The Cross, the Grave and the New Creation

Rev. Aniekan "Mbomboyo" Okokon · 2026-09-27

For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. — Galatians 6:15

Paul ends Galatians with the only thing that counts: a new creation. And he tells us where it came from — the cross, "by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (6:14). The new creation is not a fresh idea. It came out of a grave.

The cross: the end of the old

At the cross Christ bore sin, exhausted its penalty and broke its claim. But Scripture says more than that He died for us. It says we died with Him (Romans 6:6; Galatians 2:20). The old humanity — Adam’s race, with its guilt and its bondage — was put to death in Him. The cross was not only a payment. It was an execution, and the man who was executed was the old you.

The grave: the burial of the old

We pass quickly over Saturday, but Paul does not. "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death" (Romans 6:4). Burial is what you do with something that is finished. The old man is not wounded, or weakened, or in recovery. He is buried — and baptism was your funeral, a public declaration that the old life has been laid in the ground with Christ.

The third day: the new comes out

What came out of the tomb was not a resuscitated corpse. It was the firstborn of a new creation (Colossians 1:18), the first man of a new humanity, in a body that death could not touch again. And "if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his" (Romans 6:5). The new creation began in a garden tomb at dawn, and you are part of it.

Living on the right side of the three days

Do not go back to the cross to be forgiven again; go there to remember you already are.
Do not dig up what was buried. The old man does not need managing; he needs to stay dead.
Live from the third day: the life you have is resurrection life, and it is meant to be visible.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday. The whole of history turned on those three days, and so did you.