One of the most important distinctions in the entire New Testament is the distinction between what the new creation is in Christ — complete, righteous, sealed, positioned in heavenly places — and what the new creation is becoming through the process of sanctification and growth. Both are true. Both are essential. And the failure to hold them together is the source of enormous confusion in the Christian life.
The new creation is complete in Christ positionally: “And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.” — Colossians 2:10 (KJV). There is nothing more to be added to the new creation’s standing before God. Nothing to be earned, no level to be reached, no spiritual performance to accumulate. In Christ, they are already as righteous as they will ever be.
And yet the same New Testament that declares this positional completeness commands the new creation to grow:
“But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” — 2 Peter 3:18 (KJV)
Grow. Not: you have already grown. Not: growth will happen automatically without your participation. Grow — an imperative, a command, an expectation. The new creation who is complete in Christ is also commanded to become in experience what they already are in position.
This is the central dynamic of the new-creation life: becoming what you already are. Growing up into the fullness of the reality that was deposited in you at new birth. Pressing toward the full experiential manifestation of the stature of the fulness of Christ that is already your inheritance in Him.
The Goal — Ephesians 4:13–15
Paul gives the most precise description of the goal of spiritual growth in Ephesians 4:
“Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.” — Ephesians 4:13–15 (KJV)
The goal is extraordinary: the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. Not a vague approximation of virtue, not a modest improvement on where you started — the full stature of Christ as the standard toward which the new creation is growing. This is the ultimate horizon of sanctification: a maturity so complete that it corresponds to the fullness of Christ Himself.
Paul describes the mature believer by contrast with the immature: the immature is tossed to and fro — unstable, easily shaken, vulnerable to every new teaching and every cunning manipulation. The mature is speaking the truth in love — stable, established, able to distinguish truth from deception, grounded enough to speak truth and humble enough to speak it in love.
Grow up into him in all things. Not in some things — not the areas they find easiest or most comfortable. In all things. The Christ who is the standard of maturity is the complete, whole person — and the growth toward that standard touches every dimension of the new creation’s life.
The Distinction That Changes Everything — Positional vs. Experiential
The theological confusion that prevents many new creations from growing is the failure to distinguish between two different but complementary truths:
Positional truth: Everything that belongs to Christ has been made available to the new creation through union with Him. Righteousness, authority, wisdom, life — all of it is already theirs in Christ, at the moment of new birth. The new creation does not become more righteous by growing — they are already the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Experiential truth: The new creation must grow into the practical, daily experience of what they already are positionally. The righteousness that is theirs by position must be walked in, expressed, and increasingly manifested in their character, their relationships, their decisions. The authority they carry positionally must be known, believed, and exercised experientially. The love of God shed abroad in their heart positionally must be expressed and developed through the relational situations of daily life.
The new creation that only understands positional truth lives in a spiritual realm disconnected from practical reality — believing their theology but not experiencing it in their lives. The new creation that only understands experiential truth lives in perpetual striving — working to become what they have forgotten they already are. The new creation that holds both truths grows steadily — drawing from the inexhaustible resource of what they are in Christ, while pressing forward into the daily experience of what that position means.
Milk and Meat — Hebrews 5:12–14
The New Testament’s most direct confrontation with arrested development — the failure to grow beyond infancy — is in Hebrews 5:
“For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” — Hebrews 5:12–14 (KJV)
The rebuke is as direct as it is uncomfortable: by now, these believers should have been feeding others — ought to be teachers — but instead they still require the most elementary instruction. They are consuming milk when they should be digesting meat. They are in the first principles when they should be in the depths.
The writer identifies the instrument of maturity precisely: by reason of use have their senses exercised. The word exercised — Greek gymnazo, from which gymnasium derives — means trained through practice, developed through regular use. The mature believer is not the one who has received the most information — it is the one who has used what they received. Exercised it. Applied it. Put it to work. The senses — the spiritual faculties of perception, discernment, and judgement — are developed through practice, not through passive accumulation.
This is why growth cannot be replaced by church attendance or sermon consumption. Information received but never applied does not produce maturity. The new creation grows by doing — by putting the Word to work, by exercising faith under pressure, by applying what they know in the situations where it costs something.
The Ladder of Virtues — 2 Peter 1:5–8
The most systematic description of the progression of spiritual growth in the New Testament is Peter’s ladder in 2 Peter 1:
“And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” — 2 Peter 1:5–8 (KJV)
Eight elements. Each built upon the one before. And the first word — add — is the Greek epichoregeo, meaning to supply generously, to furnish abundantly. Peter is not describing a begrudging increment. He is describing a generous, progressive, abounding supply of each quality upon the one beneath it.
Faith — the foundation. Everything begins here. Not faith as a feeling but faith as the settled trust in what God has said, on which everything else is built.
Virtue — moral excellence, the active expression of goodness in character. Faith that does not produce moral excellence in the life is a faith not yet exercised to its potential.
Knowledge — not information alone, but the experiential knowledge that comes from walking with God and testing His Word in real situations. Knowledge that is built on virtue is wisdom; knowledge that bypasses virtue becomes merely intellectual.
Temperance — self-control, the mastery of the appetites, the disciplined life. Knowledge that is not disciplined produces the irony of the believer who knows the right thing and consistently does otherwise.
Patience — steadfastness under trial, the endurance that does not abandon its position under pressure. Temperance in ease becomes patience under fire.
Godliness — the full, consistent expression of reverence toward God in the texture of daily life. Not performance for observers but the deep, habitual orientation of the heart toward God.
Brotherly kindness — philadelphia, the warmth of genuine affection for the people of God. Godliness that does not produce warmth toward the people God loves has not yet fully matured.
Charity — agape, the love we examined in a previous article — the divine love that loves regardless of what it receives, that has been shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. The ladder ends where God Himself is described: God is love.
The progression is not arbitrary. Each quality enables and deepens the one that follows. And Peter’s promise is precise: if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful. Fruitfulness is the product of the well-grown life.
Pressing Toward the Mark — Philippians 3:12–14
The Apostle Paul’s personal account of his own engagement with growth is one of the most honest and most instructive passages in the New Testament:
“Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 3:12–14 (KJV)
Paul — with more spiritual experience, more apostolic authority, more revelation, more suffering, and more fruit than virtually any believer in history — says not as though I had already attained. He is still pursuing. Still pressing. Still reaching forward. The honest humility of this declaration is itself an instruction: the most spiritually mature are not the most settled and self-assured about how far they have come — they are the most aware of how much further there is to go.
This one thing I do. One focus. Not divided attention between the pursuit of maturity and the comfort of the present. Forgetting those things which are behind — the failures, the regrets, the past sins, and also the past achievements. None of them, good or bad, are to be the lens through which the present is viewed. Reaching forth unto those things which are before — the future, the goal, the mark.
I press toward the mark. The Greek diokon — to pursue, to chase, to go after with urgency. The growth of the new creation is not passive — it is a pursuit. An active, urgent, intentional movement toward the goal that Christ has set before them.
What Stunts Growth and What Accelerates It
The New Testament is direct about both — the conditions that arrest development and the instruments through which growth is accelerated.
What stunts growth:
Carnality — operating from the old patterns of the unreneged mind rather than from the renewed mind. “For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” — 1 Corinthians 3:3 (KJV). The believer who allows the patterns of the old nature to govern their responses is not growing toward maturity — they are functioning below their position.
Neglect of the Word — the new creation that does not feed on the Word has no nutritional foundation for growth. The senses are not exercised because there is nothing to exercise them with.
Isolation from the body — the new creation that is disconnected from the body of Christ is disconnected from the primary community through which growth is produced. The one another commands, the accountability, the provocation to love and good works, the equipping ministry of the five-fold gifts — all of these require community.
Refusing the instrument of suffering — James 1:2–4 declares that the testing of faith produces patience, and patience, allowed to complete its work, produces the perfect and entire believer wanting nothing. The new creation that avoids every suffering or abandons faith at the first trial is rejecting one of the most powerful growth instruments God uses.
What accelerates growth:
The Word received and acted upon — the doer of the Word, not the hearer only, who is blessed in their deed (James 1:22–25).
The Holy Spirit’s transforming work — “Being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” — 2 Corinthians 3:18 (KJV). Growth is ultimately the Spirit’s work in the new creation who yields to it.
Abiding in Christ — “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” — John 15:5 (KJV). Fruitfulness and growth are the natural product of maintained connection with Christ — not the result of spiritual striving apart from Him.
Functioning in community — the body of Christ, fitly joined together, making increase of itself in love (Ephesians 4:16).
What Comes Next
The growing new creation is moving toward a fullness that this present life approximates but never fully achieves. The series has brought us from new birth to authority, from prayer to healing, from confession to love, from community to mission, from the hope of Christ’s return to the process of growth. In the next article, we address the question that gathers all of these threads together: the new creation’s inheritance in Christ — what has been secured for them not just for this life but for eternity, and what they carry as the permanent, irrevocable possession of every born-again believer.
“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” — Romans 8:16–17 (KJV)
Heirs. Joint-heirs with Christ. What Christ inherits, the new creation inherits with Him — not as a distant legal entitlement but as a present and eternal possession.
Bible Verses Cited: 2 Peter 3:18; 2 Peter 1:5–8; Colossians 2:10; Ephesians 4:13–16; Hebrews 5:12–14; Philippians 3:12–14; 1 Corinthians 3:1–3; James 1:2–4, 1:22–25; John 15:5; 2 Corinthians 3:18; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 8:16–17 (KJV)
Series: New Creation in Christ Jesus — Article 33 of 35
Author: Joseph Olarewaju | FaithBibleStudy.org
