Tuesday, September 30, 2008

the scandal of grace

1 Corinthians 5: 17

(NLT) This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

(NIV) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

(The Message) ...anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons!

(NKJV) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

(Amplified) Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!

(CEV) Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new.

No matter how you translate it, here is the scandal of grace - we get to start all over, all new. We don't deserve it, we don't earn it. It's a gift, given because of our Abba Father's infinite grace & mercy.

Here's the rest of the chapter, in the New Living Translation (it's the translation I read each day)...

18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, "Come back to God!" 21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin,* so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

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