II.
A New Ckeation Within.
1. It LS the great characteristic of the New Testament that it demands a new creation. This is its specific message. Other systems that seek to change character and society insist on education, amelioration, reformation or revolution. The New Testament has little to say about any of these, but demands the new creature — a new creation. Nothing is sufficient except a definite change in the spirit of the man — a change that is so complete and radical that it must be spoken of as a creation, an act of supernatural Divine grace, which makes the creature new, and all life new with it.
* T. T. Mungei; Horace Bushnell, 114.
172 IN CHRIST A NEW CREATION
" A new creation ! " Then, from the very root of being, upward throughout all its branches, a marvellous change has taken place a change which nothing can fitly describe, save the creating of all things out of nothing at the beginning, or the new-creating of this corrupted world into a glorious earth and heaven, when the Lord returns to take possession of it as His Kingdom for ever. " A new creation ! " — then old feelings, old habits, old tastes, old hopes, old joys, old sorrows, old haunts, old companionships, all are gone ! Old things have passed away, all things have become new. Christ in us, and we in Christ, — how thorough and profound the change must have been ! " Christ formed in us," nay, " in us the hope of glory " ; and we created in Christ unto good works after the very likeness of incarnate Godhead — how inconceivably glorious the renewal, the transfiguration wrought in us; for nothing short of transfiguration is it, considered even in its general and most common aspect.
^ When Jenny Lind, the famous vocalist, suddenly discovered her powers as a singer, it perfectly transformed her whole outlook upon life. She has described the day of the discovery thus : " I got up that morning one creature, I went to bed another creature. I had found my power." " On that day," remarks her biographer, " she woke to herself, she became artistically alive : she felt the inspiration and won the sway which she now felt it was hers to have and to hold. It was a step out into a new world of dominion."
^ Patrick Daley was one of the first to profess conversion in connexion with Mr. Moody's recent evangelistic services in Boston. He had been a staunch Eoman Catholic by persuasion, but a desperate drunkard by practice. With an overpowering desire to be saved from his evil habit, he so far broke through the pre- judices of his religion as to go and listen to the great evangelist. There he heard with astonishment and delight that the chief of sinners and the most hopeless of drunkards might find immediate forgiveness and deliverance through surrender to Jesus Christ. He went into the inquiry-room, and trustingly accepted the Saviour, and entered into great peace and joy in believing. Several weeks after his conversion, he approached me at the close of a meeting with his story and his question.
" You see, your reverence, I know a good thing when I get it ; and when I found salvation, I could not keep it to myself. Peter Murphy lived in the upper story of the same tenement with me. Murphy was a worse drunkard than me, if such a thing could be ;
2 COR. V. 17 173
and we had gone on many a spree together. Well, when I got saved and washed clean in the blood of Christ, I was so happy I did not know what to do with myself. So I went up to Murphy, and told him what I had got. Poor Peter ! he was just getting over a spree, and was pretty sick and sore, and just ready to do anything I told him. So I got him to sign the pledge, and then told him that Jesus alone could help him keep it. Then I got him on his knees, and made him pray and surrender to the Lord, as I had done. You never see such a change in a man as there was in him for the next week. I kept watch of him, and prayed for him, and helped him on the best I could, and, sure, he was a different man. Well, come Sunday morning, Joe Healey called round to pay his usual visit. This was the worst yet ; for Healey used to come to see Murphy as regular as Sunday, always bringing a bottle of whisky with him, and these two would spree it all day, till they turned the whole house into a bedlam. Well, I saw Healey coming last Sunday morning, and I was afraid it would be all up with poor Murphy if he got with him. So when I went to the door to let him in, and he said, 'Good morning, Pat; is Murphy in ? ' I said, ' No ; Murphy is out. He does not live here any longer ' ; and in this way I sent Healey off, and saved Murphy from temptation."
Here was the burden of Patrick Daley's question ; for he continued : " Did I tell a lie ? What I meant was that the old Murphy did not live there any more. For you know Mr. Moody told us that when a man is converted he is a new creature ; old things have passed away. And I believe that Murphy is a new creature, and that the old Murphy does not live any more in that attic. That is what I meant. Did I tell a lie ? "