From the perspective of Paul, who had already thought through what it meant that God was bringing his kingdom through the crucified Messiah, it made no sense at all. Paul had come to believe that Jesus couldn’t simply be added on to the earlier picture of God’s rescuing kingdom. The shocking and unexpected events of the Messiah’s death and resurrection, coupled with the dramatic sense of personal renewal for which the only explanation was the outpoured divine spirit, meant that everything had changed. A new world had been launched.
