When God created the earth, he put into place a physical principle of seed-bearing plants whose seeds reproduce that plant. It’s also the principle of reaping what you sow. If I open a zucchini and plant the seeds it contains into the ground, I will get more zucchini plants and annoy my neighbors all summer by trying to pawn off on them a mountain of zucchini. This principle of reproduction also applies to people since the Bible uses the word seed to refer to reproduction in people.
Just like heat and water activate seeds, the DNA “seeds” we inherit from our parents can be activated to express certain characteristics present in our parents. This is why you may have your dad’s hair or your mom’s eyes. The expression of genes extends to two or three generations, which is why doctors ask for your medical history back to your grandparents. This is why you may share a talent with a grandparent that perhaps skipped a generation. What gets passed down to you can be good or bad – a scientific mind or a hereditary disease. Epigenetics is a fascinating study of how our behavior can turn genes on and off.
Reaping what we sow means that our behavior leads to consequences connected to that behavior. When God revealed the goodness of his nature to Moses, he said, “I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected— even children in the third and fourth generations” (Exodus 34:7). If a dad steals and goes to prison, it affects not only him but his children. How they process the pain can affect their children, a ripple effect to subsequent generations. This cycle of reaping negative consequences began when the seed of mankind, Adam and Eve, did the one thing God had warned them not to do. Their sin sowed death and disorder into the perfect world God created. The fruit of that sin is pain in our bodies, relationships and work.
When Eve was deceived by the devil into disobeying God’s instruction not to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the Bible tells us that she was seeking secret wisdom that would make her like God. Adam and Eve chose to pursue an identity apart from God instead of bringing God glory as his creation. They believed a lie that they could thrive apart from God by their own wisdom. Sin is the gravitational pull toward self, making everything about my ego. Our bent toward self violates love, the core of who God is. As the seed of mankind, Adam and Eve’s separation from God in pursuit of their own glory became traits inherited by us all. The Bible refers to this corrupted seed as the sin nature.
The consequence of sin being introduced into God’s perfect creation is that every avenue we pursue to find our identity, purpose, and glory apart from God is frustrated, including our work and relationships. By taking what was not given to him by God to try to become a god himself, the cultivation of the garden that Adam had been given to do as meaningful work was frustrated so that Adam could not find fulfillment in it. Just as Jesus said a branch that is separated from the vine can do nothing, mankind was created to find fulfillment in relationship with God, so apart from him we can do nothing. The earth that was meant to respond to Adam was cursed when he rebelled against God, allowing him to experience the pain of creation rebelling against its master. God allowed the discipline that was necessary for Adam and his seed/descendants to repent, which means to return to God.
In Exodus 34, God revealed that he forgives sin and rebellion when we repent, shifting us from the cycle of brokenness being passed down through generations to one of lavish love being passed down. That’s good news! Listen to what God said through Moses: “You must serve only the LORD your God. If you do, I will bless you with food and water, and I will protect you from illness. There will be no miscarriages or infertility in your land, and I will give you long, full lives” (Exodus 23:25-26). The fruit of Adam and Eve’s sin of self-worship is the curse of toil and pain until death for all humanity. But humbly returning to God and worshiping him marks a new beginning of passing from curse to blessing. The curses are still at work in the earth because God has given mankind free will to rebel against him, but when we repent, we begin reaping the blessings of belonging to God.
But wait, there’s more! In Genesis 3 God declared war between mankind and the devil, promising that the seed or offspring of Eve would crush Satan. The Bible then tells the story of God revealing himself to a family that became the nation of Israel. This family line carried the seed who would crush Satan. When Jesus was born with the DNA of a woman from the family of Israel and the spiritual DNA of God the Father, a new type of man was born, a new Adam. The name Adam means mankind. Unlike the first Adam, Jesus perfectly obeyed God to the point of death. Romans 5:18-19 reveals that “Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. 19 Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous.”
We’re made righteous by receiving the seed of faith in Christ, the new Adam, who takes the curse of sin upon himself so that we can reap life! What God started when he created the world and called it good, he will finish by redeeming it through Christ and then restoring it. God’s global plan of restoration is also personal for you. Philippians 1:6 declares, “I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” How?
Through gene splicing, the traits of plants and animals can be changed. For example, researchers have inserted a gene into an onion that stops it from making you cry when you cut it (Eady et al., 2008). This is a picture of what the insertion of the Holy Spirit back into man does when we receive the seed of faith in Christ, the new Adam. Humanity spiritually died when we separated from God, but Jesus opened up a way for all who return to God to be reborn with his Spirit. He cuts out our sinful nature that corrupts us (called the circumcision of our heart) as we die to our bent toward self. God then splices in his Spirit so we can stop making people cry! My biologist husband explained to me that onions make you cry as a self-defense mechanism, which further illustrates this principle. By dying to “self” and receiving Jesus’ Spirit, we’re enabled to move from self-defense which hurts others to trusting in God and loving others.
In John 3:5-6 Jesus says, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.” Being born of water points to being baptized, a symbol of dying to your old self as you go under the water so your sins can be washed away. Coming up out of the water is symbolic of being reborn by the Spirit. Just like we break through the waters of our mother’s womb when we are physically born, we break through the barrier of sin through repentance to be spiritually reborn through faith in Christ, the new Adam. Just as the Spirit of God hovered over the waters at creation in Genesis 1:2, the Spirit hovers over the water of spiritual baptism to enable new life in Christ.
We still reap what we sow, but the Holy Spirit enables us to reap spiritual blessings from the seed of faith in Christ. Galatians 6:8-9 tells us, “Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (NIV). The cycle of rebellion that leads to death is broken for all who are in Christ, the new Adam, so we can now sow righteousness into the earth and reap a harvest. As we grow in our relationship to God, the seed of faith causes us to become like “trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit” (Jeremiah 17:8). Trees take time to grow and so do you. God is patiently raising you up in Christ as a new creation. He will finish the good work he started in you!
Identity Puzzle Piece: Who are you in Christ, the new Adam? A new creation!
“Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. 15 He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. 16 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! 17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:14-17).
We become a new creation when we receive the Holy Spirit who changes the way we think, giving us the mind of Christ as we invite him to transform us to be like Christ. Instead of living for ourselves and only thinking about our own interests, we live to bring God glory as we love and serve others. Instead of evaluating ourselves and others based on a human point of view that’s limited by our knowledge of good and evil, we are invited to go back to the garden of Eden where the first Adam talked to God and was led by him. By receiving the seed of faith in Christ, the new Adam, we now have the same Spirit of Christ living inside us. He enables us to produce the fruit of God’s Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).
Instead of copying the broken ways of the offspring of Adam and Eve, we now copy the ways of Jesus. Romans 12:2 says, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” The word for transform is the Greek word “metamorphoo,” from which we get the word metamorphosis. It means to be transformed, transfigured, changed in form. We see this word used to describe Jesus when he went up on the mountain with three of his disciples and was transfigured before their eyes into his glorious form. “As the men watched, Jesus’ appearance was transformed so that his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light” (Matthew 17:2). Jesus was transfigured as he spoke with Moses and Elijah about his death and resurrection. His transfiguration gave his disciples a glimpse of the glory awaiting him for trusting God with his life.
We usually think of the word metamorphosis in connection to caterpillars which undergo a process of transformation inside a cocoon to emerge as butterflies. This is a picture of your spiritual transformation by receiving the Spirit of Christ. Jesus said that before a seed can become a plant it must first fall to the ground and die. Before the butterfly can emerge, the caterpillar’s old life has to be completely broken down and remade inside the cocoon. The same is true of our thought life. The ways of the world are not God’s ways. The Holy Spirit transforms us by changing the way we think down to the root of our motivation. He rebuilds our thoughts with truth as we build our identity on Christ. God doesn’t just define sin and tell us to stop sinning; he breaks down the thought patterns that lead to sin and the bent mental models we’ve received from our upbringing that don’t align to God’s Kingdom.
In Exodus 34:7, God says that he forgives “iniquity, rebellion, and sin.” We generally think of sin as breaking commands like “Do not steal. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery.” However, in Matthew 5 Jesus reveals that anger is the root of murder and looking at a woman with lust is the root of adultery. Jesus is addressing iniquity, the underlying bent toward certain sins. Murder is a sin rooted in unresolved anger, so the Holy Spirit starts working with us to get to the root of sin. When we’re angry and ask him why with a genuine desire to repent, he’ll begin breaking down our thought patterns and revealing roots. He sometimes does this by causing a memory to suddenly surface, by dropping a word into your spirit, through a sermon, a scripture you read, a video in your newsfeed – he’s very creative!
Habitual sin without repentance becomes iniquity. When sin or rebellion is normalized, it becomes a blind spot passed down to the next generation. This is why we do the thing we don’t want to do because even though we may want to stop a sinful behavior, there is a seed of iniquity that needs to be uprooted and replaced by a seed of faith in Christ. In Isaiah 53:6 we discover that God laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all. Jesus, the new Adam, took the weaknesses of our personality and our bent toward certain sins upon himself so that when he died on the cross, our iniquity died with him. When he was raised to life, our new life was made possible by the Spirit who leads us to be like Jesus who overcame the devil.
When Jesus was baptized, the Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, then led him into the wilderness to face temptation, just as Eve was tempted by the devil. This was likely the wilderness where the generation of Israel that was supposed to go into the promised land perished for failing to trust God. The Spirit led Jesus to fast for 40 days – one day for every year Israel spent delayed in the wilderness – to overcome where Israel had failed. At the time of his greatest weakness, Jesus faced the devil because the enemy comes to tempt us in our weakness. In Jesus’ hour of temptation, we see God’s promise in 2 Corinthians 12:9 at work, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” The New Adam overcame temptation where previous generations had failed by remaining grounded in the truth of God’s word and submission to God the Father. The Spirit helps us do this, too.
The Israelites grumbled about food in the wilderness, but when Satan tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread, Jesus said, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4). Then Satan twisted scripture in an attempt to get Jesus to test God’s word instead of trusting God, just like the Israelites tested God in the wilderness. But Jesus refused, again citing scripture as authority. Satan tempted Jesus to worship him in exchange for earthly glory. Unlike Israel who worshiped the golden calf, Jesus said,“Get out of here, Satan, for the Scriptures say, ‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him’” (Matthew 4:10). Every generational sin and iniquity was overcome by Jesus, the New Adam, who stood on the authority of God’s word.
Just like he led Jesus into the wilderness to overcome Satan, the Holy Spirit will lead you to overcome generational patterns of dysfunction by helping you remain in Christ. Just like Jesus pulled down the lies of the devil by standing on scripture, Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would remind us of his words (John 14:26). The Spirit of truth helps us identify lies we’ve believed that were normalized in our culture and home so we can break out of generational patterns of sin and bondage. We break out of a scarcity mindset into abundance, out of brokenness into wholeness, out of loneliness into family.
God graciously walks us through this process of breaking down and rebuilding which the Bible calls sanctification. Like the caterpillar undergoing metamorphosis, it can feel like death as the Holy Spirit starts breaking down our fears and pride, tearing down mental constructs based on the world’s knowledge of good and evil. Yet as we learn to trust in and follow the Spirit’s leading, we see that he’s actually transforming us into the loving nature of Jesus. As we focus on him, “the Lord – who is the Spirit – makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Christ, the new Adam, in me: Ephesians 3:20 declares that God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (NIV). The Spirit of God has changed things about me that I thought were impossible to change. I was once so fearful of people and shy that I couldn’t look people in the eye. But when the anointing of the Holy Spirit came upon me, he filled me with bold love for people that enables me to share Jesus with complete strangers. From childhood I was held captive to negative self-talk and mental habits like rehashing, rehearsing, and ritual self-evaluation. Over the years, the Holy Spirit has broken down thought patterns of rejection and fear, pulling them up by the root and replacing them with truth from scripture. It’s not by striving harder that I change, but by receiving revelation from God through scripture, prayer, anointed messages, dreams, visions, etc. I’m still in a process, a butterfly struggling to emerge from the cocoon. But it’s the struggle that strengthens the butterfly’s wings so it can fly and carry the good news of Christ to others.
Ephesians 2:10 says that “we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Adam was formed from the dust by God, the Potter, and we are being shaped by him as he works in us. Just like a potter works with the clay until it looks the way he envisioned it, the Holy Spirit is patiently forming you into God’s masterpiece. He delights in the process of teaching you and forming Christ in you. You are already God’s masterpiece because you are in the process of metamorphosis which can only be accomplished by him. It doesn’t matter who you were in the past because the greater the transformation, the greater the glory God receives.
Identity Declaration: I am a new creation in Christ, the new Adam, who is fully human yet filled with the Spirit of God. My old self apart from God is dead and buried, and I have a new beginning. I am being transformed by the Spirit into God’s masterpiece to bring glory to him through my new life in Christ.
Reflection: How can I love others as Christ, the new Adam, has loved me and made me a new creation?
The Word Remaining in Me: Click on the scriptures below to read them online.
- If you haven’t read the story of creation, please read Genesis chapters 1-3. Just as God breathed into Adam to give him life, in John 20:22 Jesus breathed into his disciples to receive the Holy Spirit who fills us with spiritual life. Take a deep breath and ask for the Holy Spirit to fill you. Believe Jesus’ promise in Luke 11:13 that the Father will give us his Spirit when we ask.
- Read Ephesians 4:17-32 which contrast our old life with our new life in Christ. We’re instructed to throw off our old sinful nature like dirty clothes, then “Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy” (Ephesians 4:24). How does Paul say this is accomplished in verse 23? Invite the Holy Spirit to show you what you need to take off and what to put on.
- Read 1 Corinthians 15:45-57. We receive a renewed mind by receiving God’s Spirit to retrain us to think with the mind of Christ so we are no longer slaves to sin, which is our first transformation. When Jesus returns, we will receive a new body that is no longer subject to decay and death, our final metamorphosis. Just as Jesus ascended to heaven like a butterfly, our new body will be glorious like his! How does this two-step redemption give you hope for the future and affect how you view your present circumstances?
- Read Psalm 139:1-18, King David’s tender description of how God created us and pursues us. Knowing that God’s thoughts about you are precious, I encourage you to pray verses 23-24, inviting the Spirit to transform you into the wonderful person God created you to be.
Remaining in Love: The Holy Spirit often teaches us as little children through the language of pictures and symbols. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring a picture to your mind of who you are as God’s masterpiece. Don’t focus too hard but simply relax or go for a walk and see if something suddenly pops into your mind. When it does, thank God for the revelation and ask the Holy Spirit for understanding of what it means. Write it down and begin to let what God says about you reshape how you think about yourself.
Bonus Online Content
Click here for a PDF of the Small Group Discussion Guide to practice loving others as a new creation with your small group.
Worshiping From Your Identity in Christ as a New Creation:
- Click here to listen to your Creator singing a new beginning over you (“Dancing on the Waves” by Bethel Music feat. We The Kingdom)
- Click here to sing Psalm 139 to the Lord (“Where Can I Go – Psalm 139” by Ellie Holcomb)
New Creation Identity Scriptures to Memorize and Pray:
Thank you, Father, for creating me anew in Christ as your masterpiece. My old life is buried with Christ, and I trust you to remake me in the image of Christ as a new creation. Holy spirit, renew my thoughts and attitudes by giving me the mind of Christ. Clothe me in the loving nature of Jesus so I can do the good things you planned for me. Lord, I invite you to transform me into a new person by changing the way I think so I can discern your good will for my life.
“My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
“Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
“Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. 23 Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy” (Ephesians 4:22-24).
“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10).
“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2).
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