This is a battle cry
The Greek phrase in 2 Corinthians 5:17 is καινὴ κτίσις (kainē ktisis).
Break it down with surgical, Holy-Ghost precision:
- κτίσις (ktisis) = a created thing brought into existence by divine fiat – not a renovation, but a brand-new creation ex nihilo in the moral and spiritual order.
- καινὴ (kainē) from καινός (kainos) – NOT νέος (neos = new in time). Kainos means new in quality, new in kind, unprecedented, superior, of a totally different order, never-before-existed in the entire history of the universe.
Paul is shouting with deliberate, atomic force:
The believer in Christ is not a repaired, improved, or religiously upgraded version of the old Adamic humanity.
You are a καινὴ κτίσις – a species of being that did not exist before Pentecost.
A new kind of human, organically united to the risen Christ, partaking of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), carrying the actual life and substance of God in your human spirit.
What happened at the new birth is not merely that our fallen status in Adam was cancelled and our dead spirit quickened.
That is true – but it is the smaller half of the miracle.
The greater half is this:
God actually created an absolutely new man inside us – “the new man which after God (κατὰ θεόν – kata theon) is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph 4:24; Col 3:10).
This new man bears the very DNA of God Himself.
This is the direct, supernatural product of the resurrection life of Jesus being birthed in us (Gal 2:20; Col 1:27).
Christ formed in us (Gal 4:19).
Christ as our very life (Col 3:4).
That is why Paul says things that should make us fall on our faces:
“I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live – yet NOT I, but Christ liveth in me…”
The old “I” of the old creation has been terminated on the cross; a new “I” now lives.
“If any man be in Christ – new creation! The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new – and all these new things are OF God.”
This is why Paul is so severe, almost furious, with carnal believers in Corinth.
He calls them ψυχικοί (psychikoi = soulish/natural), not πνευματικοί (pneumatikoi = spiritual) – even though they were genuinely born again (1 Cor 3:1-3).
They had received the new spirit, but they were walking exactly like “mere men” – like the old creation that is perishing.
The new creature was real in them, but buried, dormant, unexpressed, dominated by flesh and soul-life.
Putting on the new man (Eph 4:24; Col 3:10) is not an optional extra for super-spiritual Christians— it is the only way the old man stays crucified and the new creation that has never existed before finally shines.
It is the only way you actually live as what you now are.
It is the daily, moment-by-moment choosing by faith to let the new man – who is Christ in you – dominate, express, and subjugate the flesh and the old identity.
If we do not put on the new man, we are living as if the cross and resurrection never happened.
We are new creatures pretending to be old creatures – and that lie produces the miserable, powerless, up-and-down Christian life that grieves the heart of God.
The Christian life is not difficult; it is impossible – to the old man.
But to the new man it is natural, because the new man is the very life of Jesus Himself.
Amen, amen, amen – this is the very fire of God!
Yes! The new man literally bears the DNA of God – created after God in righteousness and true holiness.
This new creature is the first time in history that human spirits have been literally begotten of God (John 1:13; James 1:18; 1 John 3:9; 5:18).
That is why the angels are stunned into holy silence and burning desire to look into these things (1 Pet 1:12).
They have never seen anything like this in all eternity: a race that are actual partakers of the divine nature, destined not merely to serve God but to reign with Him forever, to judge angels (1 Cor 6:3), to sit with Him on His very throne (Rev 3:21).
A Bride who is bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh (Eph 5:30).
Paul’s anger in 1 Corinthians 3 and 6 is the holy jealousy of a father watching supernatural beings live like fallen Adam.
“Are ye not carnal and walk as mere men?” is one of the most scathing rebukes in the entire Bible.
He is screaming:
“You will judge angels – and you’re suing each other in front of pagans?!
You are gods (Ps 82:6; John 10:34-35), sons of the Most High – and you can’t judge a trivial matter among yourselves?!
My God!”
The tragedy is that centuries of mixture, legalism, and baby-food preaching have kept the church in diapers, sucking on the pacifier of “I’m just a sinner saved by grace” – a phrase nowhere found in Scripture after conversion.
Paul never once, in all thirteen epistles, addresses believers as sinners.
He calls us saints, holy ones, sons, heirs, new creations, those who have died to sin and been raised in Christ.
That false humility is pride in disguise – rebellion against the finished work of the cross.
It keeps the new man starved, stunted, locked in the basement while the old man (who is supposed to be dead!) keeps answering the door.
But hear the word of the Lord – the spell is breaking right now.
The Lord is roaring from Zion in this hour, unveiling Christ in His saints (Colossians 1:27). He is awakening His Bride to her true identity — not as forgiven worms, but as the spotless, glorious, reigning expression of Jesus Himself.
He is raising up an army that does not whimper ““poor me, “just a sinner,” but thunders with holy violence:
“I am crucified with Christ – nevertheless I live – yet not I, but CHRIST liveth in me!”
“I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me – because it’s no longer I who live!”
“Sin shall not have dominion over me – I am not under law but under grace!”
“To me to live IS Christ!”
The revelation of the indwelling Christ as our very life – not a doctrine, but a Person – is the final weapon that will crush Satan under our feet shortly (Rom 16:20).
We are about to see a generation that walks as He walked (1 John 2:6), that lives by the faith of the Son of God, that manifests the glory the Father gave to Jesus and Jesus gave to us (John 17:22), that shines as the sons of God in a crooked and perverse nation (Phil 2:15).
The spotless Bride is rising.
The new creation man is standing up.
The old is passing.
Behold, all things are becoming new.
The Spirit is pouring this wine into new wineskins.
This revelation is the very fire that set Watchman Nee, T. Austin-Sparks, Madame Guyon, and Jessie Penn-Lewis ablaze – and it is about to set the whole earth ablaze again.
The new man is arising.
The sons of God are about to be manifested.
All creation is groaning, waiting, on tiptoe for this unveiling (Rom 8:19).
We are that generation.
We are that Bride.
We are that new creation. We are that kainē ktisis — the species that never existed before.
Even so, come Lord Jesus – and come forth in Your people!