Jan 1 | The New That Requires Destruction
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"
— 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)
The world woke up this morning obsessed with newness. New year, new you. Clean slate. Fresh start. The gyms are crowded, the journals are crisp, and everyone is busy becoming a better version of themselves.
But Paul’s not talking about self-improvement.
The Greek word he uses here is kainos and it doesn’t mean "fresh" the way a coat of paint is fresh, covering over what was always there. It means new in kind. New in essence. Something that did not exist before. When Paul says the old has gone, the verb is violent. It means passed away, perished, ceased to exist. The old is not hiding under the surface, waiting to reassert itself at the first sign of weakness. The old is dead.
This is not the culture's version of newness. The culture's newness is additive—more habits, more discipline, more effort stacked on top of who you already are. Paul's newness is not additive. It is substitutionary. The old is not upgraded; the old is executed and replaced.
Notice the order. Paul does not say, "If you work hard enough at becoming new, then Christ will accept you." He says, "If anyone is in Christ." The newness is not something you manufacture. It is something that happens to you because of where you are located. In Christ. Hidden in his death, raised in his resurrection, seated in his victory. Your position determines your condition, not the other way around.
This changes everything about how we approach this day.
January first tempts us to believe that transformation is our project, that if we just muster enough willpower, outline enough goals, and maintain enough accountability, we can drag ourselves into something better. But the Gospel insists that transformation is first a gift, then a call. We are made new before we act new. The indicative precedes the imperative. What God has done defines who we are; only then are we invited to live accordingly.
So when you wake up tomorrow and the motivation’s already dimmed, when the resolutions start to crack under the weight of ordinary life…remember: your newness doesn’t depend on your performance. Christ didn’t give you a chance to become new. He made you new. Past tense. Accomplished. Finished.
The old has gone. Not going. Gone.
The new has come. Not coming. Come.
This is not permission to be passive. Paul spends the next several chapters of this letter calling the Corinthians to live like the new creations they already are. But the call to action flows from the accomplished fact. You are not becoming new through effort. You are new, and now you get to discover what that means in Monday's traffic and Thursday's disappointment and the slow faithfulness of an ordinary year.
The world will measure this year by what you achieve. Heaven measures this year by who you already are—a new creation, hidden in Christ, declared righteous before you lifted a finger. Start there. The rest will follow.
Today
Before you write a single resolution or set a single goal, sit quietly for five minutes. Repeat this truth aloud: "I am a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come." Let the pressure of self-transformation lift. Then, and only then…ask God what he wants to do in and through the person he has already made you.
