When Jesus was crucified the powers of the old age came to an end.  Sin and death were crucified through his cross.  The “god of this age” was overthrown.   When Jesus rose from death the new creation arrived in him as new man.

These are not images of mere repair or gradual improvement within a broadly stable situation.  The dying and rising of Jesus mark a radical break with what has gone before: its overturning, its revolution, its displacement.  The old has gone; the new has come.

We do not hope that we might be made new one day.  We are already new persons in Christ for he is the new man in whom we and all things are already made new. This alteration in the human situation has already taken place. We do not have to create the new situation.  It has already come.  This is what we know for sure because of the new man who is now with God for us.

 Of course, this is not how we and all things now appear. Around us we see human life alienated from God.  Within us we detect all sorts of chaotic confusion, corruption and uncertainty. Because of this, we so easily say that our true life hidden with Christ is unreal.  Maybe it is just a nice idea.  No!  Christ is real.  Our new life in him is real.  He is the new man and we are the new humanity in him.  All the stuff that goes on within us and around us is simply contradiction of the reality. And as God’s Spirit opens the eyes of our hearts we see beyond appearance to what is actual with God.