Death's Division of Values, Unity in Christ

"It is death that creates that fatal dichotomy between two worlds of meaning - one that sees ultimate meaning only in the destiny of my immortal soul and thus makes the public history of the world a story without meaning; the other that sees meaning only in the march of humanity toward a shared future, and thus makes the human person marginal and finally dispensable.
... The gospel is good news at this point because Christ has overcome the power of sin and death. Entering completely into our shared humanity with all its burden of sin, he has gone down into the darkness of death and judgement for us, and, in his resurrection, given us a sign and foretaste of total victory. ... Following that way, we can commit ourselves without reserve to all the secular work our shared humanity requires of us, knowing that nothing we do in itself is good enough to form part of that city's building, knowing that everything - from our most secret prayer to our most public political acts - is part of that sin-stained human nature that must go down into the valley of death and judgment, and yet knowing that as we offer it up to the Father in the name of Christ and in the power of the Spirit, it is safe with him and - purged in fire - it will find its place in the holy city at the end."


Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, p. 135-136 (emphasis mine)