NT Text: 2 Corinthians 5:17
OT Source(s):
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment + Longitudinal Theme
Anchor Text: Isa 65:17 — New Heavens and a New Earth
Significance: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!" (2 Cor 5:17) reaches back to Isaiah's eschatological promise, "Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind" (Isa 65:17). The verbal correspondence is unmistakable—new creation and the passing/non-remembrance of the former things—and the relationship is promise-fulfillment along the Creation-and-New-Creation theme. Isaiah projects a cosmic renewal at the end of the age; Paul announces that it has already broken into the present in the person of the one who is "in Christ." This is classic already/not-yet eschatology: the new-creation reality Isaiah awaits is inaugurated now in the believer through union with the risen Christ, even as its cosmic consummation remains future (cf. Rev 21:1-5, which cites Isa 65 again). Paul thus reads the individual's regeneration as the firstfruits of the new heavens and new earth—God's reconciling work in Christ (5:18-21) is the leading edge of remaking all things. The glory is that the believer does not merely await a future world but is already being drawn into it by the Christ in whom the old self dies and everything is made new.