To illustrate what Peter means we should look for a moment at Peter himself and his fellow disciples. When Jesus died, their world was as constricted and dark as a mother’s womb would be to a full-grown baby (Luke 24:11, Luke 24:21). But God had mercy, so that the resurrected Lord appeared to them, and they began to see the world from an entirely new perspective. With the walls of death broken through Jesus’ resurrection (and so, metaphorically, the walls of their womb, their worldview), life contained hope again, there was a future, there was opportunity. As the resurrected Jesus breathed his Holy Spirit on them, they received new life (John 20:22; Genesis 2:7); God caused the apostles to “be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” So the apostles became different people than they used to be. Instead of the fear and timidity that characterized their pre-rebirth existence (John 20:19), they became bold and powerful in word and deed (Acts 4:13, Acts 4:29, Acts 4:31), all because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and their subsequent rebirth.