Ephesians 1:19-20, 2:6,
“[that you might know] the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might that He worked in Christ when He raised (ἐγείρας) Him from the dead and seated (καθίσας) Him at His right hand.”
“[God] raised us up with Him (συνήγειρεν) and seated us with Him (συνεκάθισεν) in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…”
[NOTE – συν means “with.” The two Greek words that I point out in Ephesians 2:6 are essentially compound words that take “with” and add it to the same words pointed out in verses 19-20. ]
See the intentional parallels that Paul uses in these two passages in order to highlight the reality of the Christian’s union to Christ. The historic man, Jesus of Nazareth—who is God the Son—was truly crucified, truly buried, truly raised, and truly exalted to the right hand of God Almighty. This is the gospel, this is the pattern of God’s redemptive revelation in His Son, this is where we must meet God, this is what God must be and do for us if we are to be saved.
And yet—even though it is a historic reality—the gospel of the glory of Christ is far more than that….if it is to be anything of lasting significance to us, it cannot merely be historic fact, rather, we ourselves must be drawn in, woven in, united to it—drawn in, woven in, and united to the person who is Himself the gospel, God in Christ. Normal history is something we hold at arms length. We study the Greeks and Romans, we study the events of the past, but we are not made part of them, their story does not become—at an ontological level—our story. But the gospel is different. The gospel of the dying and rising God is the historic reality that must become the present reality of our own lives…..we must know ourselves, by grace, to have been united to Christ such that His story is our story, His song is our song.
Paul makes this clear with the parallelism of chapters 1:20-23 and 2:1-7. We were spiritually dead in sin, therefore Christ became spiritually dead (with our spiritual death) on the cross…we were under wrath, therefore Christ became one under wrath and bore our wrath in Himself on Calvary. In fact, He has gone further than any of us will ever go on that path. Not only has he already died the death that all the elect who now and will one day live are yet to die, but He has also endured the totality of hell in Himself, exhausting the full wrath of God. Yes, He has gone before to the infinite limit….and having defined the limits of hell in His own experience of it, God raised Him from the dead.
And here is where the really glorious parallelism begins. God raised Jesus from the dead and He raised us with Him. God seated Jesus at His own right hand in the heavenlies and he has seated us there with Him. Yes, Christ died with us and was damned with us, but because He has swallowed that into Himself, we are now raised with Him and seated with Him. He has united human nature—and, therefore, all those humans chosen in Him before the foundation of the world—He has united human nature to Himself so that humanity might be carried with Him through death and hell and into risen, exalted, eternal Life.
Consider, personally, what it means to have been raised with Him and to be even now seated with Him. Easter is my story now…..the Ascension and enthronement of Christ are true of me now. These are realities—historic realities—into which I have been folded such that they are true of me right now in 2018. And, as Paul says in Colossians 3……if we have been raised with Him, and if we are truly even now seated with Him…..think on Him and seek Him, and know, know, know that our lives are hidden in Him. What can tear or destroy, what can cloud or diminish, what can dull or obscure our hope, our joy, our life if ALL that we are and have and hope to be—if our very life—is even now bound up with, inseparably united to, and invincibly hidden in the risen and reigning and returning Lord Jesus Christ?
