The War of Love against the enemies of the Beloved ends in peace when the Beloved stands in place of the enemies so that the enemies might become beloved ones. Christ is crushed for us, slain for us, damned for us, and joins His people in the indignity of death….
But then—beyond all hope—the Crucified One is raised up to newness of life. He is does not merely come back from Death, rather He overcomes Death and becomes the First of a New Humanity.
If dying is like a seed going into the ground, then every other “resurrection” was an instance of digging down and taking the seed back out of the earth…but it was still a seed and it would still have to fall into the ground again.
However, with the resurrection of Christ, the seed falls into the earth and takes root and sprouts up from the soil as a flowering, fruitful plant. This has never happened before, but the fact that it has happened now in Christ means that the New Creation has dawned (2 Cor.5:17).
Yes, the risen Christ is the Morning Star of the New Creation, the Firstfruits of the Final Harvest, the Light of Dawn whose presence heralds the decisive—and soon to be total—end of the Night.
And because the Risen Lord shares fully in our human nature, His resurrection is not His alone, but the resurrection of humanity in Him (1 Cor.15:20-22)…and not of humanity alone, but of the whole Creation who will enter into the freedom of the risen human race (Rom.8:20-22).
Nature is like a fallen tent, and the human race is like the central pole. In Adam, that pole—and the entire tent—collapsed. But God in Christ has entered the ruins of Nature, set the fallen beam of humanity on His own shoulders, and—by raising humanity in His resurrection—raised up the entire structure.
And yet, for some this will be a resurrection to life, for others a resurrection to judgment (Jn 5:29), the difference between the two all hinges on how one receives the gracious revelation of God in the man who is crucified for His enemies and rises to make them His friends.
