LIVING, LIFTED AND SEATED WITH CHRIST

“…made us ALIVE together with Christ …and RAISED us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” – Ephesians 2: 5b-6

The Believer is LIVING, LIFTED and SEATED WITH CHRIST: “even when we were dead in trespasses, made us ALIVE together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and RAISED us up together, and made us SIT together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph.2:5-6). In stating this significant truth of Christianity, Paul says “with Christ” three times: We are made alive with Christ. We are raised up with Christ. We are made to sit with Him. He came to live in us, and join Himself to us, to become one with Him. This great and tremendous statement of our Identification with Christ is the most important fact upon which to build all the rest of Christian faith and experience!

The first three verses of our text focus on the helplessness and hopelessness of our spiritual past – dead as a result of sin. Things cannot get worse than dead! The next three verses focus on God – His mercy, love, and grace in making a provision for our salvation in Christ. In contrast to the earlier gloomy picture, Mercy richly manifests, riding on the wings of Love. And it all begins with God: “But God…” (v.4). Our salvation hangs wholly on those two words. We were dead, but God! We were enslaved to sin, but God! We were imprisoned, but God! We were lost in sin, but God! Humanity’s lost and dead condition bowed to the Mercy of Redemption (Tit.3:3-6). What we could not change and no system or philosophy could transform, God changed! Verses 7 to 10 focus on the purpose of salvation – the praise of the glory of His grace.

The entire text spells out the essence of the Gospel: that salvation is totally of God. He is sovereign in the exercise of His Mercy: it is not a right to which man is entitled. It is simply by reason of His great love that He exercises mercy toward us (Jh.3:16). God wasn't motivated to save us through pity or even a sense of obligation as our Creator. He was motivated solely by Love: “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us” (v.4). We “were dead in trespasses” due to Adam’s sin (Rom.5:12). We sinned in Adam, and so were born “dead” in spirit (Psa.51:5). When he sinned; we sinned; and his guilt was our guilt. But God’s Love-motivated Mercy gave us Life – the only solution to death! Apart from regeneration, the sinner remains dead in sin. We needed and received resurrection not renovation!

We were dead, and God gave us life: “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (Col.2:13). He raised us from the state of spiritual deadness. We were co-resurrected with Christ – co-buried, co-raised, and co-quickened! And in our key text, we are: co-quickened, co-raised, co-seated in heaven with Christ (vv.5-6). Whatever happened to Christ happened to us. The same power that God exerted in Christ's resurrection has delivered our spiritual resurrection. This truth emphasizes the believer's union with Christ. We needed a new union. Initially, we were in union with Adam. We needed to be "in Christ." We who were hopelessly dead in sin received new life through that union. God created the union by His grace; we embrace it by faith.

Grace is the reason why God gave us life: “By grace you have been saved” (v.5). The dead cannot move, talk or help themselves. We did not deserve life. We deserved God's wrath for our sins, but He saved us by Grace Alone! However much the devil attacks with unbelief, we must stand strong on these central truths of being ALIVE in Christ – Living, Lifted, and Seated with Him – all in the past tense! We don't work, labour or exert effort to be made alive. It is not the peculiar privilege or achievement of some great saints. May this be our Song of Salvation: Living, Lifting and Seated by Grace!