New Creation

What does it mean that a Christian is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17)?

A Pauline expression in 2 Cor 5:17 and Gal 6:15.

The word “therefore” refers us back to verses 14-16 where Paul tells us that all believers have died with Christ and no longer live for themselves. Our lives are no longer worldly; they are now spiritual. Our “death” is that of the old sin nature which was nailed to the cross with Christ. It was buried with Him, and just as He was raised up by the Father, so are we raised up to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). That new person that was raised up is what Paul refers to in 2 Corinthians 5:17 as the “new creation.”

If we do not change physically when we accept Christ then what has changed?

(1) a believer’s transformation in Christ, (2) the community of Christian believers, and (3) the end-time cosmological renewal and restoration.

Among the biblical writers, only Paul uses the exact phrase “new creation” (καινὴ κτίσις, kainē ktisis) (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15). A related expression, “new human/humanity” or “new man/self” (καινὸς ἄνθρωπον, kainos anthrōpon), appears in Eph 2:15; 4:23–24; Col 3:9–10. As Levison notes, however, “This expression is not unique to Paul. It, and ideas associated with it, occur in several literary texts and traditions of Second Temple Judaism” (Levison, “Creation and New Creation,” 189).

“New Creation” as an Transformation

New Testament

The first category of meaning for “new creation” refers to a believer’s transformation in Christ.

Paul writes, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17 NRSV). In his Letter to the Galatians, Paul defends his law-free gospel and harshly criticizes the so-called Judaizers who came to the churches in Galatia to try to convince Gentile converts to be circumcised. Concluding his letter, Paul writes, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation” (Gal 6:14–15 NRSV).

Old Testament

Two Old Testament prophetic texts inform the meaning of “new creation” as an ontological transformation:

1. Jeremiah 31:31–34 NRSV: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

2. Ezekiel 36:26–27 NRSV: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.”

As Moyer V. Hubbard notes, “Responding to this situation [of the sinful and stubborn hearts of God’s people], Jeremiah and Ezekiel looked forward to the day when God would re-create his people from the inside out” (Hubbard, Paul’s Letters and Thought, 24).

Extrabiblical Sources

At least two extrabiblical references from Second Temple Judaism also illuminate Paul’s use of the phrase “new creation” in 2 Cor 5:17 and Gal 6:15. Gottfried Nebe notes that the 2 Maccabees 7 story about the martyrdom of a Jewish family for the sake of the law provides an interesting reference related to “new creation” in 2 Cor 5:17 and Gal 6:15 (Nebe, “Creation in Paul’s Theology,” 124):

• “Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws” (2 Maccabees 7:23 NRSV).

Another related reference is Joseph and Aseneth. Although there is no evidence of a direct literary connection, as Burchard points out, the Jewish romance of Joseph and Aseneth provides “a witness to that Jewish heritage which helped early Christians to govern their lives, form their thought, and communicate it to others” (Burchard, “Importance,” 104). As Hubbard notes, “The similarities between Paul’s new-creation motif and that found in Joseph and Aseneth, however, are not rooted simply in a shared historical-cultural milieu, but issue from the fact that both make use of a common repertoire of religious symbols to describe conversion” (Hubbard, Paul’s Letters and Thought, 240).

• “Behold, from today, you will be renewed and formed anew and made alive again, and you will eat blessed bread of life, and drink a blessed cup of immortality, and anoint yourself with blessed ointment of incorruptibility” (Burchard, “Joseph and Aseneth,” 226).

Paul

As Hubbard concludes, “Both 2 Corinthians and Galatians … provide ample evidence of Paul’s reflection upon his own conversion, and in 2 Cor 4:6 he virtually defines this as an experience of new creation … The evidence of Paul’s letters suggests that his understanding of the person in Christ as a new creation issued from his own experience in the Damascus Christophany” (Hubbard, Paul’s Letters and Thought, 240).

“New Creation” as a Christian Community

The second category of meaning for “new creation” refers to the community of Christian believers. Paul mentions a related phrase, kainos anthrōpos (“new humanity/self”), in Eph 2:15; 4:23–24; Col 3:9–10. This phrase signifies the community of those who are “in Christ,” regardless of ethnicity.

Old Testament

A number of key texts from the Old Testament provide significant conceptual background, though they do not contain the exact phrase “new creation.” Hubbard notes that in so-called Second Isaiah (Isa 40–55), “In contrasting the former exodus with a new exodus, the author is also implicitly announcing ‘a new “creation” of Yahweh’s people.’ God’s new act of redemption (the new exodus) is described in terms of the re-creation of his people” (Hubbard, Paul’s Letters and Thought, 15).

Similarly, Nebe observes, “In the Dead Sea Scrolls we find passages that combine the way into the congregation with ideas of creation, like 1QH 3.20–21 (compare 3.23–33): ‘And I knew that there is hope for someone you fashioned out of clay to be an everlasting community’ … [García Martínez, Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 332].” Nebe also states, “We see that the Dead Sea Scrolls connected the return to the rest of Israel in the Community with aspects of the new creation” (Nebe, “Creation in Paul’s Theology,” 123–24).

Richard B. Hays identifies what he calls “three focal images” with respect to the moral vision of the New Testament: community, cross, and new creation. He states, “The church embodies the power of the resurrection in the midst of a not-yet-redeemed world. Paul’s image of ‘new creation’ stands here as a shorthand signifier for the dialectical eschatology that runs throughout the New Testament” (Hays, Moral Vision of the New Testament, 198).

“New Creation” as the End-Time Renewal and Restoration

Finally, “new creation” refers to the creation being renewed and restored by God in the age to come.

New Testament

In Romans, Paul describes the current status of creation: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God … We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now” (Rom 8:19–22 NRSV). This passage implies that the scope of a new creation is not limited to individual believers or their community but rather extends to the whole universe.

Old Testament

Isaiah 65:17 says, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind” (Isa 65:17 NRSV). Hubbard offers several observations on the importance of Isaiah in understanding this meaning of “new creation”:

1. “The classic expression of cosmic new creation in the biblical tradition is found in the concluding chapters of the book of Isaiah.”

2. “In continuity with chapters 40–55, the new event of Isa 65:17 is contrasted with ‘the former thing,’ which ‘will no longer be remembered.ֹ (o)’ Yet whereas earlier chapters focused on the transformation of God’s people, with creation playing a supportive role (e.g., 43:18), the situation in chapters 65 and 66 is reversed. Here, creation itself takes center stage, with God’s people and God’s city being swept up in the ovation of praise to the Creator (65:17, 18; compare 42:5; 43:1, 15).”

3. “The Isaianic motif of new creation is both anthropological and cosmological in scope” (Hubbard, Paul’s Letters and Thought, 16–17).

Jewish Apocalyptic Writings

Hahne concludes his comprehensive study by observing, “There are many similarities between the concepts of the corruption and redemption in Rom 8:19–22 and Jewish apocalyptic literature. In addition, both Romans and Jewish apocalyptic writings personify nature in order to emphasize these theological concepts. The numerous points of contact in fundamental theology show that Paul’s perspective in this passage is indeed ‘apocalyptic’ ” (Hahne, Corruption and Redemption, 225). He identifies various ideological strands within Jewish apocalyptic writings:

1. “the corruption of creation in this age”

2. “the cause of the corruption of creation”

3. “the hope for the future redemption of the material creation”; Hahne also associates Rom 8:19–22 with the Jewish apocalyptic writings that emphasize that creation has been corrupted by sin due to the fall of humanity (Jubilees, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, Apocalypse of Moses/Life of Adam and Eve) and those that look forward to the eschatological redemption of creation by what he calls “transformation” (compare 1 Enoch, 1–5; 6–16; 37–71; Jubilees, 1; 4 Ezra, 1; 2 Baruch, 2; Hahne,Corruption and Redemption/, 226–28).

What about the Christian who continues to sin?

There is a difference between continuing to sin and continuing to live in sin. No one reaches sinless perfection in this life, but the redeemed Christian is being sanctified (made holy) day by day, sinning less and hating it more each time he fails. Yes, we still sin, but unwillingly and less and less frequently as we mature. Our new self hates the sin that still has a hold on us. The difference is that the new creation is no longer a slave to sin, as we formerly were. We are now freed from sin and it no longer has power over us (Romans 6:6-7). Now we are empowered by and for righteousness. We now have the choice to “let sin reign” or to count ourselves “dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11-12). Best of all, now we have the power to choose the latter.

[1] Lee, Y. (2016). New Creation. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, … W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.