What's New About a Christian?

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a NEW creature - old things are passed away; behold, all things have become NEW.”
(2 Corinthians 5:17 King James Version)
“When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand NEW person inside. He is not the same anymore. A NEW life has begun!”
(Same verse, Living Bible Version)

There are often people who hear this glorious and liberating message of salvation and ask the question, “Why doesn’t the salvation which Christ brings really SEEM to wash away the sins of the past, and why doesn’t it really SEEM to make us new people?” The answer to this is two-sided.
The first side of that is, of course, Jesus Christ did die to remove the punishment due us for our sins and to bring salvation in Himself. And we are a new creation - the old has gone; the new has come. Definitely, this is what the verse states.
However, on the other side, there is nothing in this verse, or for that matter any other verse I know of in the Scriptures, that obligates God to remove instantly everything that we don’t like about our past or about ourselves. In fact, there are three things which may NOT be permanently removed.
The first of these is EMOTIONAL PAIN FROM OUR PAST. While coming to Christ in the new birth takes all of the fire and the hurt out of our past that had to do with our sin, it does not necessarily take away the emotional pain and stress that comes from past happenings. The one thing we know for sure about being in union with Christ is that there is no guilt or condemnation (Romans 8:1). Being free of the guilt and condemnation takes much of the hurt and pain out of our past experiences. However it is a fact that none of these things that have ever been in our past are erased from our mind and very often can be triggered by events and issues of the moment. This makes many people think that God has not fully delivered them. But of course the apostle Paul saw it a different way. He saw that these things were a necessary contrast in our lives: 1. To not let us forget that from which we have been delivered, and 2. so that we would not forget who we are in Christ and our ultimate need of trusting our union with Christ as our only hope.
Would we be better off without these emotional scars from the past? Would their removal at conversion be a true blessing? God obviously feels that it would not because He assures us He wants the best life for His children and yet He does not see fit to wipe them away at our new birth as a new creation.
The second thing we see that God is not obligated to remove instantly is THE FRUIT OF OUR PAST SINS. You cannot live a sinful life separated from God and not bear the fruit of this. This does not mean we bear the penalty of the sin, for that is done at the Cross, and no man can pay for his own sin. However it does not mean that the things we have done are erased from our physical bodies; nor would we cease bearing the fruit of them. If a person is an alcoholic, has an automobile accident, and is injured, coming to Christ may not take away the wounds, and the broken parts of the body may be permanently damaged for a lifetime. If a person contracts AIDS through promiscuous sex, the fruits, that is the symptoms and pains of AIDS, may last a lifetime and result in premature death.
God by His grace gives us peace through Christ who is our new life. This means that in Him who is perfect, we stand perfect, but within our humanity we may still have present the fruit of our past sins.
A third thing that God is not obligated to do by 2 Corinthians 5:17 is TO MAKE US DIFFERENT PEOPLE THAN WE WERE BEFORE. God does not rewire our unique DNA material or instantly change our unique talents and abilities - our strengths and weaknesses. In our mother’s womb, every human being was created by God and gifted by God to be something of importance to themselves and of praise and glory to Him. The purpose of our life on this earth is to come to that understanding. We are a new people, a new creation in Christ, but we are not a different people according to our creation purpose.
Let us now go to three important facts of what IS OURS through 2 Corinthians 5:17.
First, we have A NEW CAPACITY TO RELATE TO GOD. Most human beings have never completely related to God because they have been spoiled by Satan’s nature which was their motivating and driving force of life. But now in Christ they have a whole new motivation and drive, Christ living through them. Trusting in Christ gives them a new capacity to relate to God. We are offspring of God, members of His Family containing His divine nature. And regardless of what might happen in our life, we remain His offspring.
A second thing that we have as a fulfillment of the verse is A NEW DESTINY. Most people would think that our new destiny was heaven, and that is so and that is important…and is the greatest destiny of all. But until we die, we can experience a new destiny on this earth. We can now wake up every morning knowing that our jobs, our families, our words, and our very thoughts and intentions have to do with Christ - that we are never in a separated state from Him. This gives us a destiny which we never had as sinful creatures or unknowing believers.
Then there is a third fulfillment of the verse - A NEW SOURCE OF POWER AND LIFE.
This is where the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit work in our life. God never intended for a human being to live a powerless, haphazard, weak, and insignificant life on this earth. We were purposed to live locked in His love and His power and by that fulfillment enjoy life and be free to live as God intended. We will have the same abilities, same background and the same DNA that God “proposed” in our creation. His “wiring” has not changed. This new power and life in Christ is so that Christ within can work through our unique characteristics and wiring and thus deal in a “Christian” way to those around us. What God has planned for every human being by the power of Christ is far greater than anything we could develop on our own or could reach out for on our own in this life.
Very often 2 Corinthians 5:17 seems to be a “mysterious” verse to translate - to bring forth its depth of meaning. Discerning the difference between soul and spirit is the key.
At our new birth in Christ, EVERYTHING is changed about our human spirit - Satan’s nature is out totally, and God’s nature in Christ becomes indwelling totally.
But in our soul, that unique wiring within our minds where our talents and weaknesses are located, NOTHING is changed at our new birth in Christ except possibly a little increase in tenderness toward the things of God. Our day to day Christian living is a renewing of the mind, a gradual transformation to trust in Christ (Romans 12:1-2).
Before our new creation, we did not have a MOTIVE to want to please God - we wanted to please ourselves, and if this happened to please God, so much the better. We did some “good” but our desire was always to please ourselves.
But after our new creation, we have a new built-in MOTIVE (Christ’s motive) to want to please God. We slip up in our weakness and do some “bad” things but our true desire is now to please God.
A new Life has begun!
And we are growing!

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