[Therefore,] if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. —2 Corinthians 5:17
God has never done anything accidental. This vein of thought runs throughout the very core of the Bible. His purposes have always been worked out, are being worked out, and will be worked out.
So then, to say that the myriad of analogies God has placed in creation are merely circumstantial or “accidental” would be running against the grain of Scripture and reality. God has intended to show us more about himself and his purposes through his creation. And, viewed through this lens, a verse such as 2 Corinthians 5:17 comes alive with extra vibrancy.
The Analogy of the Seasons
Picture with me this analogy of the seasons for creation history. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them, he made everything completely alive and flourishing. It was summer and everything was green. Then, once Adam and Eve sinned against God, the fall came quickly and everything living became cursed to shrivel up and die. Proverbially, the creation became subjected to winter.
There was no water to give life for the plants. The sun likewise failed to give its heat. Man was separated from the life-giving sources of the summer, dead as the trampled grass underneath the piles of snow. Like C. S. Lewis’ depiction of Narnia in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, winter reigned with no foreseeable end in sight.
But there was always hope that the winter would someday end; there was a promise that the curse of winter would be reversed. But this could only happen when God, as Creator, intervened and did something “new.” This was the work that creation itself could not do—it was dead in winter. But God, in his faithfulness to save his creation out of the deathly grip of winter, sent his own Son, Jesus Christ, to die in the frozen winter. But winter could not keep him. He rose again from the earth as the Root which could never die, and in so doing, spread his undying life to all the dead grass in the midst of winter. Suddenly, the dead grass, brown and matted down in death, rose again miraculously, poking green shoots out of the already melting snow! Spring has been born again, as new life sprout up everywhere! God has changed the season from winter to spring, just as he promised he would, and the fields of dead grass have transformed into new creations of green, vibrant life, never to die again! With every passing day, the grass is growing greener and taller as the sun shines more brilliantly with ever-increasing light and heat!
The Springtime Has Come
This analogy is but a glimpse of the glorious picture of what we, Christians, are as new creations. If you have died with Christ in his death, you have by faith been risen up from the dead with him into newness of life. You are no longer the dead, moldy grass of winter, doomed to an eternity of wasting away. You have entered the springtime of your real life, and have the promise of an eternal summer ahead with God in the consummated new earth. You do not dwell on the past, because that past person is dead; you have been raised anew into life eternal. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come!
For Reflection
1. What are the implications of Christ’s resurrection and reign at the Father’s right hand for us as his “new creation?”
2. How can you further apply the analogy of the seasons to your identity in Christ as a new creation in the springtime of life?
3. How can other verses, such as 1 John 3:1-3 (“we are God’s children now”), help us to properly combat the nagging fear that we may one day return to winter?