Week 6: Chapter 5 — A Fundamental Transformation

1.Platt argues that 2 Corinthians 5:17 — "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation" — is not a poetic metaphor but a literal description of spiritual reality. What does it mean in practice that the old self is "gone" and the new has come?

2.He draws on Galatians 2:20 — "I have been crucified with Christ" — to argue that the Christian life is not self-improvement but self-crucifixion followed by resurrection. How is that different from the way personal growth or spiritual development is typically framed in our culture?

3.Platt is direct about the concern that many people in the church show little evidence of transformation — same priorities, same loves, same habits — and wonders whether they have actually been born again. How do you hold that concern together with the grace of slow growth and the reality that sanctification is a process?