The death of Jesus took care of who we were and what we did; and the resurrection of Jesus takes care of who we are and what we do.
Romans 5:6-11 NASB
For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for [8] But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. [9] Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. [10] For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. [11] And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
We were reconciled to God through the death that Jesus died for us; and we are able to live for God through the life that Jesus lives in us.
Verse 11 refers to this new relationship with God as “the reconciliation,” and what a reconciliation it is. We are told over and over again in Scripture that God reconciled us to Himself through the Cross, and verse six says that God did this for us while we were helpless, lost in our sin. 2 Corinthians 5:18 says “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ,”
Not only were we separated from God, but according to Colossians 1 we were hostile towards Him, and Romans 5:10 go so far as to say that we were enemies. Understand clearly, that the Scriptures never teach that God has ever been our enemy, but it makes it very clear that we were the source of all hostilities toward him because of our sin, and yet He reconciled us to Himself. That’s as if you and I had once been close and then we had a falling out with each other because you committed a crime against me, and it was totally your fault, and you seemed incapable of owning your wrongdoing so that we could be reconciled, and so what I did was to become you and own your wrongdoing, and pay for your crime against me on your behalf, and apologize for you to me so that there would no longer be any hostility between us. This is what happened on the Cross when Jesus became us and owned our wrongdoing as us, and in doing so reconciled us to God. God did it all, but this reconciliation that Romans 5:11 says that we are to celebrate, goes beyond just the hostility from us towards God being removed, but God wanted to change who we were and how we live so that we would be a different person than the one who lived a life of hostility towards him and personal destruction before him. This “Reconciliation” is much more than just the hostility being removed so that there’s no barrier between us and God’s love and affection, but because our union with Christ was not just in his death, but also in his resurrection life, we are daily saved from the person we once were to be the person we were always created to be the great and noble “image bearers” of God. Set free from who we were and what we did, so that we could have a new identity in “who Jesus is,” and a new destiny “in how He lives.” God didn’t just want us to be at peace with Him; He wanted us to have life and life more abundant.