All Things New

A Reflection on 2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have

passed away. Look, all things have become new.

(2 Corinthians 5:17, MEV)

When Paul writes this, he isn’t tossing out a poetic flourish to make his letter sound nice. He’s stating a reality so deep, so staggering, that it should stop us mid-step. Behold, he says. Look at this! Stand back and look! Behold!

The trouble is, we live in a time when Christian language has been worn thin by overuse and under-belief. Words like “born again” and “grace” have become bumper stickers, dropped into interviews by celebrities after a scandal, or treated as vague spiritual sentiments. But Paul isn’t talking about a public image rehab or a self-improvement plan. He’s speaking about the decisive, Spirit-breathed work of God that makes a person new. We are not talking about rehabilitation or creating a new image. In Christ, we become a new creation.

Paul chooses the word creation on purpose. The same God who spoke light into the darkness of Genesis 1 is the God who speaks life into the darkness of a human heart. The same voice that said, “Let there be” now says, “Live again.” And when He says it, something happens. This isn’t metaphor. This is a miracle. 

Theologians remind us that the “new creation” isn’t finished yet. It has begun, but it’s still unfolding. There’s more to come: the return of Christ, the renewal of heaven and earth, the end of death, mourning, and pain. What started in Eden and was marred by sin is being restored, piece by piece, heart by heart, until the day it is complete.

And yet, Paul has more than the cosmic picture in mind here. He says anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. That makes this deeply personal. The whole sweep of God’s redemptive plan has touched down in the specific soil of your life and mine.

I’ve met people who treat salvation as if it’s a matter of turning over a new leaf—quit cursing, stop drinking, go to church now and then. But Paul isn’t describing a moral cleanup or a new coat of paint. He’s talking about resurrection. The old self isn’t improved; it’s crucified with Christ. The new self isn’t a better version of you; it’s Christ in you, the hope of glory.

This means the “old things” truly are gone. Not lurking in a storage closet, waiting to be pulled out when life gets hard. Gone. And yet, I know the pull of the old. There have been seasons when I’ve lived as if my past still had the final say, as if grace were fragile, as if being “new” was just a nice theological label.

But here’s the truth I keep coming back to: the same power that made me new is the power that keeps me new. The God who began the work is not going to abandon it halfway.

 

Paul doesn’t give us an itemized list of the “old things,” but we know them by heart: sin’s grip, the world’s values, our own distorted self-image, our life apart from God. The lies we believed about who we were. The shame we thought we’d carry forever. The habits we couldn’t break.

And in their place? A whole new landscape. New desires. New standing with God—righteous, forgiven, adopted. New power to live in a way that reflects His heart. New hope that outlasts every disappointment. A new name written in the book of life.

This isn’t theory. I’ve seen it in the lives of people who should have been crushed by what they’d done, yet stood free because Christ had called them His own. I’ve seen it in my own heart, where the Word cut through a cynicism I thought was permanent and replaced it with a quiet, steady trust.

Paul’s “Behold!” isn’t a throwaway exclamation—it’s a command to stop and take this seriously. Don’t just nod politely at the idea of being new in Christ. Look it in the eye. Let it challenge the way you see yourself and the way you see others.

Could it be that some of us stay tangled in old habits and old fears simply because we haven’t given this truth its full weight? We treat the gospel as a starting line but not the path we walk every day. We act as though the cross wiped our record clean but left us to figure out the rest on our own.

The enemy will whisper that you are still who you were, that nothing has really changed. He’ll hold up your failures as proof. But his evidence is outdated. The old has passed away.

Being a new creation doesn’t mean life will be smooth. It doesn’t mean we stop wrestling with temptation, grief, or doubt. But it does mean those battles are fought from a different place and with different tools. We fight as those who belong to Christ, who are indwelt by His Spirit, who carry the unshakable promise of victory.

It also means we are no longer free to live for ourselves. A new creation comes with a new purpose—to be Christ’s ambassador, carrying His message of reconciliation into a world that desperately needs it. We become walking evidence of His mercy.

When people see you forgive what seems unforgivable, when they watch you endure suffering with hope, when they hear you speak life where there was once only complaint, they’re seeing glimpses of the new creation. They’re seeing Christ in you.

There is a tension here that we must acknowledge. We are already new, yet we not yet finished. We live in these temporary bodies, in a broken world, even as we belong to an eternal kingdom. It’s easy to get discouraged when the process feels slow. But God’s timetable is different from ours. What He begins, He completes.

Every act of obedience, every moment you choose grace over bitterness, every prayer whispered in faith is a step in the life of the new creation. One day, the process will be complete, and the “not yet” will become forever.

The world will offer you a thousand ways to “start fresh”—self-help programs, mindset shifts, image makeovers. Some even package it in spiritual language, but they can’t touch the core of who you are. Only Christ can (and will) do that.

So drown out the noise and remember this: there is one voice that speaks the truth about you. It is the voice that called you out of darkness into light. The voice that said, “It is finished” over your sin. The voice that now says, “You are Mine.”

If you are in Christ, you are a new creation. Not will be. Are. Right now. The old has passed away. The new has come.

Behold it. Believe it. Live in it. And let your life be the proof that the God who spoke light into the darkness is still creating—and He’s not done yet.