Something New

Can it Be? Something New 'Under the Sun?' You May Be Surprised!

Feb 02, 2026

“Every day is the same” —a lament I hear often from my teenaged son against which I struggle to make an argument. To be honest, the sentiment has crossed my own mind a time or two (or three).

Is anything ever new? In Ecclesiastes, Solomon emphatically says ‘no.’

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9

Oh, it sounds so dismal, doesn’t it? Look at everything that happens in nature and you see it. The seasons come and go and come again, round and round—the same. The sun rises, the sun sets—day after day, the same.
I wake; I sleep.
I work; I rest.
I laugh; I cry.
The same.

I wash the clothes that only yesterday were clean. I wipe the table, crumb-free an hour ago. Empty the dishwasher, fill the dishwasher.
The same. The same. The same.

But reading Scripture recently, I noticed something…different.

“He put a new song in my mouth,” David rejoiced, and my eyes became fixed on that word new. My mind began to wonder, ‘what made it new? How was it different from before?’

I once heard that there are ‘no new stories,’ that all the original stories have already been told and anything that has come after them has only been a mere rearranging of words. Ancient archetypes wearing modern clothes.

So, ‘a new song’ caught my attention, and with it, the song’s composer. Because if anyone can create something new, it would be God.

Our Creator God is remarkable, isn’t He? How multi-layered His word is! Simultaneously simple and complex. One can mine it for riches and never find the bottom. I have grown to especially treasure the Psalms. For in them, we find the gamut of human emotion and experience. Love, betrayal, despair, hope—it’s all there. We learn the character and nature of God. The history of His creation. The forming of His people. And if you lean in, you can even hear whispers of Jesus.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” wrote Alphonse Karr. We may wear different clothing and communicate through different means, nevertheless, all people of all generations are under the same curse, therefore our human experiences remain relatable. And because of this sameness the stories of the Bible remain timeless and relevant.

Consider David’s experience in the opening words of Psalm 40. In it, we can hear echoes of the Redeemed throughout history:

“I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;
He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.”
Psalm 40:1-3

Here is our rescue story graphically illustrated. In our helplessness, the Lord acts. His strong arms lift us from the depths of Sheol and place us on the firm foundation of Christ, our Rock.

“When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
when I was sinking down, sinking down;
when I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul, for my soul!
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.”

No longer that wretch of the past, henceforth we are something new. Transformed, like the dazzling Monarch. Born again!

But then I saw something more. I saw Jesus. In the quiet tomb of earth waiting patiently for the Father. Then, in miraculous might, our Lord was lifted from the grave in glorious resurrection!

So, which is it? Are these verses about our new life? or Christ’s?

My search for answers led me to St. Augustine, and I became acquainted with the beautiful teaching of ‘the totus Christus’—the whole Christ. A concept which deepened my understanding of what Paul calls the new creature:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone the new has come!” (2 Cor 5:17)

Paul speaks of the new creature abundantly through his letters. In Romans, he explores this idea further when he writes:

“…when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death. For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was.” (Romans 6: 3-5 NLT)

And from this depiction of union, we can further appreciate the picture of ‘Christ as the head of the body, the Church.’ (Col 1:18) The former English teacher in me latched onto this concept as a simple metaphor—a teaching device, but Augustine understood it as much more.

In a sermon on First John, Augustine wrote, “The Word was made flesh, and dwelled among us; to that flesh is joined the church, and there is made the whole Christ, head and body.”

From this site dedicated to the works of Augustine, I found this wonderful explanation: “Christ and his Church together form the totus Christus (“the whole Christ”). Augustine said it was not that Christ would be incomplete without us, but that he did not wish to be complete without us … So, Christ graciously unites himself to us, so that he cannot be found without us or us without him.”

The notion that my Creator and Savior, my Lord, doesn’t want to be separate from us? I weep and love Him all the more.

He has so united Himself with us, that when Paul sat dazed and blinded on the road to Damascus, the voice of Christ demanded, “Why do you persecute me?” (Acts 4) For to persecute His Church—His Body—is to persecute the Lord Jesus Himself.

This is why Paul reminds us that when we suffer for His Name, “we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.” (Rom 8:17) Christ is so united with His Body that what He has received, we are promised to receive too, in both suffering and glorification. His Word promises that these present sufferings do not even begin to compare with the glory that awaits us! (Rom 8:18) As we currently live ‘in Christ,’ this future hope is also a present reality that sustains us through trials.

“The Whole Christ” has given me fresh understanding of what it means to be ‘in Christ’ and ‘made new.’ I am not simply an upgraded version of myself—no, I am a new creature! This is true for anyone born again. We are wonder of wonders, my friend! Miracles! Behold! There is something new ‘under the sun!’

Consider again Psalm 40. Does it speak about our new life or Christ’s? When we are in Christ, and members of His Body, the answer is ‘yes!’

In a sermon on Psalm 91, Augustine explained that sometimes a Psalm speaks of Christ as the Head alone, and other times speaks of Christ through His Body, but “because the Head is not separate from the Body, both are spoken of as one.”

In Hannah Anderson’s book, Humble Roots, I learned about a severe blight that nearly destroyed French vineyards in the mid-19th century.

“Growers tried everything from chemical pesticides to using hens to eat insects off the vines. But the blight spread quickly…killing nearly 40 percent of French vines and threatened the entire European wine industry.” (p.53) The vinedressers tried fixing the problem at the surface and failed to understand the cause of death happening in the soil. Attached to the roots of their vines, tiny aphids (phylloxera) were sucking the life out of their cherished vineyards.

Hannah writes, “If phylloxera was the cause of the blight, then growers only had one option: a radical solution known as “reconstitution.” In order to save their vineyards…they’d have to graft their healthy vines onto North American rootstock that was immune to the attack of phylloxera.” (p.55)

Dr. Fatima El-Sayed explains, “Reconstitution essentially refers to the act of restoring or assembling components to create a whole system.” Another article described the process as “a type of regeneration in which a new organ forms by the rearrangement of tissues rather than from new formation at an injured surface.”

When learning about “the whole Christ,” I could not help but remember this fascinating story of how the dying French vineyards were saved by grafting onto healthy, blight-resistant roots.

Like we are saved from death by being grafted into Christ—the True Vine—the source of life. In Christ, we are held together—regenerated and whole.

“I am the true vine… Abide in me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine,
neither can you, unless you abide in me.
I am the vine; you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit,
for apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:1; 4-5

As we abide in Him, the Living One, we will be “transformed into His likeness with ever increasing glory.” (2 Cor 3:18) Of Himself, Jesus says, “I am the First and the Last”—the original archetype who is “making all things new,” including you and me. Praise God!