Death and life

"the gospels all witness to the fact that the triumph of life over death is there understood to be the decisive victory, much more important than the victory of knowledge over ignorance.

[Similarly...]

Baptism and Eucharist yield resurrection, not only forgiveness for the harassed conscience. The point in what is said about the restoration of creation (recapitulatio) is that everything which God has created has a part in the salvation which God gives in Christ. The great antithesis is between death and life, not between guilt and forgiveness."

(Gustaf Wingren, "The Doctrine of Creation: Not an Appendix but the First Article" in Word & World 4/4, 1984)