From NT Wright:
Who are we? We are in the "Messiah" , identified solely by our confession and faith in him as the risen Lord; we are the new covenant people, the Torah fulfilling people, the worldwide family promised to Abraham by the one true God.
Where are we? In the good creation of the good God; creation is still groaning in travail, awaiting its own liberation from decay, but is already under the lordship of the risen and ascended Messiah.
What's wrong? The world, and we ourselves, are not yet redeemed as we shall be. Most people in the world, pagans and Jews alike, remain ignorant of what Israel's God has done in Jesus the Messiah. In particular the present world rulers (Caesar and the rest, and the dark "spiritual" powers that stand behind them) are at best a parody, and at worst a monstrous and blasphemous distortion, of the true justice and peace the one God intends for his world. Because sin still has idolatrous humankind in its grip death still acts as a tyrant.
What's the solution? In the long term, the creator's great act of new creation, through which the cosmos itself will be liberated, true justice and peace will triumph over all enemies, all the righteous will be raised from the dead, and believers at that time will be transformed. In the short term, the Gospel must be announced to the world, doing its own powerful work of challenging, transforming, healing and rescuing, and thus creating "resurrection" people in the metaphorical sense.
What time is it? The "age to come" has been inaugurated, but the "present age" still continues. We live between resurrection and resurrection, that of Jesus and that of ourselves; between the victory over death at Easter and the final victory when Jesus "appears" again. This now/not yet tension within which we live is both a catalyst for prayer and a source of hope enabling us to endure our present sufferings.
Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 275
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