New Creation

In the third place, we base the doctrine of the eternal security of the believer upon the fact of the new creation. In the fifth chapter of second Corinthians, verse seventeen, we read: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” That verse may be rendered like this, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, this is new creation; old things have passed away, and all things have become new.”
What do we mean by new creation? Just this: we were once in the place of death, we were once utterly lost and ruined. How did we get there? Follow me now. It was not by any act of our own. Do you say, “I did not get into the place of spiritual death by any act of my own?” No, you did not. Do you say, “I was not lost because of any act of my own?” No, you were not. But why were you numbered among the lost? Because you were born into the world a member of the old creation of which Adam the first was the head, and every child of Adam’s race comes into the world lost and is under sentence of death. And so we read in this same chapter in verse 14, “The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead.”