Memorized Verses #1

Christ the Center #1.

See Link below.

2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

While Paul, the man tho wrote this, knew that he was a new creature, he also knew that the old creature was not yet full dead (see Romans 7).

When I became a Christian, this is one of the verses that I memorized first. There was a lot of that “old creature” that I wanted to “pass away.” Now. Immediately. Because it did not, I struggled with condemnation, and I still do, though less so, 30 years later. However, now I know more of what Paul knew then. The new creature that I am will take a life time to grow to full adulthood.

And the old creature with its old things will take a life time to die. That old creature is like a child, sometimes like a two-year-old, sometimes like a teenager. It is full of rebellion, full of sin, full of bad attitudes, full of selfishness, full of narcissistic self-love. But it is passing away (and it does not like that). In God’s economy, in God’s kingdom, in a “God’s eye view,” it is already dead, and I am fully His new creature. Its death is a promise to me, both already fulfilled in eternity, and being fulfilled now.

I am no longer under condemnation. Not because I am fully, here and now, a new creature. Nor am I free from the “old things.” Nor because I am fully obedient, righteous, and sanctified. I chose to believe the promise in this verse, and God reckons it to me as righteousness. On the basis of grace, through faith, through my believing, I am that new creature.