Copyright
© 1998
Warren Litzman.
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The Effects of
II Corinthians 5:17by Warren Litzman
There are often people who hear this overcoming and liberating message of the Christ-life and ask the question "Why does not salvation brought by Christ wash away the sins of the past and make us new people?" The answer to this is two-sided. The first side is that, of course, the Christ-life message does away with our sins, for definitely this is what II Corinthians 5:17 states. We are a new creation; the old has gone; the new has come. However, there is nothing in this verse, or for that matter any other verse I know of in the Scriptures, that obligates God to remove instantly everything that we don't like about our past or about ourselves. In fact, there are three things which may not be permanently removed.
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The first of these is emotional pain from our past. One of the greatest enigmas of our day is the business of people trying to get rid of all the emotional pain that has taken place in their lives. While coming to Christ takes all of the fire and the hurt out of our past that had to do with our sin, it does not necessarily take away the emotional pain and stress that comes from past happenings. The one thing we know for sure about being in Christ is that there is no guilt or condemnation (Rom. 8:1). Being free of the guilt and condemnation takes much of the hurt and pain out of our past happenings; however, it is a fact that none of these things that have ever been in our past are erased from our mind and very often can be triggered by events and issues of the moment. This makes many people think that God has not fully delivered them; but of course, the apostle Paul saw it a different way. He saw that these things were a necessary contrast in our lives to not let us forget that from which we have been delivered and not let us forget who we are in Christ and our ultimate need of trusting our position in Christ as our hope and eternal salvation.
The second thing we see that God is not obligated to remove instantly is the fruit of our past sins. While immediately when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ all of your sin is forgiven and taken away from you as the Scripture says, as far as the heavens are from the earth, and are put in the depth of the sea, so to speak, still the fruit of that past sin may ever be with you. You cannot live a sinful life in rebellion to God and not bear the fruit of this. This does not mean we bear the fruit of the sin, for that is done at the Cross, and no man can pay for his own sin. However, it does not mean that the things we have done are erased from our minds; nor would we cease bearing the fruit of them.
If a person, for instance, is an alcoholic, has an automobile accident, and is wounded, coming to Christ may not take away the wounds, and will not take away the broken parts of the body. The fruit of the sin is present. But aside from all of this, God by His grace gives us peace through Christ who is our life and a love for life based upon the tremendous circumstances we have experienced. So while we are new creations in Christ Jesus, this means that in Him who is perfect, we stand perfect, but within ourselves we may still have present the fruit of our past sins.
A third thing that God is not obligated to do by II Corinthians 5:17 is to make us different people than we were before. Of course the very heartbeat of the very Christ-life message is that we are bringing people to a place where they know and understand their initial creation. In our mother's womb every human being was created by God and gifted by God to be something of importance to themselves and of praise and glory to Him. The purpose of our life on this earth is to come to that understanding where we have reached that position that we are complete in Christ according to our creation. This means that we are new people, for now we are free from our birth pains from sin and are in salvation with Christ. We are a new people, a new creation in Christ, but we are not a different people according to our creation. According to our creation is God's purpose for our whole being and with Christ in us we have completed that purpose. This then brings us to at least three important facts of what is ours through II Corinthians 5:17.
First we have a new capacity to relate to God. Most human beings have never completely related to God because they have been spoiled by Satan's nature which was their motivating and driving force of life. But now in Christ they have a whole new motivation and drive, Christ living through them. The burden is taken off of them to be what God expected them to be and to rest in the fact that Christ is their all. This gives them a new capacity to relate to God. We are offspring of God once born again, regardless of what might happen in our life. Regardless of our circumstances and situations we remain His offspring. This is a new capacity, a new wholeness that no human being can experience except he knows what it means to be in Christ and Christ in him.
Another thing that we have as a fulfillment of II Corinthians 5:17 is a new destiny. Our destiny now is to become everything God intended us to be in our creation. Most people would think our new destiny was heaven, and that is so and that is important... and is the greatest destiny of all. But until God elects to take us up to His house, to live with Him in heaven, we can experience a new destiny on this earth. That new destiny is us becoming everything that God's gift to us in creation designated. We, as new born creations in Christ Jesus can now wake up every morning knowing that our job, our families, our words, and our very thoughts and intentions have to do with Christ, that we are never in a separated state from Him. This gives us a destiny which we never had as sinful creatures or unknowing believers.
Then there is a third source of power and life that is developed out of II Corinthians 5 :17. This new source of power in life is Christ in us. But it is not enough to just say Christ is in us. The purpose of our earthly journey is to come to that knowledge and make that knowledge work by committing to it. This is where the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit work in our life. These two forces are constantly bringing us to the power and life that God intended we would live. It is my feeling that God never intended for a human being to live a powerless, haphazard, weak, and insignificant life on this earth. I believe it was God's plan and purpose that every human being fulfill a destiny locked in His love and His power and by that fulfillment enjoy life and be free to live as God intended.
Even though we have Christ in us and a brand new source of power and life, we will always be the person that God originally designed and purposed us to be. We will have the same abilities, same background and the same DNA that God "proposed" in our creation. What God has planned for every human being is far greater than anything we have developed or have come about in our life on earth.
Very often II Corinthians 5:17 is a difficult verse to translate. I have found that many who attempt to do so have failed to bring forth its greatest truth. And of course, as we always say in the Christ-life, if you don't start with the birthing, the fact that God has birthed in us His dear Son, whose life He now accepts over and beyond ourselves as us, you can never understand such a verse. Far too often religionists say that this verse of Scripture tells us that everything will become new and everything will become better by accepting Jesus Christ. This is not always so, and I disagree with the principle in spirit. I think it borders on false advertising to state it that way. What happens when we are born again is that we become what God created us to be by Christ being our completion. Aside from that, there can be no greater purpose for us in life than what God has done for us through His Son.
Copyright © 1998 Warren Litzman. The Bible text in this publication, except where otherwise indicated, is from the King James Version. This article appears on the site: http://www.peterwade.com/.
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