For our purposes we are referring to this particular transition time as a separate age since the events that demark it are of such significance. On one end, its beginning is the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, by which the full debt of the law was paid. The Father didn’t forgive the debt; it was a real debt, and had to be paid in reality. Jesus PAID it; the bill has been stamped “paid in full.” It is “finished.” Jesus’s sinless death was the full recompense necessary to conclude the period of law. The temple veil, the boundary separating God from man, was torn in two. One day God’s people were sacrificing animals in the temple, and it was acceptable; the next day — the day of the Resurrection — the sacrifice was no longer acceptable or sufficient as atonement for sin.

[excerpted from "Practical Christianity"]