When God raised Jesus from the dead, that event was the divine declaration that he really had been his Son all along…. The resurrection was the “vindication” of Jesus, his “justification” after the apparent condemnation of the court that sent him to his death. But the resurrection is, for Paul, for more than an event which conveys truth concerning Jesus. It is the beginning of God’s promised new age, which now awaits fufillment when victory is won over all enemies, including death itself, so that God is all in all (1 Croithians 15:28), when creation itself is set free from its slavery to corruption and decay, and comes to share the liberty of the glory of God’s children (Romans 8:18-26). The death and sresurrection of the Messiah are, for Paul, the turning-point of history–Israel’s history, the world’s history, even (if we can speak like this, not least in the light of the incarnation of Jesus) God’s history. The gospel message, the proclamation of Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord, summons men, women and children–and, in a manner, the whole creation (see Colossians 1:23)!–to discover in Jesus, and in his messianic death for sins and new life to launch God’s new creation, the fulfillment of the single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world, the purpose through which, as a single act with a single meaning, sins are forgiven and people of every race are called into God’s single family.

–N.T. Wright, Justification, p. 206.