Christian Art, music and preaching traditionally summarise Christ’s life under the two themes of cross and empty tomb.
The order of saving events is that He dies for our sins first and then rises again into victorious life. Thus for Christ it is death and then resurrection.
But in a certain sense for the Christian the order is reversed. In the believer’s experience of grace, Christ first raises us from our spiritual death into ever-living union with Himself. Then He calls us willingly to accept many deaths for His sake in reaching a lost world.
Romans 12 reflects this order of resurrection and then death, and then new resurrections for the believer:
`Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living-sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship.’
This strange but miraculously fruitful order: resurrection, death, resurrection, is worked out in terms of victorious Christian ministry in 2 Corinthians 5:9-21.
— Douglas Kelly