the honour of the Son of God that he should be head of the new world. In the kingdom of Christ all things are new. There is a new covenant, which is the gospel ; a new paradise, not that where Adam enjoyed God among the beasts and trees of the garden, but where the blessed enjoy God amongst the angels. A new ministry, not the family of Aaron, or tribe of Levi, but the ministry of reconcilation, whom God hath qualified and fitted to be dispensers of these holy mysteries. New ordinances ; we serve God not in the oldness of the letter, but the newness of the Spirit ; new members, or new creatures, that are made partakers of the benefits, therefore also a new head, or a second Adam, that must be the beginning of this new creation, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, who is made a quicken- ing spirit to all his members : 1 Cor. xv. 45, ' The first Adam was made a living soul, the second a quickening spirit.' Adam communi- cated natural life to his posterity, but from Christ we have the Spirit.