33 Truths at Salvation for Every Believer
Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 5:17 · NASB1995
Key Verse
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
2 Corinthians 5:17This isn’t a metaphor for turning over a new leaf. Scripture describes something more decisive and one-directional than self-improvement — a real, spiritual birth, as final as your first birth was.
What This Means for You
“Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'”
John 3:7 · NASB1995“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,”
John 1:12 · NASB1995“for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God”
1 Peter 1:23 · NASB1995Jesus doesn’t offer new birth as an optional upgrade: “You must be born again” (John 3:7). John 1:12 shows how it happens — “as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” — and 1 Peter 1:23 shows what makes it permanent: it comes “not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.” A birth that decisive and that rooted cannot be undone.
“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,”
Ephesians 2:1 · NASB1995“When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions”
Colossians 2:13 · NASB1995Before Christ, Scripture doesn’t say you were merely struggling — it says “you were dead in your trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). Colossians 2:13 makes the remedy match the diagnosis: “when you were dead...He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.” This wasn’t God improving a living person; it was God raising a dead one, which is why the change could never have originated with you.
“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”
1 John 3:2 · NASB1995“And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me, says the Lord Almighty.”
2 Corinthians 6:18 · NASB1995“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”
Galatians 3:26 · NASB1995You’re not merely forgiven and left a stranger. “Now we are children of God,” John writes, with more glory still to be revealed (1 John 3:2). God speaks over you the promise once given to Israel — “I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me” (2 Cor. 6:18) — and Galatians 3:26 says the means was simple: “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” You’re brought into God’s own family, with all the relationship that implies.
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
2 Corinthians 5:17 · NASB1995“For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”
Galatians 6:15 · NASB1995“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:10 · NASB1995God didn’t just patch up who you were. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor. 5:17). Galatians 6:15 says this new creation matters more than any external religious marker ever could, and Ephesians 2:10 explains the purpose of the new you: “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Your old identity’s claim on who you are has genuinely passed away.
“He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,”
Titus 3:5 · NASB1995“He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”
John 13:10 · NASB1995“Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
1 Corinthians 6:11 · NASB1995Titus 3:5 names the theological word for this inward renewal: God “saved us...by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit” — not because of anything you did, but by His mercy alone. Jesus pictures the same once-for-all cleansing when He tells Peter, “he who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean” (John 13:10), and Paul confirms it was a decisive transaction: “you were washed...sanctified...justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 6:11).
Adapted from “The Riches of Grace in Christ Jesus” by Lewis Sperry Chafer, from Salvation (Sunday School Times Company, 1917, public domain).
Scripture quotations are from the NASB1995 (New American Standard Bible, 1995 update), © The Lockman Foundation.