I began this series of posts about the old and new creations while coiled in a self-defensive posture. As a non-Christian, how do I respond to Andrew’s justification of the Yahwistic genocide recorded in Deuteronomy 7, a mass slaughter of Gentiles by Jews that harkens back to the Flood and foreshadows the Last Judgment? For Andrew this mass eradication of entire nations exemplified God’s ongoing project of separating the elect microcosm of the “new creation” from the corrupt macrocosmic “old creation.” While it’s possible to infer new/old creation distinctions in certain
historical events and turns of phrase that appear in the Old Testament,
only Paul actually uses the words and concepts explicitly. Does Paul draw the distinction between old and new creations the same way Andrew
 does?

I think he does not, based on three general inferences drawn from the Pauline texts outlined in prior posts here, here, here, here, and here. First, the new creation constitutes a radical departure from what preceded it. The death and resurrection of Jesus is the event that marks the end of the old and the beginning of the new. Second, perhaps the most important hallmark of the new creation is that the traditional distinctions between groups of people no longer hold. Jew or Gentile, circumcision or uncircumcision, male and female, freeman or slave – the “Christ event” has rendered these differences irrelevant. By implication, the Old Testament’s structural division of humanity into microcosm and macrocosm is an old-creation concept that died on the cross. Third, for Paul the old and new creations overlap not just in space and time but in the lives of individuals. The historical Christ event is binary: his death brought an end to the old creation, while his resurrection ushered in the new. But the individual’s subjective participation in the Christ event is always a matter of here and now, of continually and simultaneously dying to the old man and being renewed in the new man. Rather than going through the Scriptural evidence supporting these three general inferences here, I refer the reader to the passage-specific posts and discussions and especially to the Pauline texts on which they are based.

It must be acknowledged, however, that the breadth of Paul’s thought isn’t fully encapsulated in these five crucial but brief passages. It’s clear elsewhere that Paul does distinguish between believers and unbelievers. While believers may experience a chronic internal split between the old man and the new man, unbelievers presumably define themselves solely in terms of the old man. So, while Paul insists that the wall separating Jew from Gentile has been demolished in the cross, he seems to lay the groundwork for building a new division between Christian and non-Christian. Though the post-crucifixion entrance requirements may have changed, the practical upshot may be the same: a chosen microcosm arising from within a failed and dying macrocosm.

I think the most important question concerns the nature of the barrier separating inside from outside. (1) Following the Jewish precedent, is the division between Christianity and non-Christianity a structural one, marked by distinctly Christian confessions, worship rituals, creeds, moral codes, fellowship with one another, dedicated physical spaces, and so on? (2) Is the distinctive mark of the Christian primarily a matter of an ongoing subjective experience of dying to the old man and being renewed in the new man? (3) Do Christians distinguish themselves by their working together in filial love and resurrection hope to manifest collectively the new creation throughout the world? If I were to choose based on the Pauline new creation texts, I’d say that the second and third options more closely correspond to Paul’s expressed thoughts on the matter.

Relegating most of the human race to the status of a failed experiment,
subject to termination at a moment’s notice by the Experimenter, might
be okay if you happen to be one His laboratory assistants, but
for us rats running through the maze the whole concept smacks of
fascism. Having read, thought about, and discussed Paul’s descriptions of the new creation, I think it’s not only possible but Scriptural for Christians to disavow this sort of antagonistic us-versus-them mentality as a relic of the old-creation thinking that Jesus’s death and resurrection rendered obsolete. I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world, Jesus said (John 12:47). It would seem that, for Christ’s fellow-heirs and co-workers and participants in his death and resurrection, saving the world is the work that still needs to be done.

It would be wise for me to stop here, but I’m interested in the practical implications. What happens when Christians explicitly to regard themselves as participants in the new creation as Paul describes it? Not being a professing Christian I’m clearly not the best man for the job, but I’ll have a tentative go at it.

New-creation Christians break down structural differences between groups of people. Wars, racial and ethnic insulation, economic mechanisms maintaining the class divide between rich and poor, legal obstacles to the free movement of workers across national and regional boundaries – these sorts of antagonistic divisions would seem to be appropriate areas for intervention.

New-creation Christians make the boundary more permeable between sacred and secular realms. That some undertaking is a church project should be less important than the nature of the project itself. Just because Israel divided the calendar between the work week and the Sabbath doesn’t mean that the new creation is irrelevant in the workplace and the schools. Instead of buffering themselves inside the microcosm, Christians can leaven the dough of the world with resurrection life.

New-creation Christians acknowledge the dividedness of the Christian self. Death an resurrection are the two moments of the Christ event; both are part of the believer’s participation in that event. The urge to self-gratify and the urge to self-justify, the desire to obey and the desire to violate, the conflict between what we think and what we find ourselves doing, the compulsion to impose barriers between ourselves and others along with obsession to imitate and to compete – the death throes of the old man are continual and perpetual. But there’s also this other self, this new man, that is continually coming alive – what is he like, I wonder? Both are part of the Christ event; both are part of the Christian’s subjective participation in that event.

But that’s enough out of me.