2 Corinthians 5:17, consider 2 Corinthians 5:17 again slowly, the way it actually appears, here is what most people never notice, the way you usually hear this verse, it sounds like a self-improvement program, be new, act new, try harder to feel new. And if that is what the verse means, then it has a problem, because you have tried that, you have tried to leave the old-self behind and the old-self keeps showing up. You have tried to feel new and the feelings do not cooperate. So either the verse is a promise that failed or you been reading it wrong and the answer is the second one. You have been reading it wrong, because in the original language, this verse is not a command, it is not a goal, it is not a to-do list, it is a declaration, a statement of what is already true.
The proof is hiding in the grammar itself, the detail that changes everything, in the Greek, the verse has no verb. Paul does not say you should become a new creation, he does not even say you are becoming a new creation, he writes if anyone is in Christ, new creation, that is it. The words just sit there, translators have to supply the verb and they supply he is, but the Greek itself is a flat unqualified statement of fact, it is the kind of sentence you write when you are not trying to convince anyone, you are just stating what is true, like saying the sun is up, you do not argue with it, you do not work toward it, you look at it.
Some older English translations render 2 Corinthians 5:17 differently, they turn it into a command, let him be a new creature as if Paul were saying, you had better become new and that reading has shaped how a lot of people hear this verse, but the Greek does not support a command. The words are a statement about what is true of the person who is in Christ and the difference matters, because a command tells you what you must produce, a declaration tells you what God has already done. And everything about this verse changes depending on which one you hear, that is where the word study takes you somewhere most people never go.
The proof is hiding in the grammar itself, the detail that changes everything, in the Greek, the verse has no verb. Paul does not say you should become a new creation, he does not even say you are becoming a new creation, he writes if anyone is in Christ, new creation, that is it. The words just sit there, translators have to supply the verb and they supply he is, but the Greek itself is a flat unqualified statement of fact, it is the kind of sentence you write when you are not trying to convince anyone, you are just stating what is true, like saying the sun is up, you do not argue with it, you do not work toward it, you look at it.
Some older English translations render 2 Corinthians 5:17 differently, they turn it into a command, let him be a new creature as if Paul were saying, you had better become new and that reading has shaped how a lot of people hear this verse, but the Greek does not support a command. The words are a statement about what is true of the person who is in Christ and the difference matters, because a command tells you what you must produce, a declaration tells you what God has already done. And everything about this verse changes depending on which one you hear, that is where the word study takes you somewhere most people never go.
