I’ve been known to point out that the resurrection of Jesus is not about dying and going to heaven, but about the new creation.
This theme of new creation is crucial in the gospel accounts and we often times miss it, unfortunately. The goal of Jesus’ work was never to center simply on the forgiveness of sins. Rather, the central goal of Christ’s work was to inaugurate the Kingdom of God (on earth as it is in heaven). A major part of that kingdom is the launching of a new creation as is evidenced in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
Paul talks about a new creation in that famous passage in 2 Corinthians 5:17. Usually when we read this verse we interpret to mean the new character that is birthed in believers through the power of the Holy Spirit made possible by grace through faith; we usually interpret it to be something strictly spiritual. The new creation that Paul is talking about does, in fact, have a spiritual component to it, however there’s also much more to it than this. For Paul (and the other New Testament writers) the new creation has to do with something very physical—it has to do with the fact that God has redeemed it all; every bit of it. The resurrection of Jesus as the starting of the new creation means that the redemptive work of God is complete in the cross and a new age, a new era has come.
This means that to bring about the fulness of the Kingdom of God there must be death so that something new can be born.
This is partially what Jesus is talking about with Nicodemus in John 3 when he tells him that rebirth is a prerequisite of seeing the kingdom of God. This is also what Jesus is talking about when he tells his disciples that in order to follow him they must take up their cross. He doesn’t mean that they don’t get to have all that they want because being a disciple means you don’t get all your desires fulfilled. No, what Jesus means is that in order to live we must die. In order for something new to come to life we must put to death our old sinful nature.
For the new creation to come, death is required.
This begins to lend some explanatory power to what Paul says in Romans 6 when he says:
“We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that the old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin” (Rom 6:4–7).
The bottom line is this: the “old self”, as Paul calls it, does not co-exist with the new creation. In order for God’s full-orbed redemption to be at work in us we must die, and become born again.
