Fullness of Life in a New Life
Won't you revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? — Psalms 85:6
We were buried therefore with him through baptism to death, that just like Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. — Romans 6:4
Author
Faustino de Jesús Zamora Vargas
Summary: New life in Christ begins with repentance and faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord. Baptism publicly testifies to that conversion: the old self dies, and the believer rises to new life. We are not merely improved people but a new creation, born of the Spirit and given a new heart. As we obey God’s word, his love is fully revealed in our lives. We must therefore examine our conversion honestly and surrender our lives to Christ. In him we find spiritual riches, forgiveness, and a fullness of life that also rests on the hope of his second coming.
The new life in Christ transcends all that we can comprehend with our human understanding. The symbolism of baptism, in which the newly converted person is buried in water to signify the death of the old self and raised as a public testimony to conversion and repentance through faith, being reborn to a new life, is a serious matter. The church of the living God must confront all that it implicitly teaches believers.
Only the person who has been born again in Christ can begin to equip themselves with the spiritual tools and resources needed to enjoy a full life. But every spiritual work has a beginning, and in the case of salvation, it all begins with repentance and the profession of faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord of this new life. God forgives. Spurgeon used to say that God is more interested in forgiving than man is in sinning.
The apostle John wrote, “…God’s love is fully manifested in the life of the one who obeys his word.” (1 Jn 2:5a NIV). God’s love in its fullness, fullness in Christ. We are a new creation born of the Spirit, God’s handiwork in Christ. This is a mystery announced by the prophet Ezekiel 600 years before the Lord’s first coming, when he said, “And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; and I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 11:19). God the surgeon, performing a transplant, removing what was old, what was unfeeling, what was already dead—in trespasses and sins—and putting in its place a new heart and a new (Holy) Spirit to give us new life, the joy of fullness in Christ, an unceasing blessing for the one who surrenders their (new) life to the eternal rock who is our Savior.
We must reflect seriously on our own experience of conversion, on whether we can truly testify (to God first of all) that we have been born again in Christ. A full life in Christ is synonymous with spiritual riches; it is a way of life empowered by the blood of Christ and resting on the hope of the second coming of the Chief Shepherd.
My prayer is that your life will be blessed with the fullness of Christ. You are a new creature, not an “improved” creature; you have a new heart and a new Spirit. The abundance of our life is Christ himself. May we be able to say with Paul, “…and it is no longer I who live—the old self, dead in trespasses and sins—but Christ lives in me.” (Galatians 5:20)
God bless you!