Foundations · Day 3 of 7
Listen to today's devotional
Today's reading
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Paul writes from a prison cell, under Roman guard, to a church in the city of Corinth, and from that unlikely place he makes one of the most audacious declarations in all of Christian Scripture: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). The word translated "creature" is the same word used in the Greek translation of Genesis for the original creation. Paul is not talking about self-improvement. He is talking about a new genesis.
For a brand-new believer, this is both thrilling and, if we are honest, sometimes confusing. You may have placed your faith in Christ and yet still feel the pull of old habits, old patterns, old ways of thinking. Does that mean the verse is not true for you? Not at all. The declaration "old things are passed away" is a statement about your standing before God, your identity has been fundamentally, permanently changed. The process of your daily life catching up to that new identity is what theologians call sanctification, and it takes a lifetime. The seed planted is real even before the tree is fully grown.
Verse 21 is the theological engine behind verse 17: "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." This is what scholars call the great exchange. Jesus, who had never sinned, was treated as if He had committed every sin ever committed, yours, mine, the world's. And we, who had never lived a righteous day, are treated as if we had lived His perfect life. This is not pretend righteousness; it is a real transfer, a legal and spiritual reality that heaven itself recognises.
For the seasoned believer, consider this: the newness Paul describes is not a one-time event fading in the rearview mirror. The verb tenses in the Greek suggest an ongoing, present-tense reality. You are continually new in Christ. Every morning you wake up, you wake up as a new creation. Let that truth be the first thing you carry into the day.
Pause & reflect
Paul says "old things are passed away" and "all things are become new", what do you think he means by "old things," and how does the rest of the passage (especially verse 21) help explain how this newness is possible?
Is there an "old thing", an old identity, an old shame, an old way of seeing yourself, that you have been carrying as if it still defines you, even after coming to Christ?
Choose one way today to live as a new creation: is there a habit, a conversation, or a relationship where you could take one concrete step that reflects who you now are in Christ rather than who you used to be?
A prayer for today
Father, thank You that in Christ I am a new creation, that the old has passed away and all things have become new. I confess that I sometimes live as though the old still has the final word over me. Today I receive the great exchange: His righteousness for my sin, His life for my death. Help me walk in the newness that is already mine. Amen.