“What God Has Done for You” 2 Corinthians 5:17

Almost everybody likes “new.” New clothes, new cars, new jobs, new challenges.

And when the new year comes around, we like to think of this as a reboot, a time to make a new life out of the old one. We’re going to get in shape, be more responsible, be kinder. We see this reboot as an opportunity to make ourselves a better person.

As we begin our new year with all our New Year’s resolutions, official or not, the Bible tells us that there are some things we need to realize. Once we embrace these truths and begin to live them out, our lives will be transformed, and we will become the new person we always wanted to be.

We begin with a familiar passage that we’ve looked at several times with the last Sunday of the year.

Background

The promise of Jesus was fulfilled at Calvary and the empty tomb. Calvary brought us salvation from our sins, and the empty tomb brought us new life and new hope. With the new life that comes in Christ, we have been transformed into something never seen before. We are God’s new creation, His new life.

The trouble is that we either do not realize that we are a new creation, or we don’t realize the significance of this new creation. So today, we consider the full ramification of God’s declaration found in this verse.

Central Truth: God’s grace has already transformed us into someone new.

The conditional

The conditional is this: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” A conditional statement gives us an if and a then. Sometimes, the word “then” is included in part of the statement; other times, like here, it is not. When the first part of the conditional occurs, then the second part always follows. In this conditional, the if is very important.

In order to be a new creation, we must be in Christ. To be “in Christ” is to be grafted into the True Vine, as Jesus tells us in John 15. “I am the Vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). By becoming a part of the Vine, we become capable of bearing fruit, and that fruit that we bear is the fruit of the Spirit. When we become a part of the Vine, we begin to take on the characteristics of Christ and it is seen in the fruits that we bear. In Christ, we learn to show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. We take on a Christlikeness.

But the only way we can be grafted into the Vine is to put our faith in Him, to believe in Him. This belief is not an intellectual acknowledgement of Jesus and His claims. Rather, it is a relational knowledge of Jesus. It is a faith that says we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He came to earth and lived among us according to God’s grand plan. We believe that He taught us how to live and how to relate to the Father and the Son and to one another. And we believe that Jesus, who was sinless, took on the sins of the world to buy our pardon at Calvary. By His crucifixion, we were given forgiveness of sins, and by His resurrection we are given a new life in Him. And we believe that this new life is a transformed life, one that is transformed by the Holy Spirit living inside us as a pledge and as a guide. It is the work of the Holy Spirit within us that enables us to become a new life, and that in fact has already made us that new creation.

Without Christ, there is no transformation. Without believing in Jesus, there is no salvation, no new life, no new creation. This whole promise of the verse is based strictly on having a personal relationship with Jesus. Without it, there is no hope.

But with that relationship, there are all sorts of worlds opening up to us, as we see in the next part of the verse.

The fact

If we are in Christ, we are a new creation. This is a fact.

When Abraham Lincoln was president, he was having a discussion with several congressmen. They were going back and forth over a point, when the president said, “If I show you a lamb and tell you that the tail is a leg, how many legs does that lamb have?” One of the congressmen replied, “He would have five legs.” President Lincoln responded, “No, he would have only four legs. Just because I call a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg. It’s still a tail.”

This is important. We live in a world where, if we don’t agree with something, we call it “fake news,” or we retell the story using “alternate facts.” But just because we call something fake or look for an alternate, it does not change the fact that what we are rejecting is true. As Christians, we are called to follow the Truth. As such, we have a responsibility to seek out that which is true. What we read about being a new creation is true.

Satan doesn’t want us to believe what I’m about to tell you, what the Bible is telling you. He is already trying to distract you, telling you it’s too good to be true. It’s “fake news,” or he has alternate facts that better fit. Please remember, Satan is the father of lies. His native tongue is lies (cf. John 8:42-47), and Satan wants to destroy us and our potential in Christ. Do not let Satan convince you that 2 Corinthians 5:17 is not true, or that it’s an alternative.

Nowhere in this verse does it say anything but that we are a new creation. It doesn’t say we may become a new creation; it doesn’t say we will become a new creation. It doesn’t say we have to do something or be someone special in order to become a new creation. If we have placed our faith in Christ as our Savior and Lord, then we are a new creation.

It’s that simple. And it’s that profound.

What does it mean to be a new creation? It means that God no longer wants us to look at the world the way we used to. He wants us to see it in a new way, and to relate to it in a new way. Look at Paul’s words just before this verse. He says he once regarded Christ from a worldly point of view. In fact, he saw everything from a worldly point of view. But that changed the moment he accepted Christ. Why? His world view changed because Paul became a new creation. Now he sees things as Christ sees things.

So how do we see things now? We see them as the real children of God, and as His children we are becoming more like Him each day. By the power of the Spirit that now lives in us as a new creation, we are able to learn what God wants us to do and, just as importantly, we are able to do what God wants us to do. Remember Jesus’ comment about being a branch in the vine? As long as we are tapped into the Vine, we bear fruit. Again, an important realization, is that as long as we branches relying on the Vine, not only are we bearing fruit, but we are tapped into a limitless source of everything we need as a new creation. Jesus said, “If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you” (John 15:7).

This doesn’t mean that being a branch means God is now obligated to give us anything and everything we want. We must not read this verse to say, “Hot dog! I’m finally going to get that vacation home in Greenland.” No, it means that, as we are tuned into Christ through the Holy Spirit, we will find ourselves seeking His will in all things. As God leads us through Christ and His Holy Spirit, He will give us things He wants us to do, and as we realize God’s leadership, we will then ask Him to equip us to fulfill the task we have been called to do. We will ask “in Jesus name,” meaning what we are asking is not for our own selfish desires, but in accordance to Christ’s will and Lordship. We ask these things in order that we may effectively serve our Lord.

And this is what it means to be a new creation. We no longer see things from a worldly point of view; we now see through the eyes of Christ. We no longer want to try to muddle through on our own; now we yield ourselves to Christ and let Him live through us. As a new creation, we are empowered and equipped to live our lives in victory through Christ.

And because we are a new creation and see the things from a different viewpoint, we relate to the world differently. And that’s our new reality.

The reality

The Bible tells us that, because we are a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come. What does that mean?

The old has gone. Later on, as we look at more of these verses in the weeks and months to come, we will see that the Bible tells us we are dead to the old way of living. Those days are gone. They are never coming back. Instead, we have the new days of being a new creation.

What was the old the Bible is talking about. When you and I were born, we learned how to manage in our world. We did whatever it took to survive and gain approval. For some, gaining approval meant pleasing Mom and Dad with really good grades, or being a really good worker, or being a child who always obeyed them. It meant we related to friends in ways that was designed to gain their approval. If our friends drank, we drank. If they danced, we danced. If they played games, we played games. All of our ways of relating were designed to get the approval of anyone and everyone. If that meant we had to lie, or to cheat, or to cut corners, we did it.

That was the old way.

But one day, we came to know Christ as Savior. On that day, we became a new creation, and the old ways died; the new way came into being.

The problem too many of us experience is that we are still trying to gain approval in the old ways we used before we knew Christ. We’re still trying to gain approval of others—even God—using the same old methods.

But we died to that way. The old ways no longer work in the new creation. That’s why so many Christians are inwardly miserable in their walk with Christ. We know what He wants us to do, but we wind up doing it to old way, and it’s not working in our relationship with Christ.

That’s because Christ wants us to walk in the new way. He wants us to not try to do things ourselves. We are new branches grafted into the True Vine. We are no longer dependent upon ourselves to meet our needs. Now we turn to Jesus to meet our needs. Now we turn to Christ to show us how to relate to our world and to Him.

Again, Satan doesn’t want us to know this or apply it. That’s why he tells us to use the old ways, the “tried and true ways.” But ask yourself: If they really were the tried and true ways, if they really were meeting all our needs, then why did we come to the point of realizing that we needed Jesus to save us? Somewhere in our lives, we came to the realization that the old ways weren’t working. We needed to escape.

And Jesus gives us that escape. He takes our old, sinful self, and puts it to death. He buries that old self and those old ways. And He gives us a new spirit, a new creation, designed to relate to Him in His ways, seeing reality through His point of view, not the world’s point of view.

Being a new creation means that we no longer use the old ways—now we use the Spirit leading us and showing us how to do things.

Conclusion

Being a new creation means we have to have a new way of seeing things and a new way of thinking. No longer are we to ask, “How am I going to deal with this?” Instead, we ask, “God, how do You want to deal with this through me?” it’s a life of total surrender and trust. It’s a life of plugging into the True Vine, and bearing fruit as He lives through us.

It will take time to embrace this new way. But, because you and I are a new creation, we can do it. It’s the best decision we can make if we really want to be the type of person God wants us to be.