The world was changed!

The cross, incomparably vindicated by the resurrection, is the novum, the new factor in human experience, the definitive and world-changing act of God that makes the New Testament proclamation unique in all the world. The claim of the early church was that the historical death of Jesus “under Pontius Pilate,” followed by the metahistorical event of the resurrection, had changed everything for all time.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 61