Many Christians know something concerning the cross, but they are not clear concerning the principle of the cross. What is the principle of the cross? According to the Scriptures, God has two creations in the universe. The first is called the old creation, and the second, the new creation. The new creation came into being by putting the old creation to an end and beginning something new. Only by putting the old creation to an end could the Lord bring the new creation into existence. It was through the work of the cross that the old creation was put to an end, and it was through the cross that the new creation began in resurrection.
What are the constituents of the old creation? The first item in the old creation is the angels with the angelic life, and the second is man with the human life. These are two kinds of beings with two kinds of lives. The archangel, the head of the angels, rebelled against God and became Satan (Isa. 14:12-14; Ezek. 28:12-18). The word satan means “adversary,” indicating that Satan is the adversary of God. Satan not only rebelled, but he led a rebellion against God in which a good number of angels followed him. According to Revelation 12, one-third of the angels, the heavenly stars, followed Satan (v. 4a). These rebellious angels became the spiritual forces of evil—the rulers, authorities, and world-rulers in Satan’s dark kingdom, as mentioned in Ephesians 1:21; 2:2; and 6:12. The rebellion of the angelic life produced the third and fourth items of the old creation—Satan and his kingdom (Matt. 12:26; Luke 4:5-6).
Now let us briefly continue with the other items of the old creation. After the creation of the human life, the enemy of God also induced man to act against God. This act caused something—sin—to be injected into the human life. This sin was the singular, personified sin. The very sinful nature and thought of Satan was injected into the human life (Gen. 3:1-6; Rom. 5:12). Sin in this universe was invented by the injection of the fallen angelic life into the human life. Sin was not created by God but was invented by the illegal union of the satanic life with the human life. Therefore, sin is the fifth item in the old creation. After singular sin came into existence, it brought forth many sins. Therefore, sins as the fruit of sin (6:20-21; 7:5), including lying, murder, pride, fornication, etc., are the sixth item in the old creation. All the sins of man were produced from sin.
The world is the seventh item in the old creation. The world was not created by God. God created the earth, but Satan invented the world. Sin was invented in Genesis 3, but it was not until Genesis 4 that something was added to sin. This added thing was Satan’s invented world. What is the world? The world is the system of all human life under Satan (John 12:31; James 4:4; 1 John 2:15). The Greek word for world is kosmos, which means “order” or “arrangement.” It denotes an ordered system set up by Satan, the adversary of God. God created man for Himself, but now Satan has systematized humanity. Man is no longer for God but is wholly systematized by Satan and for Satan.
Another item besides these in the old creation is death, which is the consequence of sin and sins (Rom. 5:12). The flesh—the transmuted body, poisoned and ruined by Satan (7:18; 8:3)—is also an item in the old creation. The body became the flesh through the corruption of Satan as sin. The old man (6:6) is another item, which is nothing less than the entire fallen man ruined by Satan. Man, who was originally created by God, has been ruined by sin.
The next item in the old creation is the self (Luke 9:23-25). The soul of man was created by God (Gen. 2:7), but it has become the self, which is threatened and corrupted by the flesh. God originally created the body as a good and pure thing, but it was corrupted by Satan’s sinful nature and became the flesh. The same principle applies to the soul, which was created pure and good but later was influenced by the flesh. It was threatened and then controlled by the flesh and thereby became the self. Sin corrupted the body, causing it to become the flesh, and the flesh influenced and controlled the soul, making it the self.
Finally, the twelfth item in the old creation is the entire creation. The entire creation was damaged and corrupted by the rebellion of the angelic life and by the transgression of the human life. This brought the entire creation under a kind of groaning because of the bondage of corruption (Rom. 8:19-22).
The aforementioned twelve items added together are the old creation. The old creation includes many things. But we need to be clear at this point that fallen man became the very center of the old creation. He is related to each one of the twelve items of the old creation. First, Satan entered into man and became one with man. Included with Satan is the kingdom of Satan; therefore, since Satan is in man, the kingdom of Satan also is in man. Satan is the ruler of the world; hence, the world too is included in Satan (1 John 5:19b) and also is in man. Furthermore, embodied in man are sin and sins, which issue in death. The flesh, the old man, and the self also are in man, and man was, and still is, the head of all creation. According to Genesis 1:26, man was ordained to be the head of the entire creation. Thus, man is related to the entire creation, and the entire creation is related to man and centralized in man. Man is the very center of the old creation in every aspect. Man nearly becomes all-inclusive, but not in a good sense. If we want to meet Satan, there is no need for us to go to some special place—by going to man, we will meet Satan. If we desire to contact the kingdom of Satan, there is no need for us to go to the moon—by going to man, we will contact the kingdom of Satan. It is the same with the world. Within man, as the representative of the old creation, are Satan, the kingdom of Satan, the world, sin, sins, death, the flesh, the old man, etc. Man is not a small creature. On the contrary, man is great and all-inclusive in a negative sense. The entire creation is now centralized in man.