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other way than through his death, and this requires of us our own death — in
baptism, taking up the cross, bearing witness (martyria) all the way to the
tomb—for us to share in his life. Christ did not simply destroy death (we will
still die!), but rather, in the language of Hebrews, he has set us free from “the
fear of death” (Heb 2:15), so that we might follow him, in taking up the cross.
God did not simply destroy sickness and death, but rather turned them inside
out, as it were, to an even greater end than the perpetuation of this so-called
life, revealing a new form of life—the life of God himself, the life of self-
sacri?cial love.

It is vitally important to recognise that at the heart of the Gospel is a
great reversal, and to recognise how this reversal works. It is all too easy to be-
gin with the Apostle Paul’s conclusions, and to start with them as our premise:
that Adam brought sin and death into the world, and that Christ is God’s re-
sponse to Adam’s fall, bringing in righteousness and life (cf. Rom 5:12, 17; 1 Cor
15:21-22). But to do so would be to make Christ, as it were, plan B. The train of
thought which led Paul to these assertions is actually the reverse of what he
says in them! Before his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul
(as Saul) did not think of himself as a sinner waiting for salvation, for someone
to redeem him from death. Instead, he states categorically that he was blame-
less with respect to righteousness under the Law, full of con?dence in the ?esh,
so much so that he persecuted Christians for their obvious blasphemy (Phil
3.4-6). It is, rather, only in the light of his encounter with the Risen Christ, the
one who by his death wrought the resurrection, that he reevaluates the situa-
tion and his reading of Scripture. If this Christ is one who conquered death,
now, and only now, is death seen to be “the last enemy” (1 Cor 15:26), con-
quered, however, in no other way than by death. If here is one who is the salva-
tion of all, then, and only then, is it known that all need salvation. In other
words, to paraphrase E. P. Sanders, the solution comes ?rst, and then we see
the problem.9

This way of thinking is so at odds with our modern linear way of think-
ing, that it can sound to us extremely paradoxical. For instance, one of the
most di?cult (for us) statements from the Fathers on this matter, is that of St
Irenaeus of Lyons, commenting on Paul’s words that Adam is ‘the type of the
one to come’

9 E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), esp. 474-5.

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