2 Corinthians 5:16-18: So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
I’ve recently finished writing a book titled The Greatest Revelation. Obviously, before I could send it to the publisher, it had to be checked for errors. While I was proofing it, the Lord suddenly revealed something to me in a line that I read in the book concerning the identity of Abraham and Jesus, and that is what I want to share with you today.
In Genesis 12, God appeared to Abram and instructed him to leave his father’s house and go to a land that He would later give to his descendants. During the twenty-five year journey, God began to reveal all the things He wanted to accomplish through Abraham’s seed. Paul tells us in Galatians that the Lord was speaking about Jesus being the Seed of Abraham.
God told Abram that he was going to give him a new name. He would now be called Abraham because he would be the father of many nations. After God changed Abram’s name, He introduced him to the ordinance of circumcision. Therefore, through the seed of Abraham, a new race of people had begun, one that wasn’t based on natural ethnicity, but, instead, was based on faith.
Now let’s progress ahead to the time of Jesus. When it was the appointed time for Christ to come to earth, God used His Word and Mary’s faith to form Jesus in her womb. Jesus was conceived by faith just like Isaac was conceived by faith, and like Isaac, Jesus was the first-born of a new race. In Christ, we are born again into the spirit realm of eternal life. Just as Abraham’s faith brought into being the Jewish people, Mary’s faith in God’s Word brought into being a royal priesthood and a holy nation. Even as Abraham entered a covenant with God and through faith was no longer a gentile, we, who enter a covenant with God through our faith, are no longer sinners. Once we accept Christ and die to our old man, we are a brand new creature in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5: 16) Hallelujah!! —submitted by Asa Dockery, US