By Pastor Don Schatz

The Old is Gone

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“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
II Corinthians 5:17 New International Version

There are two primary words in the Greek New Testament translated into English with the word ‘new’.  The word used in today’s verse has the sense of ‘new in kind’.  New then, in this verse, does not have the sense of a new version of something that already exists.  ‘A new car,’ for instance.

Rather, if you are in Christ, you are something new in the sense of never having existed before.  Christ makes us new.  He does not renew us, in the sense of fixing us up so that we are a newer version of what we already were.  Christ makes us totally new.  You are not a new and improved version of what you were without Christ.  In Christ, you are a new kind of you.  A new creation.

A low tide may sometimes reveal the ‘old’ existing right next to the ‘new’.  The old is decayed, usually hidden.  Even if one can imagine what the ‘old’ once looked like, the ‘new’ is vastly different and better.

The old Adam may indeed try to rise out of the tide waters of our lives.  But the Baptismal waters through which the Lord God made us ‘new’ are stronger, purer, cleansing and creative.  The Holy Spirit hovered over the waters in Genesis 1.  In the water of our Baptism the same Holy Spirit worked through the creative Word of the Gospel, and we are now in Christ, completely new.

Today is the day the Lord has made.  Like every day.  Today you are the totally new creation Christ has made you.  In Christ is the only way to truly define life.  New Life.  The Christ Life.  Our Life in and through him.  The New You is poised to praise God in word and deed today.  To Him be the Glory!

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado