“We remain fallen sinners. But our basic identity, our fundamental location, is in the New Age, because we are in Christ. Christ plunged through the death and out of the other side into the daunting, new creation, and to be single 'in' him means that he has bulled you with him. To render two Corinthians 5:17 woodenly, ‘if anyone is in Christ – new creation.’ in the Greek text there is no verb. What Paul is saying is that if you are in Christ, you have been swept up in Eden 2.0, the new creation that silently erupted when Christ walked out of that tomb.“
– Dane Ortland
"St. Paul comes out swinging, telling us what all the best stories have been telling us - that the exact opposite is in fact the truth. God (and love) is freedom from the slavery of self. Christ death, Paul says, has not only saved us from something, but for something. The cross has delivered us out of death and sin and into a world of meaning and love, where we finally have something to live for that is bigger than ourselves. No longer slaves, we have been set free to live as we were meant to live, for him, and for others. Through his death, we become characters in the story we always long to be in. It is his love that draws us out.”
- Ross Byrd
