📖WEB · 2 Corinthians 5:17
What does 2 Corinthians 5:17 mean?
"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new."
— 2 Corinthians 5:17 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
For the love of Christ constrains us; because we judge thus, that one died for all, therefore all died.
He died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again.
Therefore we know no one after the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation;
namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the word of reconciliation.
We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
Explanation
2 Corinthians 5:17 declares that anyone who is united to Christ has become something genuinely new. Paul is not describing a minor improvement in moral character or a fresh start in the way a person might resolve to turn over a new leaf. He is describing a fundamental transformation of identity and existence. The old self, with its former orientation toward sin, self-reliance, and separation from God, has passed away. In its place stands a new creation, a person reoriented toward God through union with Christ.
To understand this verse rightly, it helps to know the letter it comes from. Paul wrote 2 Corinthians to the church in Corinth, a congregation he had founded but which had grown suspicious of his authority and ministry, partly due to the influence of rival teachers who questioned his credentials. Much of the letter is Paul defending the legitimacy and nature of his apostolic ministry. In chapter 5, he has just finished explaining that Christ died for all so that those who live would no longer live for themselves but for him who died and rose again. Verse 17 flows directly out of that argument: because Christ's death and resurrection have accomplished reconciliation between God and humanity, anyone joined to Christ participates in that same pattern of death and new life. The verse is not a free-floating inspirational saying; it is the logical conclusion of Paul's larger discussion of reconciliation, which continues in the following verses where he describes believers as ambassadors of that reconciling message.
Theologically, this verse touches on several interconnected ideas central to Paul's gospel. First, it affirms that
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