So if any one [be] in Christ, [there is] a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold all things have become new
The verse turns on two small words: "in Christ." Paul is not describing a person who has improved. He is describing a whole new order of things that starts when someone is joined to the risen Christ. That raises an obvious question: why does the old life so often still look and feel the same?
Every human being stands on one of two grounds, and where you stand is decided by which head you belong to.
Everyone is either in Adam or in Christ. Someone who is not a believer is still under Adam as his head. He is in the flesh, and that is where he stands before God... An unbeliever is linked with Adam, shares fallen Adam's life and nature, and belongs to the creation that God placed Adam over. Where he stands before God, he is in Adam.
The wording matters. One writer draws attention to how Paul says it.
The first mention of new creation in the New Testament is in 2 Corinthians 5:17, where we find that everyone "in Christ" is brought into it. It is "new creation" in this verse rather than "a new creature," and Paul's language here is very forceful and emphatic. He leaves out the verb altogether and exclaims, "So then, if anyone in Christ — new creation!" like a man exulting in a glorious fact.
It would be easy to read the verse as a warm way of saying "your sins are gone." One writer presses that it claims something larger.
Paul does not say, "If anyone is in Christ he is pardoned — his sins are forgiven — his debts are paid." All of that is true. But the words of the verse go much further. It declares that a man in Christ is a new creation altogether. The old nature is not pardoned. It is set aside, along with everything that belongs to it. God brings in a new creation, and not a shred of the old is in it.
Two events stand behind the verse: one ended the old, one began the new.
The cross of Christ was God's judgment that ended the first man. The resurrection of Christ — Christ as the risen Man — was God's new beginning, in line with His eternal purposes... He glorified God about the sins and the sin of Adam and his race, the first man who was held responsible. Now, risen and glorified, He Himself is the Beginning.
If the new has come, why do a Christian's home, job and family look unchanged? One writer answers that these relationships will end, but we are still in them for now.
As we walk through the world with our responsibilities, we deal with the old order. We have parents, children, husbands, wives, masters, servants, and so on. We are to live in these relationships to the glory of God. But this will all come to an end... in the meantime we are in them, and we are to walk in them so as to please God. The life of Jesus is to come out in us down here; we are to walk as He walked. But in the life of Christ, as made alive together with Him, we are apart from everything belonging to the old.
One writer adds a careful limit. The verse does not mean the flesh — the old sinful nature — can no longer stir in a believer.
The cross ended the old man in God's judgment. The believer has put him off and is done with him. Even so, we still have the flesh to trouble us. We are not in it, but we cannot say it is not in us. We feel its presence keenly. If we are not watchful, it will soon lead us into sin.
- New position. Everyone stands either in Adam or in Christ. There is no third ground. The verse speaks only of those in Christ.
- New order. Read the phrase as "new creation," not just "a new creature." Paul exclaims over a whole new sphere, not a repaired person.
- New basis. The cross ended the first man in God's judgment. The resurrection of Christ was God's new beginning, and the new creation comes from Him.
- New scope. This goes beyond pardon. God does not forgive the old nature and keep it. He sets it aside, and what replaces it has nothing of the old in it.
- New walk. We still live inside old relationships and still carry the flesh. So walk as Christ walked, knowing God has finished with the old.
and all things [are] of the God who has reconciled us to himself by [Jesus] Christ, and given to us the ministry of that reconciliation
Everything in God's new order comes from Him, and it reaches us through the death of His Son. The verse holds two gifts: a finished reconciliation, and a ministry given to those who have received it.
The verse opens, "All this is from God" — older translations read, "all things are of God." That shuts the door on any human share in the new creation.
This is a work of God in which man can have no share. There is no human material to enter into it. All of that had already gone in death before this work was done… It is a work absolutely and entirely of God. It is a new creation, and its character is that "all things are of God." The great thought in the passage is that everything of man has disappeared from view, and only what is of God is now seen.
This is not the first creation repeated. There, too, all was of God — but of God as Maker.
In the old creation, all things were "of God," it is true; but they were of God who created them. But in the new, all things are "of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ." All these will bear witness to redemption. There we will trace the blood of the Lamb of God, and not simply the power of the hand of God.
The verse says God reconciled us to Himself. Commentators press this direction hard, because the reverse is never written.
The testimony of Scripture is as clear as possible. It never speaks of God being reconciled to us. "If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son" (Rom. 5:10). It does not say that God was reconciled to us. The death of Christ was essential to the reconciliation. But man was the enemy of God, and man needed to be reconciled.
So the first move was God's, and it was never a change in His heart.
God never needed to be reconciled. It was we ourselves, in whom there was enmity, who needed to be reconciled… The very God we had sinned against took the first step on His own side. He put all our offences away. He has now placed us before His face, justified and reconciled through our Lord Jesus Christ. God is the Reconciler. We are the reconciled.
Reconciliation is not only a fact about God's side. The person reconciled feels the difference.
The simplest thought in reconciliation is this: where there was distance there is now nearness. Here is the wonderful effect in the soul. A person was once very aware of moral distance from God. Now he can come to God knowing that the distance is gone, and be at home in His presence.
The verse says God reconciled us "through Christ." Writers place the work at one point, and the ministry at another.
Only death could reconcile to God those whom sin had made His enemies. Their condition is mortal because of sin. So the work of reconciliation was complete at the cross. There the suffering Redeemer bowed His sacred head and said, "It is finished," in the act of death. The ministry of reconciliation began when the Lord's first apostles, in the power of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, preached forgiveness and acceptance in His Name — first at Jerusalem, and to the very men who had murdered Christ.
The same God who reconciled also gives the ministry — and not to one group of Christians only.
It is not the apostle alone who could say this, nor only some class among Christians: "He has given us the ministry of reconciliation." He has brought us to Himself and made Himself known to us. By that very fact He has also given us power to make known to others what fills our own souls, and to bring others to Him. We have received the reconciliation. What we received is not for ourselves alone. We received it to minister with it.
The message is grace, so the messenger must carry grace.
It was God who first reconciled him to Himself by Jesus Christ, and then gave him the ministry of reconciliation. It was the ministry of reconciliation. The one who carried it was not to clothe himself with the repulsiveness of God in judgment. He was to clothe himself with the attractiveness of God in grace.
- Source. "All this is from God" — in the new creation God uses nothing of man, and only what is of God is seen.
- Direction. God is the Reconciler and we are the reconciled; Scripture never says God was reconciled to us.
- Basis. The reconciliation comes "through Christ" — finished at the cross, when He said, "It is finished."
- Result. Where there was moral distance there is now nearness — a person can be at home in God's presence.
- Gift. The One who reconciled also gives the ministry. We do not keep what we received; we pass it on, in the attractiveness of grace, not the repulsiveness of judgment.