What Did Paul Mean by “New Creation”?
New Creation
Paul only uses the expression “new creation” once in his letter to the Galatians (Gal. 6:15), but the notion isn’t restricted to the phrase. Indeed, the new creation surfaces in the first verse, which affirms that God raised Jesus from the dead (Gal. 1:1). The resurrection in Jewish thought means that the new age has arrived and that the old age of evil and death has come to an end.1 Isaiah prophesies that the Lord “will swallow up death forever” and tears will be a distant memory (Isa. 25:8). Similarly, those who are raised from the dead will experience “everlasting life” and will shine “like the stars forever and ever” (Dan. 12:2–3; see also Isa. 26:19).
On the day of the resurrection the Lord’s promises to his people will be fulfilled, and the people of God will be restored and unified (Ezek. 37:1–14). The resurrection of Jesus means that the old age has ended, and thus Paul foreshadows the argument of the entire letter. Circumcision is no longer required because it was a permanent ordinance in the old era while the old creation persisted. Now that the new creation has come, the ordinances of the old age have passed away. Commands like circumcision only apply under the old covenant and in the old era, but the resurrection represents the apocalyptic irruption of the new age, and thus the regulations of the former age have expired.
Christ Crucified
Thomas R. Schreiner, Thomas R. Schreiner, Brian S. Rosner
This addition to the New Testament Theology series focuses on the specific teachings of Galatians to remind readers of the truth of the gospel and the only possible path to salvation—Jesus Christ.
Paul has died and now he lives to God (Gal. 2:19). In other words, he has “been crucified with Christ,” and now Christ “lives in” him (Gal. 2:20). Paul speaks representatively so that what is true of him applies to all believers in Jesus everywhere. They have died and come to life again. This is another way of describing an apocalyptic inbreaking through Christ Jesus. The new creation has come, and this is evident since Paul and all believers have died and come to life again. The power of the resurrection has, like a sneaker wave, washed up into the old age and taken over the shoreline of the beach. Now believers live in the new creation inaugurated by Christ’s resurrection. The new age has broken in and the old age is set aside. The arrival of the new creation in Christ’s resurrection affects every theme in Galatians, whether it is justification, the law, the people of God, or life in the Spirit.
The eschatological and apocalyptic dimensions of Paul’s gospel are apparent in Galatians 1:4 where Christ “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age.” The term “deliver” (exaireō) presents Jesus’s death as an exodus type of rescue (see Ex. 3:8; 18:4, 8, 9, 10 LXX). The same verb is used for the Lord’s promise to liberate his people in a second exodus foretold in the prophets (Isa. 31:5; 60:16; Ezek. 34:27 LXX).2 A distinction between this age and the age to come was common in Jewish thought (see 1 En. 71:15; 4 Ezra 4:27; 7:12–13, 50, 113–14; 8:1; 2 Bar. 14:13; 15:8; 44:8–15; CD 6.10–11, 14; 12.23; 1QpHab 5.7–8), and we find it fairly often in Jesus’s teaching as well (Matt. 12:32; Matt. 13:39, 40, 49; Matt. 24:3; Matt. 28:20; Mark 10:30; Luke 18:30; 20:35).
On the day of the resurrection the Lord’s promises to his people will be fulfilled, and the people of God will be restored and unified.
Two Ages
The contrast between the two ages also marks Paul’s thought (Eph. 1:21). The present age is characterized by evil, and Satan exercises his dominion as the god of this present era (2 Cor. 4:4). Unbelievers are dazzled by the wisdom of this age (1 Cor. 1:20; 3:18), and the rulers of this age demonstrated their lack of perception by crucifying the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 2:6, 8). Demas’s love for the present world (2 Tim. 4:10) shows that he belongs to this world instead of the coming one (Eph. 2:2). Still, the new age, which is another way of talking about the new creation, has also invaded the present cosmos. “The end of the ages” has now come in Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 10:11). Jesus rules as Lord, as the reigning King during this age, and his rule will reach its climax in the age to come (Eph. 1:21; cf. 1 Cor. 15:24–28; Eph. 2:7). Since the new age has dawned through Christ’s death and resurrection (Titus 2:12), believers have received the grace to live in a godly way, in a way that defies the rulers of the present era. On the other hand, life in the new age isn’t easy since the age to come has been inaugurated but not consummated (1 Cor. 7:31). The battle with evil continues (Gal. 5:17), and thus believers must not be captured by riches (1 Tim. 6:17) and must resist being conformed to this present age (Rom. 12:2).
The “new creation,” which closes the letter (Gal. 6:15), functions as an inclusio with the resurrection (Gal. 1:1) and the coming of the new age (Gal. 1:4), which open the letter. The Pauline statement about the new creation and its placement at the conclusion of the letter illustrate how important it is. The promise of the new creation reaches back to Isaiah 65:17 and Isaiah 66:22 where a new world is promised in which death is conquered, tears are a thing of the past, and wolves and lambs graze peacefully together.3 The violence, hatred, bloodshed, and grief that stain the present world will come to an end. Since circumcision is particularly controverted in the Galatian churches, Paul declares here that both circumcision and uncircumcision are matters of indifference (Gal. 6:15; see also Gal. 5:6). The passion with which the opponents promoted circumcision demonstrated that they didn’t know the time in which they were living; they were acting as if the time of fulfillment had not arrived. Remarkably, the same would be true if someone wanted to boast in uncircumcision, as if opposition to circumcision is what characterized Paul’s ministry.
Focusing on either circumcision or uncircumcision reveals a blindness to the apocalyptic act of God in Jesus Christ as the crucified and risen one. We understand, then, why in the previous verse (Gal. 6:14) Paul declares that he has been crucified to the world (the old order) and the world has been crucified to him. A death has taken place that radically changes the values, attachments, and loves that animate believers. The crucifixion of Paul and all believers to the world occurred when they were crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20). A radical disruption has taken place so that the love for the present world has been severed at the cross. Old polarities, such as whether one is circumcised or uncircumcised are fundamentally irrelevant. What matters is whether someone is part of the new creation that has dawned in Jesus Christ. Such a perspective accords with what Paul affirms in 2 Corinthians 5:17. The arrival of the new creation means that the old has passed away.
The new creation is also painted as the heavenly Jerusalem (Gal. 4:26). The heavenly Jerusalem is another world, a heavenly world, a transcendent world. We might think that the heavenly world has nothing to do with the here and now, but apparently the heavenly world intersects even now with the present creation because Paul says that the heavenly Jerusalem is the mother of believers. Those who belong to Christ are now members of this transcendent city, and thus they experience the freedom promised in the eschaton. Paul is not alone in speaking of the heavenly Jerusalem (cf. Heb. 12:22; Rev. 3:12; 21:2, 10; cf. 2 Bar. 4:2). The heavenly city to come has invaded the present evil age, and so we have an example of Paul’s already-but-not-yet eschatology.4 The Jerusalem above points to the new creation (Isa. 65:17; Isa. 66:1), for in Isaiah the new creation and the heavenly Jerusalem are closely linked (Isa. 65:18–19). In Isaiah 66:7–11, Zion gives birth to children, and their birth signifies the fulfillment of God’s promises, which will lead to joy and gladness. The problem with the opponents is that they were living as if the new creation had not arrived, as if the old creation were still the predominant reality. They had made their home in the old Zion instead of the new Zion.
Notes:
- See the outstanding work by N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003).
- See Roy E. Ciampa, The Presence and Function of Scripture in Galatians 1 and 2, WUNT 2/102 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 61–62, n. 104; Todd A. Wilson, “Wilderness Apostasy and Paul’s Portrayal of the Crisis in Galatians,” NTS 50 (2004): 555–57.
- For this reading of Isa. 65:17–25, see G. K. Beale, “An Amillennial Response to a Premillennial View of Isaiah 65:20,” JETS 61 (2018): 461–92.
- See Andrew T. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet: Studies in the Role of the Heavenly Dimension in Paul’s Thought with Special Reference to His Eschatology, SNTSMS 43 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 21–22.
This article is adapted from Christ Crucified: A Theology of Galatians by Thomas R. Schreiner.
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