The New Creation

The Resurrected Church is now able to preach the Gospel of the kingdom of God with new power. The first direct target struck by this  preaching is individual human beings.

1. Transformation of Men

The first significant impact is The Rebirth of Men. In many parts of the Caribbean, men are conspicuous by their absence from the church.   For many men, church is something for women and children. Succeeding generations of boys swallow this bait, so that more and more men have become famous by their absence. The Resurrected Church reverses this trend. There will be a massive return of men to the Church.

"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away, behold, all things are become new." 2 Cor. 5: 17.  The impact of the Resurrected Church on men will not be an increase of men attending church services. It will be in the large number of men who are genuinely converted by the power of the gospel. This will be A New Creation. The total man will undergo a total transformation, body, soul, and spirit. This will be nothing less than miraculous.

God must have had a purpose for creating the man first, according to Genesis 2. This is not a matter of superiority of the male to the female. They both are created in the image and likeness of God. Is it that the man has a position of leadership, responsibility, and accountability? 'Adam, Where are you?' Here, it is not so much a matter that the man is first in conversion, but that the man has abandoned his place in the purpose of God, and must be fully restored to that role.

It is a matter of the restoration of men to all that God created them to be, and to do. It seems that the enemy is fully aware of the purpose for which God created the man, and he is determined to keep men away from that divine purpose. What the enemy was doing in the temptation of Eve was to get at the man through the woman. God will reverse all the enemy's plan to defeat the man.

The restoration of men in the image and likeness of God is essential for the realization of His kindgom on the earth. St. Paul in Rom. 3:23 say, "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Through the Resurrected Church, God will restore mankind to the fulness of the glory of God in which he was created. God will look at men and be well pleased. God will see His righteousness in man.

2. Emergence of A New Womanhood.

God working through the Resurrected Church will bring about A New Womanhood.
This will be a woman of equal standing before God as the man. "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them." Gen. 1: 27. the Lord God formed the woman out of the man. Gen. 2: 18, 21-23. So the woman is of the same nature as the man, and of the same dignity.

Notice that God blessed them both and gave them both dominion in the earth. There is no biblical justification for treating women as inferior to men, or for assigning to women positions or tasks which are 'inferior' to those given to men. The concept of inferiority seems foreign to the creative purpose of God. Nor does it seem acceptable in the kingdom of God. St. Paul points out that the common cultural distinctions which we make between male and female do not apply with those who are in Christ Jesus. Gal.3:28.

But God has given to woman a unique and awesome responsibility - to be helper for the man. We in the Caribbean who grow bananas are accustomed with the practice of using props to hold up plants which would otherwise fall. Take away the prop; the plant falls, and the fruits are no doubt destroyed. Take away a man's God given woman, and the man falls. That is what Satan tried to do in the Genesis story. His plan was to take away man's helper and so bring about man's downfall. And he succeeded. Now God has to redeem, and restore both male and female.

In what way is woman made to be helper for man? Briefly put, it means that
the woman must help the man to be and to become all that God wants him to be. It also means that the woman must help the man to do all that God wants him to do. Now this is awesome. It means that the woman must know what God wants the man to be, and she must know what God wants the man to do.  But the woman cannot do these things unless she herself is the image and likeness of God.

So God, through the Resurrected Church so transforms the woman, and restores the fulness of His image in her,that she is able to perform this awesome task. She can only be helper for the man if the image and likeness of God are restored in her. Otherwise she cannot be helper for man. Otherwise, the man must fall.

Men and women can only have the fulness of the image and likeness of God restored in them if they are in Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus is in them. This depends on their response to the gospel proclaimed by the Resurrected Church, and the ministry of the Church equipping them for their calling.

Through the Resurrected Church, God transforms men and women as a new creation in Christ Jesus; filled with the fulness of God; holy as He is holy; complete in Christ Jesus. Everything else depends on this, whether it has to do with the family, the community, the culture, the nation and above all, to the kingdom of God.



Contact: Martin C. Roberts
Rose Hill, Marigot, Commonwealth of Dominica, W.I.
Tel. 1-767-613-2201
Email: sendlight@hotmail.com

Copyright@Martin Roberts, Transformation of the Nations