"God's Awesome New Creation Offer" (2 Corinthians 5:17)

The theme of this teaching is: The awesome promise of God is that, if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creature! Our passage says, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Let's consider the amazing offer this verse makes! It proposes good news for every human being, whether young or old, whether rich or poor, whoever they may be, who has looked at their life and wished that they could just "start over." First, notice that this offer is universal in scope. It says, "if anyone is in Christ" and that means that the offer it makes is available to whoever wants to be "in Christ!" Any person, no matter how bad they may have been, no matter how much of a mess they've made of life, no matter where they may find themselves in life, may receive the wonderful offer this verse makes! Second, notice how thorough an offer it makes. It doesn't simply promise that the person will remain the same old person, but just become a little cleaned up and reformed a bit! Rather, it uses the term a "new creature!" A new creature is something totally and radically different from what they once were. It may not mean that the difficulties and problems that come with life will just disappear. But it does mean that the whole inner person, the man or woman as he or she stands before God will become an utterly new creation! Such an amazing offer as this warrants closer examination! How can such an offer be possible? This offer comes to us authoritatively from apostle Paul. That means this offer comes to us from God! In other words, this offer is absolutely true! It wouldn't be much of an offer if, when you got down to it, it wasn't true. Paul is boldly asserting the promise of something that's an objective truth! In other words, what Paul is promising is true whether we believe it or not. It's true because God says so! Paul's use of the word "Therefore" beckons us to find out what it's "there for!" It leads us to see this promise as the result of something else! When we examine the context of our passage, we look back to verses 14-15. Paul said, "For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf." In other words, Paul based his promise of verse 17 on the literal historic events of the death and resurrection of Christ! All who place their trust in that, God makes "new creatures" who no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf! Be encouraged!