In the beginning God created the world. In the story of Genesis, readers learn of creation—creation of the universe, day and night, Earth, animals, and people. Anglican Bishop and theologian NT Wright explains that the story of God’s creation of humanity is significant to its self-concept in his book Surprised by Hope.
Within biblical theology it remains the case that the one living God created a world that is other than himself, not contained within himself. Creation was from the beginning an act of love, of affirming the goodness of the other. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good; but it was not itself divine. At its height, which according to Genesis 1 is the creation of humans, it was designed to reflect God, both to reflect God back to God in worship and to reflect God into the rest of creation in stewardship.
A Biblical self-concept begins with the imago Dei, the idea that humanity is created in the image of God to reflect his glory back to him. If humanity’s role in creation is to reflect the glory of God, then something has gone terribly wrong. The Bible speaks to the sin nature innate in humanity. Wright continues,
In [Romans 8] Paul again uses the imagery of the Exodus from Egypt but this time not in relation to Jesus, nor even to ourselves, but to creation as a whole. Creation, he says (verse 21) is in slavery at the moment, like the children of Israel. God’s design was to rule creation in life-giving wisdom through his image-bearing human creatures. But this was always a promise for the future, a promise that one day the true human being, the image of God himself, God’s incarnate son, would come to lead the human race into their true identity. Meanwhile, the creation was subjected to futility, to transience and decay, until the time when God’s children are glorified, when what happened to Jesus at Easter happens to all Jesus’s people. This is where Romans 8 dovetails with 1 Corinthians 15. The whole creation, as he says in verse 19, is on tiptoe with expectation, longing for the day when God’s children are revealed, when their resurrection will herald its own new life.
While it is certainly important to look forward to the new creation that comes at Jesus’ return to Earth, the Bible speaks to the new creation that comes through Christ into the new believer.
The Apostle Paul writes, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). One of the most foundational concepts of a Christian life is that upon conversion, a believer loses his or her old sinful nature and is covered in the righteousness of God through Jesus. Paul continues, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Understanding that Jesus has conquered the sin nature that once dominated humanity is among the most significant beliefs a Christian can have. By becoming a new creation, the old self-concept dies and the new identity in Christ begins.
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