All Things New
“And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.” Revelation 21:5
Notice that our text verse does not say – I make all new things. It says – I make all things new. Jesus never looks at sinners and says – I need to get rid of these sinners and get some new ones. Instead, He says – behold, I make these sinners new. This is the ministry of reconciliation. Jesus never trades bad sinners in for sinners who sin less. Instead, He brings something new to sinner's lives which they have never seen. He shows us (who are aware of the sinfulness of our sin) something we never even knew existed, things like unconditional love, radical mercy, endless forgiveness, surprising acceptance, undeserved blessings and scandalous grace. And when Jesus shows us these things, we feel new. We may not get any better for a long time, but we know that things are different now that Jesus has shown us that there is no condemnation in Him.
We are constantly looking for new things, but
Jesus makes all things new. We love to make New Year's resolutions because we feel like a new year would be a better one and somehow things would be different. We call it a New Year because it is a different one. But Jesus doesn't need a New Year to make all things new in our lives. He changes things by making the same things new. I can assure you that no matter how many New Years you have experienced, you are still just as human and sinner as you were two, five or thirty-nine years ago. But the difference with this coming New Year is that, by faith in Christ alone, you can be made new. In Jesus, we are new because we know new things we didn't know before. We didn't know that He was the end of the Law for our righteousness. We didn't know that He has promised to remember our sins no more. We were ignorant of the fact that Jesus' passion is to forgive, bless, sanctify and accept those of us who have been the vilest of sinners. And the knowledge of these things is more than enough to cause any sinner to go to God.
These things are sufficient to make any human being a new creature in Christ. We can be encouraged in the fact that Jesus is not looking to trade us in for something new because He makes all things new in our lives.