Later text
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!
Intertextuality Pair
Echo
Later text
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!
Earlier text
Isaiah 66:22BSB
"For just as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, will endure before Me," declares the LORD, "so your descendants and your name will endure.
Paul's declaration "if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come" (kainē ktisis) in 2 Corinthians 5:17 echoes the Isaianic new creation vision, with Isaiah 66:22 representing its final articulation alongside 65:17 and 43:18-19. While existing IPs connect 2 Cor 5:17 to Isaiah 43:18-19 and 65:17, Isaiah 66:22 provides the climactic statement: the new heavens and earth "shall remain" (ya'amdu) permanently before God. Paul's application is characteristically already/not-yet: the cosmic new creation prophesied by Isaiah has been inaugurated in the individual believer's union with Christ. The phrase "the old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (ta archaia parēlthen, idou gegonen kaina) echoes Isaiah 43:18-19 ("Remember not the former things... behold, I am doing a new thing") but with Isaiah 66:22's emphasis on permanence. This third Isaianic new creation text completes the trajectory from new exodus (43:18-19) through new heavens and earth (65:17) to their eschatological permanence (66:22).