2 Corinthians 5:17, here is the thing that most people completely miss, 2 Corinthians 5:17 does not sit alone, it sits inside one of the most important passages Paul ever wrote and when you see the passage around it, 2 Corinthians 5:17 gets even bigger, because Paul is not just talking about your personal fresh start, he is talking about the reconciliation of the whole world to God. Consider what comes right after 2 Corinthians 5:17, 2 Corinthians 5:18-21, do you see what Paul is doing? Paul is describing a rescue mission, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s sins against them and then he says the most stunning thing, he gave you the ministry of reconciliation, he made you an ambassador.
Here is the detail that should stop you cold, the new creation is not just for you, it is for a purpose, you were not made new so you could feel better about yourself, you were made new so you could carry a message. Consider an ambassador, a person sent to a foreign country, carrying the authority and the message of the one who sent them, they do not speak for themselves, they speak for their king. Picture the scene, the ambassador steps off the ship, the harbor is strange, the language is strange, the customs are strange, but none of that changes what they carry, they have a message and the message has a source and the source is not them.
That is what you are now, not just a forgiven person, a sentient person, a person with a message, be reconciled to God. And the message is not something you have to earn, it is something you already are, the new creation is the ambassador, the two go together, you cannot have one without the other. If all of this is true, why do you still feel like the same you? This is the honest question and the Bible does not dodge it, so you should not either, here is what faithful readers of scripture have understood about 2 Corinthians 5:17 and the key to everything. The new creation is real now, it is being worked out now and it will be completed at the end, all three are true at the same time, this is what theologians call the already and the not yet and it is not a loophole, it is the shape of the whole Christian life.
Here is the detail that should stop you cold, the new creation is not just for you, it is for a purpose, you were not made new so you could feel better about yourself, you were made new so you could carry a message. Consider an ambassador, a person sent to a foreign country, carrying the authority and the message of the one who sent them, they do not speak for themselves, they speak for their king. Picture the scene, the ambassador steps off the ship, the harbor is strange, the language is strange, the customs are strange, but none of that changes what they carry, they have a message and the message has a source and the source is not them.
That is what you are now, not just a forgiven person, a sentient person, a person with a message, be reconciled to God. And the message is not something you have to earn, it is something you already are, the new creation is the ambassador, the two go together, you cannot have one without the other. If all of this is true, why do you still feel like the same you? This is the honest question and the Bible does not dodge it, so you should not either, here is what faithful readers of scripture have understood about 2 Corinthians 5:17 and the key to everything. The new creation is real now, it is being worked out now and it will be completed at the end, all three are true at the same time, this is what theologians call the already and the not yet and it is not a loophole, it is the shape of the whole Christian life.