The new creation is the comprehensive renewal of all things in Christ — both personal and cosmic. On the individual level, "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Cor 5:17). This is not moral improvement but ontological transformation: the believer receives a new nature, a new identity, and new standing before God. On the cosmic level, the new creation culminates in the new heavens and new earth (Rev 21:1–5; Isa 65:17), where all of creation is liberated from its bondage to corruption (Rom 8:19–21). The resurrection of Jesus was the first act of the new creation — God breaking into the old order with the power of the age to come. The Christian lives now as a citizen of that new creation, embodying its values in the present age.
NEW CREATION: While the precise phrase does not appear in Webster 1828, the theological concept is described: The work of the Holy Spirit in regenerating the soul, giving it entirely new inclinations, dispositions, and powers — so that the believer becomes, in the language of Scripture, "a new man" and "a new creature." This regeneration is not reformation of the old nature but the creation of an entirely new one.
2 Corinthians 5:17 — "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
Galatians 6:15 — "For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation."
Revelation 21:5 — "And he who was seated on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.'"
Romans 8:19–21 — "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God…the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption."
Isaiah 65:17 — "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered."
G2537 — kainos (καινός): new in quality, fresh, different in nature (as opposed to neos, new in time); the new creation is qualitatively different from the old, not merely an upgrade.
G2937 — ktisis (κτίσις): creation, creature, what is created; used in 2 Cor 5:17 and Gal 6:15; encompasses both the individual and the cosmos.
H2319 — chadash (חָדָשׁ): new, renewed; God promises a "new covenant" (berith chadashah, Jer 31:31) that inaugurates the new creation order.
• "Salvation is not God patching the old creation — it is God inaugurating the new one through Christ's resurrection."
• "Every act of justice, beauty, and love done in Christ is a sign of the new creation breaking into the old order."
• "The resurrection body of Jesus is the firstfruits of the new creation — physical, glorified, imperishable."
The doctrine of new creation is routinely collapsed into either therapeutic self-improvement ("becoming the best version of yourself") or escapist other-worldliness (the goal is to leave this world behind). Both miss the point. The new creation is not about fixing the old you or abandoning the present world — it is about the in-breaking of God's future into the present. N.T. Wright: "You are not souls who happen to have bodies; you are bodies that happen to have souls." The new creation affirms the material world and its coming redemption. Discipleship is not ascending out of creation but being transformed by the Spirit to embody the new creation now.