NOTES for Co2 5:17
Already during almost two millenniums, the Christian theologians and the philosophers think and discuss about what new the Christianity brought in our world. Each pays attention on what is close to him, and the discussions have no end. Paul says: all things are now new, the old things have already passed away, pass away for ever. At first sight such an assertion can seem an exaggeration: where thus really pass away all the old things, if after two millenniums after the coming into the world of the Christ, everything, as it seems, continues to go its course? Of course, appeared in the world the Church, but historians usually see in it only another religious organization, formerly powerful, but now losing more and more its influence. It is something new; but for the rest, it would seem the world is the same, and the Church itself didn’t change it at all.
The very same wars (sometimes under Christian slogans), the very same fights for power (in the Christian world often accompanied by lofty words on the Church, on the purity of its faith, on its interests), the very same revolutions and coups. What then: the apostle simply took for world revolution the birth of one religion again? At first sight it can seem in particular so. But indeed, Paul speaks not at all about the religion. He speaks about this Kingdom that the Savior brought into the world. And he meant particularly the Kingdom, saying that now "all things are new".
Of course, if this Kingdom had entered the world once, at one time, would have been clear to each what says the apostle: because then the old order of things would change at once to a new, until would have changed qualitatively and been transformed the nature itself. But then in the Kingdom would have only been one inhabitant - the One who brought the Kingdom into the world: because except Him nobody else is ready to enter the Kingdom. That is why the Kingdom enters the world gradually, changing it from inside. And really "all things are new" in the Kingdom. And in the not transformed world everything goes the old way, it is impossible otherwise. And only in the end of time, after the total transfiguration of the creation, everyone will see clearly what Paul sees. Just like everyone else, who lives in the Kingdom here and now.