I’ve just published a new song on UTB Songs all about the new creation, and how we live in the light of it.
Story behind the song
One of the books which has had a profound influence on the way I live as a Christian is Tom Wright’s book The Resurrection of the Son of God. In this book, Wright looks at the resurrection in a lot of scholarly detail (to be honest, given that the book is around 700 pages long, I did skip over some of those details!). But then, at the end of the book, he explains that the Christian hope is a physical, bodily resurrection from the dead. That’s the whole point of Christ’s resurrection: not simply to show that sin has been conquered but to prove to us that there is a whole new world coming, and he is already part of it. Wright says that the language of “going to heaven when we die” comes more from Greek philosophy than it does from the Bible.
I’ve done many videos on UTB teaching about the new creation, for example the final part of the What is Christianity course.
All of this had a huge impact on me. I began to see that so many Christians really thought very little about the new creation, and didn’t understand at all what we were going to. We simply don’t think about the new creation at all. This is, in part, because most of the hymns and songs we sing which talk about the resurrection don’t speak much, if at all, about the new creation.
For example, one of the most popular and well-loved traditional Easter hymns, “Thine be the Glory”, contains the line: “bring us safe through Jordan to thy home above”. ‘Thy home above’?! That sounds a bit like “going to heaven when you die,” doesn’t it? It really says little about our resurrection from the dead. If we don’t SING about the new creation, how can we be expected to know about it and look forward to it?
But, you might think, what’s the big problem with not singing about the new creation? If we don’t think / sing about the new creation, we’ll misunderstand what life is supposed to be about NOW. God is offering us a foretaste of the new creation by living in his ways of righteousness and love, in the power of the Holy Spirit. We can start living today, even in a small way, in a way which we will do for all eternity. We can bring some of the new creation into the present! This is the main idea that I wanted to communicated in this song.
I was particularly thinking of these verses from 1 John:
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. 1 John 3:2-3
Download Audio
If you’d like to download a high-quality audio version of the song, head on over to Bandcamp where you can download a copy for a small fee.
Lyrics
All creation groans aloud,
our lives are filled with pain;
And death, our greatest enemy,
is the sting of Satan’s reign.
Darkness could not overcome
the Word of God, the Light;
immortal now, he lives to save
and gives us eternal life.
Christ is risen from the grave,
and beckons us come in
To the new creation he’s begun
where we’ll be free from sin.
As we walk each day with God,
we must purify our lives:
for we are going to a place
where nothing is defiled.
What we will be is unknown
till see it with our eyes,
but we must walk in righteousness
and give every day to Christ.
Sheet Music / Guitar Chords
My intention for every song I write is that the sheet music should be freely available. You can download the lead sheet as a PDF here (I haven’t done a full piano score for this song). If you use it, please let me know!
Scripture References
- 1 John 3:2-3
- Galatians 6:8
- Romans 7:4
- Colossians 3:1
- Revelation 22:1-5
