IDENTITY: Daily Reading Plan #3
2 Corinthians 5:14-17
For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
Paul has described Christ's role as our death-substitute. Jesus died in the place of humanity, to pay for each person's sin. That death provides forgiveness of sins for those who come to faith in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:13–14). Jesus bled and died for the sake of sinners and was then raised back to life by God. Paul has said he is compelled—he is controlled and obligated—by Christ's love to keep delivering this message to more and more people.
Part of the message here is that eternal salvation is not the single, solitary purpose behind Jesus' death. He also died and was raised again so that those who trust in Him for salvation will stop living for themselves and begin to live for God. Christ intends that those who receive the gift of his death, for their sin, will respond by dying to selfishness in order to selflessly live for Him.
Those who are "in Christ" are those who have faith in Him, credited with Christ's righteous life, and their sin forgiven by Christ's death in their place. Such people are new creatures. Those "in Christ" have become something they were not before. Their identity has changed from being the fallen version of themselves, to being associated with the righteousness of Christ. That's who they are now.
In fact, the old version of a Christian, who they were before they were "in Christ," is not recoverable. The old is gone, Paul writes. The new has come. All the old dreams and ideas and agendas and purposes have ceased to exist and have been replaced by Christ's ideas and agendas and purposes in an entirely new creature called "Christian."
Paul's words are true in another way. The old way of humanity is also gone. The old way of the law is also gone. Christ is the long-promised new Covenant that makes it possible for men and women to be made new once and for all, and for eternity, with no possibility of returning to the old.
Reflection Questions
- What does this passage reveal about our identity?
- What does it look like to find my identity in who God says I am as a new creation living for Him?
- How does seeing myself and others this way cause me to change the way I think about and act toward myself and others?
