You are a new creation - Rev Allister Lane
READING: 2 CORINTHIANS 5:6-10, 14-17
Sermon on 13 June 2021
The verse I want to focus on in this reading today is the final one, verse 17.
if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
Paul is painting a picture of human identity, and this is the culmination of his point; what is most true about us.
Paul loves to emphasise the radical nature of human existence, in light of what Jesus has done. Paul does sometimes get a bit carried away. I mean, does ‘a new creation / everything has become new’ sound a bit over the top…?
Let’s carefully consider what Paul is wanting us to recognise here, and what difference it makes in our lives. First of all, what does he mean by ‘if anyone is in Christ…? Based on other writings of Paul, what he understands to be ‘in Christ’ is to be baptised.
He’s not as interested in the human act that uses water, as he is the change of heart of a believer. To be ‘in Christ’ assumes a conversion …having turned from evil, and accepted the gift of salvation.
It’s the response of identifying with Christ – to the extent of immersing one’s full self into Christ; into who Christ has become (for us).
So, this means a ‘new creation’ in a moral sense. It means there is a change in your heart that is equivalent to the act of creation itself. It means there is a change like you have been made over again, and become new.
We are dealing with words that are figurative. But Paul wants to evoke two important things.
That there is an exertion of divine power in your conversion as in the act of creating the world out of nothing.
That the resulting change is so great, the correct impression is that you are a new creation. You have new views, new motives, new principles, new objects and plans of life – seeing new purposes, and pursuing new goals.
Because it is an act of divine grace, and not our own effort to ‘pull our socks up’, there is no other moral change that takes place on earth so deep, and radical, and thorough as the change of heart where someone is baptised into Christ.
When I was a kid we had a (vinyl) record called ‘Bullfrogs and Butterflies’.
…they’ve both been born again!
Maybe Paul’s use of a ‘new creation’ is echoing the theme of John’s Gospel: of a person being ‘born again’ through the activity of the Holy Spirit. We are a new creation… not in a physical sense …but in a moral sense.
Elsewhere Paul says when we identify with Christ, we are baptised into his death:
3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? 4Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:3-4)
Since Jesus has taken all your sins upon Himself; your guilt gets crucified with him; all accusations against you get nailed to the cross.
So, to describe the meaning of a new creation in a moral sense, could be to say: when they knock on your door, they will find that somebody else living there. Someone who is not guilty of any accusations they bring.
Now, when God looks at you now, He sees a new creation.
How do we experience this truth Paul describes…? Some of you may feel a bit like me… If you’ve grown up in a Christian home, and been nurtured in the love of Christ since an infant, the contrast of the ‘new creation’ is (perhaps) not obvious.
Indeed, you can be lulled into taking the miracle of saving grace for granted; of yawning while new Christians are giddy in their response to Christ! (I reckon it is especially helpful for most of us long-term Christians, to every now and then have close encounters with a new convert! To see again the wonder and joy in their eyes.)
I want to finish by quickly explaining…what it means to experience living as a ‘new creation’ in a moral sense. When we identify with Christ, when we know our guilt is taken care of on the cross, when we feel the freedom of salvation…we get caught up in a new way of seeing and doing goodness.
The way Jesus himself described it is recognising the new Kingdom of God in our midst. We live in this new Kingdom; we have new citizenship. We experience ourselves as new creatures in this new Kingdom, by living in new ways…
A new way of respecting each other as God’s children.
A new way of treating each other.
A new way of giving (and receiving) forgiveness.
A new way of reaching out in love to those who haven’t experienced true freedom (yet).
Our whole outlook becomes new.
See, everything has become new!
Amen.