17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be .sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
II Corinthians 5:17-21
In reading today’s text one might think of the final pages of the Bible, and the new heavens and the new earth, and God’s promise: “See, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Yes, God is making all things new, beginning with you and me! “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
All things are new for us as our past is covered with the blood of the Lamb and we are a part of God’s new creation. God’s new creation began at the cross where God “reconciled us to himself through Christ.” We who were alienated, estranged, separated from God, are now reconciled to him through Christ.
Our reconciliation is not something that God said he might do, or something that he will do for us, but something God has already accomplished for us. “All this,” Paul writes, “is from God.” Our salvation from start to finish is from God. We can rest secure in knowing this.
God reconciled us and brought us to himself at the cross where for “our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The Lamb of God paid the penalty for all sin that had ever separated us from a holy God. Jesus took our judgment to himself, and “God made him?….to be sin for us.”
The old hymn says it all so well:
“My faith has found a resting place,
Not in device nor creed;
I trust the Ever-living One,
His wounds for me shall plead.
I need no other argument, I need no other plea;
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that he died for me.
– Eliza Hewitt, “My Faith Has Found A Resting Place“
MEDITATION
Soaking in Scripture…
Today’s Andy Moments…
