event of Christ, the new (coming) age had dawned, and that, especially through Christ’s death and resurrection and the subsequent gift of the Spirit, God had set the future in motion, to be consummated by yet another coming (Parousia) of Christ. Theirs was therefore an essentially eschatological existence. They lived “between the times” of the beginning and the consummation of the end. Already God had secured their … salvation; already they were the people of the future, living the life of the future