Beale (2): Christ's Death and Resurrection

More from Beale's 'The Eschatological Conception of the New Testament.'

Christ's resurrection . . . placed him into the beginning of the new creation. The resurrected Christ is not merely spiritually the inauguration of the new cosmos, but he is literally its beginning, since he was resurrected with a physically resurrected, newly created body. . . .

Christ's death is not just any death but it is the beginning of the destruction of the entire world, which will not be consummated until the very end. . . .

[Ok: Who of you out there has thought of Christ's death not just as an atoning penal sacrifice on behalf of sinners, which is gloriously true, but also as the beginning of the end-time destruction of the world?]

In the light of what we have said so far, we can state the overriding idea of NT theology. . . . The idea is this: Christ's life, and especially death and resurrection through the Spirit, launched the glorious end-time new creation of God.

--G. K. Beale, 'The Eschatological Conception of New Testament Theology,' in The Reader Must Understand: Eschatology in Bible and Theology (IVP 1997)