2 Corinthians 5:17 Meaning: Reading the Verse Phrase by Phrase
2 Corinthians 5:17 says that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away, and all things are become new. Paul uses a word meaning new in kind, not merely newer, so the verse describes someone God made new at the new birth, not an old self repaired. It says what you are, not what you are working toward.
What does 2 Corinthians 5:17 say?
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)
The verse has four parts that are worth taking one at a time: a condition, “if any man be in Christ”; a statement of identity, “he is a new creature”; a statement about the past, “old things are passed away”; and a statement about the present, “all things are become new.” The wording “the old has gone, the new has come” is how a modern translation renders the same verse, and I quote the King James Version throughout so that you can see exactly what Paul’s words say.
Notice that every verb describes something already true: the man is a new creature, the old things are passed away, and all things are become new. Nothing in the verse is promised for someday. The book suggests reading it slowly each morning and underlining every word in the past tense and every word in the present tense, which is a good way to see how settled Paul makes the matter.
What does it mean to be “in Christ”?
"Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)"Ephesians 2:5 (KJV)
Being in Christ is not a position you reach by good behavior, because when you were born again you were baptized into His death and quickened together with Him into a new life. Jesus did not only die for you; He died as you, going all the way down into the death you were in, and when He came up He brought you up with Him. That is what “in Christ” means in Paul’s verse: you are joined to the One whose spirit was born from the dead.
Paul says the same thing from another side when he writes that your life “is hid with Christ in God.” Your born-again spirit is in Christ the way water is inside a sealed cup, covered by Him, and nothing can corrupt what is hidden there.
Is it “new creature” or “new creation”?
The King James Version says “new creature,” and you will often hear the same phrase said as “new creation,” because both point at the Greek phrase kainē ktisis, a creation that is new in its very kind. The important word is kainos, because Greek has two common words for new, and the other one, neos, means new in time, the way a recent or updated version of the same thing is new.
Paul chose kainos, which means he is describing something of a different quality that did not exist before at all. That choice closes off two common misreadings of the verse: that you are a forgiven version of your old self, and that you are an improved version of your old self. God did not renovate you or upgrade your old nature but brought into being someone who had never existed before, and you can read the wider teaching on new creation in Christ.
This matters in daily life, because a person who believes he is only a forgiven version of his old self will keep scrubbing the old coat and expecting to sin. A person who believes he is a new kind of creation can look at an old habit and see a shape left behind instead of his own identity, because the verse is giving him a different name for himself and the rest of the book is about learning to live under it.
What does “old things are passed away” mean?
"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin."Romans 6:6 (KJV)
In the way I teach it, the heart of what passed away is the old man, the dead spirit you inherited from Adam, because Paul says that “our old man is crucified with him.” The old man is not sick, sleeping, or merely weakened, since he was crucified with Christ and buried with Him and did not come up out of the grave; what came up was a new creation. That is why a born-again believer cannot call himself a sinner without disagreeing with what the Bible says happened to him.
What the verse does not say is that every old pattern vanished from your behavior the moment you believed. The book teaches that the habits outlived the man, because your flesh was trained for years on the old nature and still remembers it, like an old work coat that keeps the shape of a man who has left it on the peg. That difference between the man who is gone and the shape he left behind is the subject of the page on habitual sin.
What does “all things are become new” mean?
Your spirit is the part of you that was dead, so it is the part God made new, and He made it new righteous. Your soul is being renewed, and your body is waiting for its full redemption, which means the newness Paul describes is complete in your spirit even while its expression is still growing through the rest of you. You can read how the three parts fit together on spirit, soul, and body.
Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like a seed that looks small at the beginning, and the same is true of what God planted in you: it is small in appearance and not in nature. That is why you cannot judge what happened inside you by how your outward life looks this week, since the seed is incorruptible and what is still growing is its expression.
What does it mean to be reconciled to God?
"And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;"2 Corinthians 5:18 (KJV)
Paul speaks of reconciliation just after verse 17, saying that God “hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ.” The book does not teach that passage line by line, but it does explain the separation that reconciliation answers: because God is holy, sin separated Adam from Him, and Isaiah later says that “your iniquities have separated between you and your God.”
In the way I teach it, Jesus took that separation on Himself at the cross, because Paul writes that God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” When He was quickened from the dead He brought you up with Him, so a born-again believer is no longer a dead spirit cut off from God but a righteous spirit made alive together with Christ.
From the book
This page is drawn from New Creation, Old Habits by Benjamin Riggins. Read more in:
- Chapter 1: "Sinner Saved by Grace"?
- Chapter 3: He Didn't Just Die for You. He Died as You.
- Chapter 4: Spirit, Soul, and Body
- Chapter 5: The Habits Outlived the Man
- Chapter 9: The Incorruptible Seed
Questions people ask
What does 2 Corinthians 5:17 say?
In the King James Version it says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” It describes a person in Christ as someone God made new in kind, with the old things passed away and all things become new.
What does it mean to be reconciled to God?
Sin separated man from a holy God, and in the book’s teaching Jesus took that separation on Himself at the cross when God made Him to be sin for us. He was quickened from the dead and brought you up with Him, so a believer is no longer cut off from God. Paul says God “hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:18).
Which Bible verse says “the old has gone, the new has come”?
That wording is how a modern translation renders 2 Corinthians 5:17. The King James Version reads, “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Both are the same verse, and the meaning is that the old nature has passed away and a new one has come.
Does 2 Corinthians 5:17 mean my struggles are over?
It means the old man is gone, but the book teaches that your flesh and soul were trained by him for years and still remember it. Feeling the pull of an old habit does not mean the old man is alive, and the habit can be retrained because its old master is dead, which I explain on the page about habitual sin.
Who does 2 Corinthians 5:17 apply to, and when?
The verse says “if any man be in Christ,” so it is for anyone who has been born again and is in Christ. It is not a reward for good behavior, since you became a new creation by being born again of the incorruptible seed of the Word.