2 Corinthians 5:17: New ID

In this letter, in our verse for today, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul writes, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” “Therefore if anyone is in Christ…”: This phrase refers to anyone who is a Christian or as the New Testament more commonly refers to us, saints. We know what a saint is, right? The Greek word ‘saint’ in our Bibles is derived from the same word as ‘holiness’. In the New Testament ‘saint’, simply put, just means ‘Christian’. A Christian saint is contrasted with a ‘sinner’. So in the apostolic letters in the New Testament there really are just two choices in this regard. You can be either a Christian saint or you can be a sinner. As Paul’s letter reads ‘if anyone is in Christ’ it is saying that for all of us saints, for all of us Christians, we are a new creation – the old is gone, the new has come for all of us! This is exciting. When we hand our lives over to the Lord, it is like a changing of the guard; a new, fresh set of eyes now guards the prize. Paul is saying, like with the changing of the page on the calendar; so when we each turn the page on our life, giving it to Christ, we are holy (cf. Leviticus 19:2, 1 Peter 1:16).We are saints. We are renewed (cf. Isaiah 42:9, 43:19-20).The old has gone. The new has come.

Now does that mean that we never sin? We were reminded the other day by Wendy's cafe thought that if we say we've never sinned we make God out to be a liar for all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. This is important. We have all sinned. One key in John's writing, I think, is the identity statement. We have all sinned. We don't want to sin and God can keep us from sinning. A key is how we see ourselves: are we a sinner who sometimes does not sin or are we a saint (a Christian) who sometimes might sin and who can then turn to God ask for forgiveness, hopefully be delivered from sins and definitely continue on as a saint until the end. It is not a matter of how bad we sin or how much we sin. What matters, as far as sinners and Christian saints is concerned, is whether we identify ourselves as those who sin (and give ourselves licence to continue sinning) or whether we identify ourselves as Saints who ask God to continue to free us from our sins and everything else that is plaguing us.

Presented to River Street Cafe, 18 August 2017

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