R Evans, Genesis in Context - 5

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5. The Origin of Death

NB: not integrated into wiki

In considering both the macrocosmic and microcosmic creations, the issue of mortality and death as an inherent function of life, versus the death sentence as punishment for human sin, comes to the fore. Often the two are mistakenly conflated in Christian theology, as if the sentence of death upon Adam was the origin of the mortality and death that afflicts all of Creation. However, Genesis teaches that mortality and death are integral facets of the original creation, and that the sentence for sin incurred by Adam is a separate and subsequent matter.

What was the original created state of mankind? We are told in Genesis 1 that all of the Creation was “good” or “very good” in its various aspects (1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25); and the completed creation in its entirety was declared to be “very good” (1:31). The contextual meaning of the term “very good”, which applies not only to all living things including mankind, but equally to the inanimate arrangements also, is best summarised as “pleasing” or “fit for purpose” (cp. Judg. 18:9, Jer. 24:2,3).

The narrative in Genesis 1 describes this “very good” state as a procreative system, in which every living being was designed to ‘reproduce after its kind’, and was commanded to ‘go forth and multiply’. This would clearly imply that replication was intended to compensate for attrition. Plants were made to be eaten (1v29), although the concept of universal vegetarianism until after the Flood (9v3) is probably more of a spiritual ideal than a practical reality.

While nothing is said of the nature of fish, animals and mankind were specifically created as “nepes hayyah”, living creatures (1v24, 28).Together with birds and creeping things they also contained the breath of life (1v 30). As ‘living breathing beings,’ all were sustained by breath, and by reverse implication, were capable of “giving up the ghost.”

This mortal state of natural life, terrestrial and aquatic, is affirmed in Psalm 104 v24-25 and 29-30: “The earth and sea are full of your creatures… You take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. You send forth your breath, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth”. Mortality is therefore an inherent aspect of the natural creation in its “very good” condition.

In Genesis 1, the animals and mankind are formed from the earth as living breathing creatures. In the second Creation narrative, the priestly man is formed in like manner: “And God formed man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being (nepes hayyah).” Therefore the original created state of Adam, before any imputation of sin, was as a mortal, dust and breath being.

Mortality and immortality are by their nature mutually exclusive states, just as possible and impossible, complete and incomplete are mutually exclusive concepts. One is either capable of death, or incapable of death. There is no such thing as an intermediate state of “amortality”.

Adam was not made immortal, because he ultimately died. Therefore only one explanation of his created state is possible: he was made mortal (fully capable of death), as affirmed in the account of his formation in Genesis 2v7. Prior to his sin, Adam shared the same blameless nature as the rest of the natural creation; while not condemned to die, he was nevertheless mortal.

What then is meant by the sentence of death declared to Adam as being the punishment for sin? The context clearly indicates that the penalty for transgression was not a pronouncement of universal condemnation upon all living things. Adam was not told that “in the day you eat thereof all of Creation will become subject to death.” He was explicitly warned of a personal consequence: “In the day that you eat thereof you will surely die”. The death sentence for sin is an individual punishment for an individual’s own transgressions (cp. Ezekiel 18).

How then did death pass upon all men?

After their sentencing, Adam and Eve were ejected from the garden. They were denied access to the Tree of Life, divorcing them from ongoing bodily renewal or from an upgrade to immortality, and condemning them to the inevitability of ‘death from natural causes’. All human access to the Temple-Garden of God’s presence was cut off, with guardian cherubim and a fiery sword prohibiting re-entry, the implied consequence of any attempt to do so being ‘death by execution’.

The sentence upon Adam, therefore, was a sentence of hard labour for the duration of natural mortality, enforced by exclusion from the Garden and from access to the Tree of Life. Condemnation was not loss of ‘amortality’ (change in nature) but loss of opportunity (change in circumstance). This is the nature of the sentence in Adam which passed upon all men.

Added to natural mortality, as Scripture later reveals, is the suspended sentence of execution, contingent upon our behaviour during the trial period of mortal life. If we are found unworthy at the Resurrection, by our own deeds the death sentence for our sins is validated, and we perish. Conversely, if we are deemed worthy, and our names are written in the book of Life, the sentence is abrogated; by the grace of God we rise from ‘sleep’, receive the gift of immortality, and enter as priests into His presence (Rev. 20:6).

For those who are never raised, natural mortality is their inherent condition as part of the original Creation. Like the animals, innocent of the law of God (and therefore responsible neither to promise nor to penalty), they simply expire and perish (Ecclesiastes 3:18).

Death and Salvation

The principal focus of the New Testament is not the creation of the natural order, or the physical origin of natural death, but the confirmation of death as a consequence of sin, contrasted with the provision of redemption through salvation, in the context of God’s functioning relationship with believers.

However by its very nature, the suspension of the sentence of execution, both for Adam and for ourselves, and its commutation to a life sentence, conflates natural and judicial death into a practical singularity. Though we are sentenced to death for sin, that death does not take effect until the end of our allotted span, making natural and judicial death coincident.

Thus sinners, like all natural living created things, die, as all living things are designed to do. That has been the case from Adam through to Christ. In our natural and unforgiven state, both mortal and sinful, we die without hope; in the words of scripture, we “perish”, because we are both mortal and condemned. However, in Christ there is a change. In Him, our death sentence is overturned; with our sins pardoned, we are regarded as being “alive in Christ”. Yet although our condemnation is removed, we still die, because our tendency to sin and our natural mortality remains (Ephesians 4).

Unlike those doomed to perish, our sins are forgiven, and we die with hope, being mortal yet uncondemned; Scripture speaks of this death as a “sleep” from which we can be woken.

While we are forgiven in Christ and no longer under condemnation, the completion of the promised transition from death to life—involving a change from mortality to immortality—does not take place until the Resurrection.

Christ, who was born mortal, who died without Divine condemnation and free from sin, was raised from death and made immortal three days later. He is the first fruits.

For us, the latter fruits, this change will take place at His return. Then, the pronouncement of pardon will be put into practical effect, our sinful nature will be conquered and the dead will be raised to immortality. The living will be changed in the twinkling of an eye; and in the words of Scripture, “We shall be like Him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2)

The New Testament speaks of death and redemption in terms of a universality that can only apply to believers. It does not deal with natural death per se, but the conflation of condemnation and mortality that is overcome in Christ.

Addressing the saints in Rome, Paul speaks of death in just this way (Romans 5:12, 18):

“Therefore just as sin entered the world through one man, and death by sin, and in this way death came upon all men, for all have sinned . . . 

Consequently, just as the result of one sin was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.”

Paul is not talking about natural death for all animals and all living things, nor is he preaching universal resurrection and justification regardless of behaviour. He is speaking specifically of believers, and is talking in the context of those responsible to salvation.

In a similar manner he speaks to the believers in 1 Corinthians 15:

“But now is Christ risen from the dead, the first fruits of those who sleep.

Since by man came death,
By man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die,

Even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

Like the preceding passage from Romans, this chapter does not address the universal mortality of all men, nor does it teach universal resurrection in Christ. It speaks of believers whose sins are forgiven in Christ, and not of those outside of Divine grace. Whereas our federal headship was in Adam, now instead our headship is in Jesus. Though we are forgiven the penalty of sin, and blameless; though the death sentence is removed; we have not yet received our redemption. We are still subject to the trials of life, to sin, and to natural mortality. It is natural mortality as our last enemy which remains to be overcome at the Resurrection.

In Romans 8:18 Paul, comparing our present and future state in Christ, speaks as follows: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature (ktisis) waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature (ktisis) was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature (ktisis) itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation (ktisis) groans and travails in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”

It is often proposed that Paul in these verses is endorsing the dogma of universal condemnation of the entire creation for the sin of Adam. However, as the context of the chapter shows, he is not speaking of the wider creation at all, but of the human creature under the Law and under Christ. Israel groaned and travailed under Law, waiting for the revelation of Christ. “Subjection to vanity” refers to the fact that Israel – including Paul himself- were put in subjection to a Law that was futile in bringing salvation, as chapter 7 attests: while “deliverance from the bondage of corruption into glorious liberty” refers to our hope in Christ (v24). So, he argues, those who live in Christ still struggle under sin and suffering, just as Christ did, sharing in his earthly sufferings; while eagerly awaiting the prospective redemption of the body and fullness of freedom ultimately to be granted at the Resurrection (8v11-17). The Apostle enlarges on these expectations in 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:5, culminating in the statement in 5:17 that if a man is in Christ, he is a new creature (ktisis). Extended comment on this is presented at the end of this chapter.

Sin in the Flesh

Sin is, by its very definition, a moral choice. We all inherit created human nature with its natural needs and desires. Some desires are neutral, and can be used either in a right or in a wrong context. For example, for Eve to consider that a tree was good for food, and pleasing to the eye, was entirely innocent in terms of most trees in the garden; but utterly wrong in terms of the Tree of Knowledge. Other desires or traits such as jealousy or vengeful anger are intrinsically harmful: expression or suppression of these is a choice, as demonstrated in the narrative of Cain. Lust is not sin, but is its undesirable precursor (James 1:14).

Such is the free will of human nature, the call to choice which we all inherit: to apply or misapply natural desires; to harbour wrong thoughts or expel them; to disobey or to obey. Sin is the exercise of self will contrary to Divine will.

We are not deemed sinners because we are born evil. We are deemed sinners from birth because we are born under Adam’s condemnation of exile from access to the tree of Life (Romans 5:18-19).

If we choose evil, we justify and earn the suspended sentence of death by execution, enacted at the Final Judgment: this is the Second Death (Matt. 25:31-46; Revelation 20).

Conversely if we choose repentance and good, we are deemed righteous in Christ, being re-born in baptism, adopted into the justification of His righteousness, and absolved from our personal failures by forgiveness and grace. The suspended sentence of eternal death is revoked; our sins are forgiven; and at the Resurrection, we are granted immortality: immune to the Second Death (Rev.20:6).

The traditional doctrine of Original Sin claims that Adam’s nature was physiologically changed at the Fall, from a theoretical perfect state to a defiled and sin-corrupted state capable of transmission by inheritance. This doctrine, of sin as a genetically transmitted physical disability, contradicts the moral nature of sin as an individual choice of free will, and appears to be based upon a mis-reading of Paul’s extensive discourse in Romans.

Opening his discourse in chapter 1, Paul asserts that because men voluntarily abandoned God to please themselves and to serve idols, God in turn gave them up (Greek: handed them over) to their own natural lusts (vv 24,26,28). This speaks of a passive release, not an active defilement. Being handed over to follow their own free will, they retained a voluntary choice (2v7, 8): to seek God, or to serve themselves. To sin without law was to perish without law (2v12). Obedience to God, as inferred in the context, was governed by an unwritten moral code- such as that under which the serpent was condemned in Eden.

The result of the sin of Adam was to bring all men under the law of sin and death. Adam broke the law of the Tree of Knowledge; all men inherited the consequence of his sin. As a result of his exile and condemnation, Death reigned from Adam to Moses.

Abraham willingly obeyed the instructions of God given to him: “he believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Abraham was not justified by his works, but was justified by faith in God. In Adam he died; but in Christ he will live.

Referring back to Adam in 5:12-18, Paul affirms that it was the death sentence— condemnation—that Adam brought into the world, and that “death comes to all because all sin”— that is, that we each individually earn, by our own misdeeds, the penalty of divine sentence. Whether we sin like Adam by breach of command or, like Cain, by breach of moral code, we are condemned under that same sentence: not for Adam’s misdeeds, but each for our own.

During the Exodus, law was brought in because of transgressions (Galatians 3:16). Its effect was to increase sin (Romans 5:20) and its purpose was to show that it was impossible to earn salvation by works. From this point on, through chapters 6 and 7, Paul’s argument is expressly set in a context of subjection to the Law of Moses.

The Law, says Paul, makes us slaves to sin by arousing the sinful passions (7v5). How does it do this? By forbidding the misuse of our natural desires, it focuses our attention upon such abuses— and so they are heightened in our consciousness. Each “thou shalt not” makes us aware of the sin we want to do, but may not do, and thereby arouses our lusts. Under the Law, our body becomes our enemy, because the more we focus on not doing something, the more our propensity to do it is increased.

So much so, says Paul, that ‘the more I try to serve God, the more I find that I want to sin’. The ultimate frustration, he admits, is that ultimately sin takes over, to the point where it overrides the desire to serve God: “so that with my mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” The essence of Paul’s argument is that it is the Law, not Adam’s fall, which arouses “sin in the flesh,” excites our natural propensities, and enslaves us to evil.

It is generally understood that by choice, Paul was celibate. If so, then without natural usage for alleviation, the struggle to overcome frustrated bodily needs, in terms of the prohibitions of the Law, must have been intense, and a severe challenge to the exercise of will power. Perhaps it is in terms of such frustrations that he refers to the created nature in terms of “sinful flesh”. Not that our inborn physical requirements are evil, or that the flesh forces us to sin; but when our natural needs are not legitimately met, the body challenges the will. Then sin becomes much harder, or nearly impossible, to resist.

In Chapter 8 he affirms that these two states of being- the inner will and the sinful flesh— are indeed two ways of thinking — after the spirit, or after the flesh (8v5-7). By this he reaffirms that sin is indeed a moral attribute and a choice, and shows that salvation is by grace and by faith in Jesus. He is the One who has overcome without sin and fulfilled the Law, setting it aside, and thereby freeing us from unwilling slavery to the unsatisfied lusts and desires of our human nature.

Adam as a type of Christ

Adam, specially formed from dust and given life by the breath of God’s spirit, was a unique creation. If we accept that Mankind in general was the secular product of the first Creation, then Adam, as a specially created and provided representative, would have been God’s unique witness and Priest to the rest of the world.

After the same type and pattern, Jesus Christ came to God’s human creation as a unique being, begotten, conceived, and born among men by a special act of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35).

As the son of God by that Divine act, Jesus inherited the natural mortality of Adam’s created constitution through his mother Mary, and inherited created human nature with its lusts and desires. As an individual he grew in wisdom (Luke 2:52), had his own will (Mt. 26:39), was tempted and suffered (Mt. 4:2-3). Like Adam, He was a uniquely formed being, but procreated (Lk. 1:35) rather than created. However unlike his forebear, he “did not grasp at equality with God, but humbled himself” (Philippians 2), subjecting His will entirely to that of His Father (Luke 22:42).

Nor did He earn a death sentence: “he did no sin; neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Pet.2:22). Even under extreme duress- hunger in the wilderness (Mt 4:2), a celibate life, and agony on the cross from which He could have saved himself by summoning “twelve legions of angels”- He did not succumb to moral temptations arising from self-will, or from the unfulfilled demands of natural needs. Though tempted in every way as we are, yet He did not sin (Hebrews 4:15). By this means, He was able to offer Himself as an “unblemished and unspotted” sacrifice (1 Peter 1:19, Hebrews 9:14), filling the requirements of perfection under the Law for a sacrifice for our sins (Exodus 12:5, Leviticus 1-4); while fulfilling the even greater requirement of a complete and obedient submission to the will of God, even unto death (Hebrews 10).

Nailed to a cross, sentenced to execution for a crime he did not commit, Jesus died in perfect innocence at the hands of evil men. Divine justice demanded that the grave could not hold him, and the condemnation inherited through Adam was overturned. Because Jesus obeyed God completely, and did no sin, God raised him to eternal life and immortality. “And so it is written, the first adam was made a living soul, the last adam was made a quickening spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45).

Jesus died to set aside our condemnation, and was raised from death as the first fruits of those who sleep. His perfect life atones for our sins; so that when we in turn are raised, we likewise, credited as being without sin, may receive the gift of immortality. It is through Christ that man’s severance from God, commenced in Adam, is effectively reversed.

The first Adam, created from dust, failed to uphold the life-giving relationship of full obedience, and so condemned both himself and his descendants to death by exile. Jesus, the last adam, born of woman and of the Spirit, did not fail, but brought life to all men by restoring the opportunity of a relationship with God through obedience, and the forgiveness of sins; and entered into the Presence of God to be our priest and mediator.

In His death the earthly, mortal constitution was surrendered, as a seed is sown in the ground. At His resurrection he received the heavenly constitution; like a new plant springing from soil (1 Cor.15). In this manner, Jesus is the example and model of our redemption and transformation.

Carnivory and creation

In Genesis 1:29 all fruiting plants were given to man to eat, and all green herbs were given to terrestrial animal life for food. Likewise in Genesis 2, all fruiting plants are given to Adam with one exception. The implied inference is that the original creation was entirely vegetarian. However, many animals eat meat, some exclusively so.

The difference between the indicative ideal and experiential reality naturally leads to the speculative question, as to when God introduced carnivory. If Genesis 1 literally describes a vegetarian creation, then the believer must find cause, and change, in Scripture to account for the present carnivory.

Usually the first recourse is to the Fall, in Genesis 3. However as we have already observed, the punishment brought upon each of the miscreants was personal and individual, and not a global indictment upon the wider creation. Indeed, all that is said of diet in the sentencing, is that Adam would eat of the plants of the field, and that the serpent would eat dust. There is no mention at all of carnivory among the general fauna, and no declaration of a global curse upon creation; and any suggestion of a global curse is entirely speculative.

The next mention of dietary change is after the Flood. In Genesis 9:1-3 Noah is given all animals and fish for food, “just as I gave you the green plants”: as a result they would now fear him. Associated with this grant was one prohibition: that the blood must not be eaten. Man is by nature omnivorous; no physiological change in Noah would have been necessary to admit of this dietary amendment.

Accompanying this proviso, addressed specifically to Noah (9v2, 3), was an accountability for the taking of human life, whether by man or by animal. Despite the allusion to animals killing men, whether for food or otherwise, no mention is made of any change in animal diet, nor is cause given for a major ecological and physiological reordering of Creation to initiate such change. Indeed, with veiled reference to Cain, the statement consists rather of a specific sanction against the taking of human life under existing circumstances.

We know from Genesis 1 that the first creation was completed on the sixth day, and that it was very good — that is, fit for purpose. God can do anything, but He only does things for a reason. What cause, we might ask, would necessitate a major physiological re-engineering of multiple species to convert them to carnivory, or a complete reorganisation of the ecological system to introduce such change?

No such cause can be found in the Fall, where the punishments meted out to the three miscreants were specifically individual and personal. Nor can any such cause be found after the Flood, where evil has already been eliminated, a new world has emerged, and God is pronouncing blessings and benedictions. Any suggestion of a mass change after the sixth day of Creation, in order to convert some animal kinds to carnivory, is entirely speculative and without causative foundation. On the conundrum of carnivory and its origination among the animal creation, Scripture is silent.

In Job 38 and 39 God, counting off His creative acts and benevolent administrations, specifically includes carnivory as part of the natural order of things; as He provides grass for the beasts of the field, so also he provides prey for the lion and approves of the hunt of the eagle. In Psalm 104 the writer speaks of creation likewise as a harmonious whole, with God providing grass for the beasts, and prey for the lions, with complete equanimity.

It is also worth remembering, from our first study, that Genesis 1 is a general and functional narrative rather than an exhaustive and literal account of material creation. This is evident in the account. For example, on the third day God creates seed-bearing vegetation on land — which same is later to be acknowledged as the food for the animals; however there is no mention of plants without seed, such as ferns and mosses. One might surmise that “seed” includes spores, which would account for all but the asexual algae.

However when it comes to marine life, we are faced with a greater omission. Indeed God creates fish; but no mention at all is made of the origin of all other marine life. One might then extend the meaning of “fish” to cover all marine life. The greater problem though, is that there is no mention at all made of the creation of marine flora; or of any provision of food for the fish. At this point our speculative extrapolation grinds to a halt on an uncharted reef. Did God forget to feed the fish?

The clear inference is that omission of mention does not require preclusion. Clearly there was food for fish; it is just not mentioned. Clearly God did create bacteria and viruses; though they do not appear in the Genesis record. So that when God states that flora is food for the fauna, He may well be speaking generally; with some animals having a first-hand nourishment from plants, and others a second-hand nourishment from plants through the consumption of other animals. This too is speculation, but it is not contextually inadmissible. In reality, there is no straight answer.

As to mankind, the provision made in the first and second Creation accounts is clearly indicative of a vegetarian nourishment; and after the Flood this is specifically changed to an omnivorous diet. Whether this provision is literal, or spiritual, in its intent is arguable.

Isaiah 11 speaks of a future time when carnivores and herbivores will alike eat vegetation within the precincts of God’s holy mountain. The focus of the prophecy is the safety of humans in the presence of animals in God’s Kingdom Mount; such that a child can safely play among them without injury. The state of affairs outside the mountain precinct rates no mention. Isaiah 35 portrays a picture of a perfect precinct; by contrast, Isaiah 34 portrays a wilderness outside that pale: implying that different conditions prevail in different locations. The implication is that there may well be no sound case for universal abolition of carnivory in the Kingdom age.

There is no clear resolution to this conundrum, the corollary being that there are no grounds for dogmatism about the literality or otherwise of a vegetarian Creation. In the broad focus of salvation, this matter is perhaps one of lesser concern, and of individual conscience.

Comment on Romans 8

What is the meaning of Paul’s argument in Romans 8:18-22?

Most Bible commentaries and explanations of this passage infer that Paul is alluding to the fall of mankind, to the teaching of a universal curse imposed upon the whole of Creation as a result of the sin of man. Indeed this could well be a viable explanation, if Genesis actually taught that. But if our understanding is correct, that the punishments in Eden were strictly individual, and that Genesis teaches no such doctrine, then this interpretation is devoid of any foundation.

If this is the case, then what is Paul actually saying?

The key to understanding revolves around the use of the Greek word “ktisis” which can have various meanings in Scripture, each defined by context. See bibletools.org.

• It can refer to the animate and inanimate Creation in general (Mk 10:6,13:19, Rom 1:20, 2 Pet 3:4)
• It can refer to all nations, to human beings capable of a reasoned response (Mk 16:15,1:25 in the sense of self-service; Col 1:23; Heb. 4:13 in sense of the context)
• It can refer to entities or to human institutions (Rom 8:39, Hebrews 9:11, 1 Pet 2:13)
• It can refer to the saints as a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17, Gal 6:15) (this is in contrast to the nation of Israel, God’s creation from Abraham, Genesis 12:2, Isaiah 40:1 — the Hebrew terms used being the same as in Genesis 1:) and to Christ the beginning of the new creation (Col 1:14, Rev 3:14).

In each usage of the word ktisis, context is crucial in defining which created entity is being spoken of. So what is the context of Paul’s discussion in Romans 8?

• In Chapter 7 he refers to Israel being made subject to the Law, a law that brought only frustration and death.
• In Chapter 8 he opens up the hope of freedom in Christ. He speaks of the hope of the saints, that we do not have the spirit of slavery that leads to fear (of death and of condemnation), but the spirit of sonship, and of freedom.

So when he refers to unwilling subjection he is, most probably and in context, referring to Israel, God’s creation (Isaiah 40v1) made/created of Abraham in promise (Gen 12v2), brought under the Law with all its frustrations, waiting in hope for the promise of redemption through a Messiah to come. As saints, he says, we are adopted into Abraham through Christ, free in promise but not in completeness; though liberated from law, we too are still labouring and groaning under mortality, awaiting with them the ultimate fulfilment of Resurrection.

The ‘creation’ referred to in these verses is human: being capable of willingness, frustration, hope, eager expectation, adoption in Christ, and bodily redemption through resurrection. It is subjected temporarily to decay, in hope of a redemption from decay (that is, immortality). If Paul is speaking of the natural creation, then he is speaking of universal immortality for all living things. If he is speaking of mankind, and more specifically the seed of Abraham, then immortality is specifically the hope of humanity, of those redeemed through Christ.

In context of Paul’s theme of release from the Law and salvation through Christ, the word ktisis in these verses more probably refers, not to Creation in toto, but to created humanity in general, and to Israel in particular. This old creation, redeemed in promise through the Messiah, set free from the frustration of law, flesh, sin and death, and extended to include Gentile believers, becomes a new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17).

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