Left to ourselves we humans are enslaved under the reign of sin and death. Under these powers we are always against God. We don’t want him. Nevertheless, God wants us and shows he is for us as he steps into our situation to rescue us from our plight. God intervenes in the death of Christ to bring to an end the reign of sin in death. He takes our sin upon himself and goes down into death to bring the power of sin and death to an end. Then Jesus is raised from death by the Father’s Spirit bringing into existence an entirely new creation.

This decisive divine intervention brings about a radical reversal of our previous situation in Adam.
In Jesus dying, the old is gone.
In Jesus rising, the new has come.
God himself has interrupted our old human existence in Adam under sin and death in order to open a new and living way in Jesus and his Spirit.

Jesus died and rose again as our representative so we died and rose with him. We have been crucified with Christ and so for us the old has gone. We have also been raised with Christ and so for us the new has come. And now our ongoing daily life is shaped by this dying and rising. Daily we die to any religious self-effort in attempting to be right with God or holy before God or more united to God. Daily we also rise in the Spirit into our new relation with God in which all things are new.