By Pastor Chinedu Emmanuel

Hebrews 6:1,3 “Now is the time for us to progress beyond the basic message of Christ and advance into perfection. The foundation has already been laid for us to build upon: turning away from our dead works to embrace faith in God…. So with God’s enablement we will move on to deeper truths.”

Paul said to us in the above scripture that the foundation had been laid for us to go into deeper truths. He also told us this deeper truth: turning away from our dead works to embrace faith in God. This means living the new life of Christ by faith in the gospel.

WHAT IS THIS NEW LIFE AND HOW DO WE GET IT?

The new life is eternal life. The very life of our Lord Jesus has been given to us by his presence in us. Every believer has Christ in them and also has the life of Christ.

1 John 5:11 “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”

This new life is essentially the life of God in man.

1 John 3: 9 “Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God.”

John 5:26 “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;”

The main goal of Christ’s coming was to give us this new life.

John 10:10…..”I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

WHAT DOES THIS NEW LIFE DO IN US?

It enables us to live His life which we could not have been able to live without His presence in us. This is so different from the time of Moses when God’s people didn’t have Christ in them. Now we live by our new nature and not by laws. We are controlled by Christ and led by His Spirit. Jesus explained that this new life cannot be lived outside of Him. Outside of Christ, no one can bear the fruits of Christ’s life. This new life is only lived by faith in Christ.

John 15:5 “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.”

 This new life has released us from the curse and power of the law.

2 Cor 5:15 “so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.”

Rom 7: 6 “But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.”

We can produce a harvest of good deeds because Christ is in us. We are new creatures with His new life which is manifesting through us. We can now do the things God created us to do.

Eph 2:10 “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago”

The new life is the New Testament way of serving God. The Old Testament way was based on obeying laws. The life in the Old Testament had major limitations. Let us review some of them.

LIMITATIONS OF THE OLD LIFE

• • • • The first major limitation of the old life was that it was void of Christ. The Bible says that without Christ, no man can do anything. Christ is the only hope for glory. No one could obey all the laws. Man had failed woefully and needed redemption.

Col 1:27 “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory”

• • • • Secondly, the law could not make us perfect. The law could not wash away all our sins. As a result, God found it unprofitable and annulled it as a means of being accepted by God.

Heb 7:18 “For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, 19 for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.”

• • • • The laws and the system of atonement established by Moses could not give us the new life. It could not take away our sinful nature as well. This sinful nature deterred us from being in the presence of God.

Gal 3:21-21 “Is there a conflict, then, between God’s law and God’s promises? Absolutely not! If the law could give us new life, we could be made right with God by obeying it. 22 But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God’s promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ.”

• • • • Christ came to do what the law couldn’t do. Christ washed away all our sins and destroyed our sinful nature and gave us His spirit to guide us into all truths. We can now follow Christ by His spirit. His death and resurrection gave us freedom from all things.

Romans 8:3-4 “The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. 4 He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.”

Romans 6:10-11, 14“When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus. Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.”

Before we received Christ, we were slaves to sin because our nature was sinful so we acted in that nature.

Romans 6:17 “Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you.”

Eph 2:3 “All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.”

Now that we are free from the bondage of our old sinful nature, we can now make choices to yield ourselves to God completely.

Romans 6:12-13“Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.”

Pastor Chinedu Emmanuel is the Senior Pastor of Fountain of The Living Word Church, New Jersey.